[cr-india] Campus call on radio waves

[Nookaraju]

 Campus call on radio waves
  Only Connect *Abhijit Gupta *

It does not take a Bill Gates to notice that Only Connect is mostly about
computer and Internet-related issues, but that is of course not the whole
story. Only Connect is interested in the broad question of connectedness,
and the technologies that make it possible. This technology could be
anything from a clay tablet to a silicon chip, from carrier pigeons to
geostationary satellites.

This week Only Connect is wildly excited, and for a somewhat personal
reason. Some of you may know that I earn my bread by teaching at Jadavpur
University, and a very nice place it is too. But it is about to get nicer.
As I write, the university is in the process of setting up a community FM
radio station. This is happening at some speed, so Radio JU (or whatever we
decide to call it — any suggestions?) will be up and running any time now,
spreading good cheer in a 10-km radius from the campus. That is a
substantial part of south Calcutta and the 24-Parganas, stretching all the
way to Sonarpur in the south and Sealdah in the north. Several million souls
reside within this area so we are looking at fairly large audience.

What is the nature of community radio? Worldwide, the community radio
movement is a thriving one and a station typically works outside the ambit
of large corporate radio stations. There are two broad aspects to it —
programming which caters to the needs of the community, and wide-based
participation and involvement on part of the target audience.

In India, the community radio movement received a shot in its arm when in
1995 the Supreme Court ruled that airwaves were public property. Since then,
however, not much has been done to set up such stations. There are a few
campus radio stations in the country — the first was set up by Anna
University in 2004 and another by Pune University the following year — but
the quality of programming has not exactly set the airwaves on fire.

At JU, we are in the process of carrying out a survey in the target area to
gauge what sort of programming would be most attractive. If any of you have
any ideas or suggestions please do not hesitate to let us know. Would you
for instance, like live broadcasts of carom tournaments, or would you prefer
Swahili language classes? Does your taste run to marathon *antakshari*s or
do you desire more information on rice weevil bugs? By the way, not
everything goes at community radio. Some of my students are salivating at
the prospect of becoming shock jocks on late-night radio phone-ins and
suchlike, but they had better be warned that there are lots of dos and
don'ts for campus radios. But that is for the future. In the meantime, here
is Only Connect calling all radioheads and signing off.
 http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070224/asp/calcutta/story_7435016.asp

-- 
Nookaraju
9989306757
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