[cr-india] (no subject)

[Kanchan]

Dear All,

I am copying here the report of the  Small Group Meeting of the C R Forum held on January 31, 2007. Also sending it to the participants of the 1st Feb meeting (included in the list of confirmations given to me by Nimmi for sending the report).

Regards,

Kanchan
 
Report: January 31, 2007: Small Group Meeting - C R Forum

Stalin K. opened the meeting with the remark that we should all be congratulating ourselves as “the Community Radio policy, for which we have all struggled for in our own ways, is now a reality.”

All the participants introduced themselves.
List of Participants:

1.	Anshu Sharma, SEEDS, New Delhi    
2.	Dr. Kanchan Kumar, S. N. School, Central University, Hyderabad 
3.	Dr. Vinod Pavarala, Central University, Hyderabad 
4.	Frederick Noronha, Goa 
5.	Geeta Malhotra, One World South Asia, New Delhi 
6.	General Narasamma, DDS, Hyderabad 
7.	Mitu Verma, Panos, New Delhi 
8.	Nandita Roy, National Foundation for India, New Delhi 
9.	Nimmi Chauhan, DRISHTI - Media, Arts & Human Rights, Ahmedabad
10.	Preeti Soni, Radio Ujjas, Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, Bhuj 
11.	Rajendra Negi, Heval Vani, Uttaranchal
12.	Ram, VOICES, Bangalore  
13.	Sajan Venniyoor, New Delhi
14.	Stalin K., DRISHTI - Media, Arts & Human Rights, Ahmedabad 

And the group got straight into working on Agenda.

Mission of the CR Forum:
The discussions started with deciding about the mission/vision for the CR Forum based on which the objectives/functions of the group, its structure and a list of high priority activities of the forum were worked out. Task forces/working groups were created for carrying out immediate tasks at hand of the forum. Nandita Roy felt that CR Forum must be a facilitating body for promoting the use media tools by people for their own development. Stalin felt that the forum must act as a catalyst to ensure further democratization of airwaves and the proliferation of media among grassroots’ communities. Preeti said that the Forum should act as a bridge between the government and the rural/poor communities. Prof. Vinod Pavarala was keen that the Forum should be the voice of the CR stations in the country and as a collective body, represent and promote the interests of all those involved in this third tier of broadcasting. General saw the Forum as fulfilling the dual purpose of forging collective linkages among CR practitioners, and also for developing/promoting sound principles for community broadcasting.

Objectives/Functions of CR Forum:

There were deliberations on the different topics in the agenda which included all those given in the list below. The ones that have been highlighted are the ones that it was decided needed immediate attention: 
All participants will flag off key activities, issues that need our collective attention. This will be broadly in the areas of-

1.	Creating Awareness about CR and its potential (regional Workshops)
2.	Training & Capacity Building
3.	Technology options
4.	Community ownership, Participation, Principles/Values
5.	Help desk for applicants and practitioners (Licensing, Application Procedures etc)
6.	CR Policy [codes & guidelines etc]  and CR Advocacy
7.	Experience sharing, Documentation 
8.	Networking and linkages
9.	Fund Raising

Excerpts of the discussions that followed: Vinod Pavarala contended that the most important task for the forum was to create awareness about community radio among organizations and have as people to apply for the permission. People want to know the processes for applying for community radio and we must help/assist organizations by answering the questions related to the application process.  Stalin wanted that the task of ensuring that the application procedure is communicated to maximum that applications are made must be assigned to a task force immediately. Fred suggested that a list of FAQs for applying for an application could be put up on the cr- mail. Preeti felt that, the process of getting the license should be facilitated through formation of a help desk that would assist applicants to meet the concerned government officials and complete the formalities. Anshu was keen on the idea of having CR forum act as a service provider for carrying out different kinds of activities. The consensus among all present was to have task forces (headed by a co-ordinator) that would voluntarily undertake the different activities of the CR forum and be responsible to deliver results. Mitu felt that we should not get into thinking about funding the projects: seed money or any money at all while Stalin felt that Fund Raising is important both a): for our activities b) advise how CRS can get funding for themselves to make them sustainable. 

For 
•	Creating  awareness about CR
•	Setting up Task Forces for carrying out various CR Forum activities

The group was of the notion that the first step should be the formation/listing of regional hubs for carrying out training. Nandita was on favour of  a Web site of CR Forum to be set up immediately that where all relevant information could be uploaded and accesses. Preeti wanted the information to be available in different languages. Sajan felt that we may have to go regional at several levels to be able to address the needs of divergent groups. Kanchan remarked that having the information in English and Hind as a first step would be useful as it could be translated by the NGOs themselves after being downloaded. Stalin was of the opinion that the information in English could be translated for the NGOs but the other way is not possible: if a regional NGO wants to share its experiences, it may not take the trouble to get its information translated for uploading on the website. 

CAPACITY BUILDING: General Narsamma drew everybody’s attention to the training part of the awareness building and falilitation module and pointed out that training should not be such that it influences the local formats and ideas for making the programmes: Only technical/ basic use of machinery is all that is required. Vinod Pavarala was not in favour of a homogenous manual. Stalin asserted that if we do not develop training facilities, the government will make the institutes like Jamia, IIMC, IGNOU and others to do it/ courses. Pavarala responded by saying that CR forum should not provide any legitimacy to these courses; we should conduct our own regional workshops. Fred felt that we are a small organization that would be able to take care of all the requirement of technical training which is the main stumbling block. Pavarala felt we should get our own people to be equipped with a recognized diploma so that she could train others. Stalin agreed that we need to train the trainers first and identify who could be providing them with this training. There was a consensus in the forum that the courses should be such that the eligibility criteria should not be graduation but anyone who is interested. Pavarala suggested that SN School-TISS-DDS could cater to the South and West. Stalin felt that we should do the first course with CR Forum and SN School. Ram offered that Voices would be ready to train people/NGOs for community radio. Stalin raised the question of whether we continue doing our individual training in our regions - How does CR Forum come in? 

The forum agreed that we should have a CR mela every year to be able to share modules that are in practice already. Sajan expressed the need to identify groups/people who can train people in CR but everybody was against the ides of a uniform manual. Pavarala mooted the ides of putting up on the CR website a non-manual.

Stalin was concerned about the Queries about technology but wanted that we must continue to lobby with an eye on the policy. Nimmi felt that experiences of the mechanisms used by organizations to set up CR and carry out the training would give us points to that need to be discussed during lobbying.

Geeta wanted to know what the timeline is for organising the Regional awareness Workshops. Also some wanted to know if we are partnering with MIB in this and for their March national workshop or do we just go there as participants? Stalin wanted that we must look critically at the provisions of the policy and also the approaches to setting up CRS. Pavarala responded by saying that, “Can we not partner and be critical at the same time?” 

STRUCTURE OF THE CR FORUM: 
The question that was addressed was: How will the forum be organized? : There was a

1.	Presentation of various legal options available and decision to be taken based on the presentation (VOICES).
2.	Discussion on Form and Structure of the Forum [Convener, Task Forces, Committees, Representations etc]
3.	Membership
4.	Need, feasibility of Regional offices/centers
5.	Staffing, Funding etc

A power point presentation prepared by VOICES and presented by Ram outlined the various options available for CR forum (Trust, Society, Section 25 Company, Network- Association of Persons). The consensus was to register the Forum as a Society but to wait for some time for more people to join in. Anshu reiterate the for the forum to play the role of a facilitator, also of a service provider: there was a need to scale up the secretariat into an organization that carries out promotional activities also. Stalin said,we do not have to be service providers – because that goes against the concept of community. Pavarala wanted the forum of to include community radio broadcasters and also community radio enthusiasts: doing lobbying, research and facilitation.

Who are going to be the members of the CR forum and who are not to be included: (Definition by Stalin): Individuals and Organizations in India engaged in community radio production, programming, broadcast, training, advocacy, research/documentation, and individuals interested in radio upon approval of the governing council and those invited by the forum to be members.

It was decided that there would be 

Individual Members
Organizations as members
Associate Members

(General Body:
Full Members – individuals and organizations
Associate Members)

Everyone in the group wanted the main ideas to be laid down for WHO CANNOT BE MEMBERS?

Decision after extensive discussions among all members to have the:

Membership Fee (Annual):
Institutional members: Rs. 1500/-
Individual members: Rs. 300/-
Life Membership (?):
And no. of votes: Individual (1) and Organizational (2)

If funds are a problem for any organization/grassroots group, they may join as individuals (station member).

General suggested that if and when there is a body (Governing Council) of the forum there should be 50% representation of grassroots community radio broadcasters which everyone agreed. Kanchan and Nimmi also suggested that the structure of Governing Council must have 50% representation of women; which was agin agreed to by the entire house.

Stalin then wanted that we should be having some names of people who would be governing council members. It was decided that the governing council to be set up at the time of registration would have 21 members. This Small Group Meeting of C R Forum would be considered its first general body meeting (termed Gram Sabha by Stalin) and include:

1st General Body for CR Forum:

1.	SEEDS, New Delhi 
2.	VOICES, Bangalore
3.	Namma Dhwani, Budikote 
4.	Dr. Kanchan Kumar, Hyderabad 
5.	Dr. Vinod Pavarala, Hyderabad 
6.	Frederick Noronha, Goa 
7.	One World South Asia, New Delhi 
8.	DDS, Hyderabad 
9.	Panos South Asia, New Delhi 
10.	National Foundation for India, New Delhi 
11.	DRISHTI - Media, Arts & Human Rights, Ahmedabad
12.	Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, Bhuj 
13.	Heval Vani, Uttaranchal
14.	Sajan Venniyoor, New Delhi

The Forum then worked on deciding about where the secretariat should be for the present the and who would be the convenor. Geeta wanted that even if we do have the secretariat in Delhi/or wherever; we must have key persons in different regions; Ahmedabad; Bangalore; Hyderabad; Goa.

The decision taken by the forum about the Secretariat, Convenor and Working Groups is given below:

Convenor and four others to coordinate the task forces (and its members):

Secretariat & Convenor
The Secretariat to be based in Drishti, Ahmedabad
drishtiad1 at gmail.com

Convenor: Stalin K.
stalink123 at gmail.com

Creating Awareness about CR and its Potential
(Regional Workshops): 

Coordinator: Nimmi Chauhan: nimc20367 at gmail.com

Members:
Ram, VOICES voices at vsnl.com (Ram to send his direct email)
Preeti, KMVS preetikutch at yahoo.co.in 	
General, DDS ddsrural at sancharnet.in
Nandita, NFI nanditaroy at nfi.org.in
Geeta,OWSA; geeta.malhotra at oneworld
Kanchan, SN School kanchank.malik at gmail.com. 

Help desk for applicants and practitioners
(Licensing, Application Procedures) 

Coordinator Sajan Venniyoor: venniyoor at gmail.com
Members:
Fred Noronha: fredericknoronha at gmail.com
Prof. Vinod Pavarala: vpavarala at gmail.com
VOICES: voices at vsnl.com 
Drishti: drishtiad1 at gmail.com
Kanchan:kanchank.malik at gmail.com


Technology options

Coordinator: (?)

Members:
Ram: voices at blr.vsnl.net.in
Arun Mehta:arun.mehta at gmail.com 
OWSA:geeta.malhotra at oneworld.net

CR Policy [codes & guidelines etc] & CR Advocacy

Members:
Coordinator: Prof. Vinod Pavarala: vpavarala at gmail.com 
Ashish Sen:sen_ashish at yahoo.com
Sajan Venniyoor:venniyoor at gmail.com
Stalin:stalink123 at gmail.com
Fred Noronha: fredericknoronha at gmail.com


There were discussions on the Agenda for the Open House Meeting on 1st Feb. The updated agenda given below:


Given Agenda for Forum- Open House Meeting on 1st February 2007

Registrations		9:00am

Module 1		10:00am to 10:30am

Welcome and Introductions; Community Radio Forum, India - need and role
(Stalin K.)
History of CR in India, current CR Policy - its scope and limitations
 (Prof. Vinod Pavarala; Sajan Venniyoor)

Module 2: 10.30 -11.00 am

Presentation on the CR Forum: Form and Structure (Legal aspects, Secretariat, Key Activities, and Membership etc)
Feedback and suggestions on the above by the house

Tea Break
Module 3:	11:15 am to 1:00pm
A panel of CR practitioners will take questions from the participants on the following subjects:

OPEN HOUSE on Eligibility, Licensing, Application Procedures 
(Sajan Venniyoor; Prof. Vinod Pavarala)

OPEN HOUSE on Training & Capacity Building
(Preeti; Geeta; General; Negi; Nandita)

OPEN HOUSE on Technology Options
(Ram; Arun Mehta) 

2:00pm to 3:00pm

OPEN HOUSE on Community ownership, Participation, Principles/Values
(General; Preeti; Negi; Kanchan)

OPEN HOUSE on any other issues

FORMAL LAUNCH OF THE FORUM

Module 4: 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Presentation by the Ministry officials (OPEN HOUSE on key concerns and recommendations of the CR policy)

Report (for small group meeting) put together by Kanchan. If you require any related documents, you could write to me or to Nimmi, please.

=====
Dr. Kanchan Kumar 
Lecturer, Communication Discipline
S. N. School, University of Hyderabad
Gachibowli, HYDERABAD (A.P.) 500 046(India)
Phone:  91-93999-44431
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