[cr-india] AMARC Asia Pacific community Radio directory 2009

[mahesh acharya]

Hi Suman, Sajan and all others,

I read with interest the directory and though I appreciate the teams effort
to compile it, but I feel it gives a very micro picture of community radio
in India.  India is very unique when it comes to CR policy. One of its kind
I must say. After allowing academic institutes to run CR it took policy
makers  four long years to consider for grant of license to CBO/NGO's!!
Collectively our job to simplify the CR situation for the benefit of new be
community radio station operators and present a balanced picture which I
think is the purpose of the directory.

As I see it CR in India is...

1. University run
2. Colleges run
3. School run (may come in future)
4. NGO run, with two sub categories. First one owned by a NGO while the
other..who broadcast over All India Radio. Of course such NGO's will not
come under community radio at all and hence should be labeled differently.
5. Run by/ started by community based organizations which got support from
NGO and not other way round. I know of five such groups that I trained in
Uttrakhand who have lost their identity as some NGO helped them out for
license etc. These groups from Uttranchal were formed during two week
Community Radio workshop that I conducted. Post training some of the groups
got help from NGO's since they did not have resources to carry it forward.
These are the kind of organizations I and others would like to be included
in the directory.

Thus....it would be great if CR in India are categorized as mentioned above
next time the directory comes up and the team thinks it appropriate.

Some other observations are that in order to qualify for being included in
the directory, ' NGO with interest in community radio' is not enough. By the
time your next directory comes up, believe it or not such ngo's will double
in number. So there got to be a bench mark for inclusion. Maybe this could
be chalked out in the forthcoming consultation in Bangalore.  Plus I also
noticed that in the format, information mentioned  is not accurate in some
cases. I presume it to be oversight.  For example. In year of establishment
for an NGO it states - yet to be established. But under types of programs
broadcast it says two hours per week.

Best Regards,
Mahesh Acharya
Bangalore






On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 9:55 AM, sajan venniyoor <venniyoor at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Suman,
> Thank you for issuing the 2009 edition of the AMARC Asia Pacific CR
> directory.
>
> I am afraid I found it rather diasppointing, at least as far as the CR
> scene in India is concerned. The Directory seems to give the impression that
> there are just about five (non-operational) CR initiatives in India, along
> with half a dozen consultants, academic institutions and NGOs with an
> interest in CR. That is not the case.
>
> At the last count, 50 licenses were issued to CR stations in India, of
> which 45 are now operational, including 40 campus-based CRS. CR stations
> like Sangham Radio (Pastapur) and Radio Bundelkhand (Orchha) have been
> running successfully for almost a year now, but they don't figure in the
> Directory. Anna University's 'Anna FM' completed five years in February this
> year.
>
> The number of production houses, academic institutions and NGOs with an
> interest in community radio would run into the hundreds.
>
> I am also disappointed to see that countries like Thailand, with its
> hundreds -- if not thousands -- of community radio stations, don't figure in
> the Directory at all.
>
> The manner in which the Directory is compiled leads to these imbalances, I
> know, but with the accelerating growth of CR in the Asia Pacific, we need to
> find better ways of putting it together. Documenting CR initiatives in the
> region could be one of the issues that we discuss at the AMARC Regional
> Conference in October.
>
> warm regards,
> Sajan
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Suman Basnet <suman at wlink.com.np> wrote:
>
>>  Dear friends and colleagues,
>>
>>
>>
>> I am very happy to inform you that the second edition of the AMARC Asia
>> Pacific CR directory 2009 is available online at
>> http://asiapacific.amarc.org/index.php?p=2_Conference_Asia_Pacific_2009and please follow the link in that page. Or you can also directly visit
>> http://amarcwiki.amarc.org/upload/documents/AMARC_CR_Directory_2009_Final.pdf.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Please circulate this information in your networks.
>>
>>
>>
>> With warmest regards, Suman
>>
>>
>>
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