[cr-india] News on CR in Orissa and Nepal

Tue Jan 21 07:09:04 CST 2014

Hi

Two articles in the recent past suggest the value of CR

One is from Nepal regarding how  FM radion (am assuming some of them were
CR )may have influenced  the "cloud intelligence of voters, which i think
the" powers that may not be named" , would be wary of.

Cloud intelligence in
Nepal<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/cloud-intelligence-in-nepal/article5504909.ece>
the other is a feel good FM Story from Orissa

*Koraput tribals listen to Dhimsa
Radio*<http://www.thehoot.org/web/Koraput-tribals-listen-to-Dhimsa-Radio/7246-1-1-3-true.html>

The full articles (for those who can't immediately browse the net (via the
links above) are pasted below

**
Cloud intelligence in
Nepal<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/cloud-intelligence-in-nepal/article5504909.ece>
KANAK MANI DIXIT
Relevent section on radio is *highlighted in yellow*

With the people having voted with their head and heart, Nepal is back on
the track to constitution-writing and a turbulent democracy

The elections on November 19, largely unsoiled, returned Nepal to
representative democracy, ending a period of rule by a political syndicate
that had severely weakened the polity. Until the last moment, it was feared
that the UCPN-Maoist may be able to mount the kind of election-time
blitzkrieg of the earlier polls in 2008. It was not for the wanting, but
the party failed to hijack the process, weakened by a split in the
organisation, a disbanding of ex-combatants, and the evaporation of fear
across the land.

The run-up to the elections was anything but promising. The interim
government of Chief Justice Khil Raj Regmi had been formed against the
principle of separation of powers, and he seemed much too beholden to the
“High Level Committee” dominated by UCPN-Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal
(‘Prachanda’). Many believed that the breakaway Maoist party of Mr. Mohan
Baidya was secretly aligned with Mr. Dahal, even more so when the campaign
period was vitiated by the former’s bombings and bandhs. While Mr. Baidya
will have to answer for the violence, as the election date drew near it
became clear that his agenda was Mr. Dahal’s all-out defeat.

Critical issues were being bypassed in these second-time elections for the
Constituent Assembly — the plunder of the exchequer, the stonewalling on
local government, the weakening of state administration, a liaison with
alien “agencies,” communal adventurism, the wounding of the judiciary and
the candidature of accused war criminals. The last-minute leak of an audio
tape, with Mr. Dahal exhorting his followers to use all instruments of
electoral fraud, had everyone expecting the worst.

Oligarchy

The worries proved unfounded, mainly because the UCPN-Maoist leaders had
already converted into the feudal oligarchs of Animal Farm. Distanced from
even their own cadre, wallowing in nepotism, and unwilling to descend from
their mansions and helicopters, the cohort did not seem to know that the
ground had shifted. Without their ability to intimidate, the people would
vote with their eyes and ears.

It helped enormously that the Home Ministry and Election Commission had
ensured security, assisted by unprecedented support from the Indian
government in preventing politico-criminals using the open border to cause
mayhem. The first-time introduction of voter ID cards changed the
atmospherics at the ballot centres.

Kept informed by an alert media, including Nepal’s energetic network of FM
radio stations, the voters of plains, midhill and montane regions acted in
unison to penalise the miscreants. All over the disparate communities and
geographies, a kind of “cloud intelligence” emerged, with the people voting
in favour of democratic sanity. The absence of debate on the issues did not
matter — the voters did not need coaching.

The Maoists and their allies among the plains-based Madhesbadi parties were
chastised for having derailed the first Constituent Assembly. They were
punished for having promised social justice and an end to marginalisation
but using the time in power to line pockets, and to keep society unsteady
and unproductive for more than seven years after the decade-long conflict
ended in 2006.

On the issues, the defeat of the Maoist and Madhesbadi leaders was mainly
linked to the definition of federalism. The hill voters were aware that Mr.
Dahal’s “single-identity” formula for upland provinces would deliver only
Bantustans, advancing a handful of satraps while destroying the hopes of
growth and development. The plains voters rejected the Madhesbadi leaders
who had championed a peculiar plains-only province of 500 by 20 miles, an
entity which could only deepen poverty in the flatlands.

The eclipse of Dahal

In the early hours of November 20, as the first-past-the-post results
started coming in, Mr. Dahal and his deputy, Mr. Baburam Bhattarai,
panicked. Thinking that they were about to lose in both the constituencies
they had each contested from (they eventually won one each), and before the
counting on the proportional list had even begun, they directed the cadre
to abandon their posts.

In the month since, the UCPN-Maoists have been in a tailspin, taking
contradictory positions and losing even more credibility than demanded by
the electoral reverse. They claimed systemic fraud while conceding the
inability to provide evidence, declared countrywide malfeasance, other than
where they had won, and threatened boycott of the Assembly while proceeding
with victory celebrations.

But it was Mr. Dahal who has lost the most, after 23 years as unchallenged
party supremo. His hopes of becoming a directly elected president-for-life
are dashed, and Mr. Bhattarai has suddenly started a Facebook campaign to
unseat the chairman. By rights, Mr. Dahal should have resigned his post,
but that would be a ticket to political oblivion in a radical party that
faked its democratisation.

The chairman has therefore desperately sought to save his own skin. He
demanded revival of the “syndicate” with himself as chair, only to be
rebuffed by the triumphant Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) parties.
Nevertheless, by threatening to keep his party out of the Assembly, Mr.
Dahal was able to stall the work of government formation and completion of
the Assembly’s membership for a full month. This hiatus allowed time for
discord to arise between the Congress and UML, as the two largest parties
in the House (196 and 175 out of a total 601).

In the end, the two parties provided a sop to help Mr. Dahal manage his
humiliation. On Tuesday, December 24, a compromise was reached on a
high-level committee to be formed once the Assembly meets, to “assist” in
the constitution-writing. When formed, this entity will have to be watched
so that it does not challenge the authority of the sovereign, elected
Assembly. That having been said, Tuesday’s compromise now allows the
Assembly to sit and also form a government — likely to be led by Mr. Sushil
Koirala of the Congress.

Progressive mandate

Those members of the Kathmandu intelligentsia ever-willing to mop up after
Mr. Dahal have tried to come to his rescue by proposing fascinating
interpretations of the election outcome. One pundit sought to draw a
distinction between the “mataadhesh” and “janaadhesh” (voters’ mandate,
which he suggested need not reflect the people’s mandate). Others warned
the Congress and the UML not to ignore the “progressive” agenda of the
Maoist and Madhesbadi, whereas the people had voted in the most progressive
manner possible in sidelining the brazen communalists and rank opportunists.

The New York Times reported the rather startling news that Nepal had taken
a sharp turn to the right, whereas the people’s vote had elevated the
social-democratic middle of Nepali politics vis-à-vis the radical left and
emergent right. The proponents of Hindutva did make some inroads with the
RPP-N party of Mr. Kamal Thapa bagging 24 proportional seats, but he did
not get the landslide some had predicted and did not win any first-past-the
post constituency. Mr. Thapa’s wooing of Mr. Narendra Modi just before the
polls seemed to have backfired with the voters.

The people gave the UCPN-Maoists 80 seats and a decent third place, just
enough to keep them in the political and constitution-writing process, but
without the numbers to hijack the drafting. The ballots have been cast in a
manner that forces the UCPN-Maoist to democratise if it wants to remain
relevant, with or without Mr. Dahal at the helm.

The parties have committed to promulgate the constitution within a year,
which will require tackling of the contentious issues that agitated the
last Assembly. Ideally, the people will get a document that defines federal
provinces according to economic geography rather than the parochial and
self-defeating “single-identity” and “plains-only” formulae. The debate
over declaring Nepal a secular or Hindu state can be resolved by simply
avoiding reference to religion. As for governance, hopefully the
parliamentary system will be selected rather than a directly-elected
presidency or hybrid “French model.”

For all of this to happen, the two largest parties must cooperate, in
government formation as well as constitution-drafting. Humility should be
the companion of the Congress and the UML throughout, given that it was not
their chequered record but the people’s “cloud intelligence” that has
placed them in the driver’s seat.

While a level of skulduggery will continue in Kathmandu politics as
elsewhere, the return to open society assured by the November elections
will give a fillip to the economic revival that has already begun. At long
last, the people may reap the benefits of normalisation, and they have no
one to thank but themselves for this fine turn of events.

(Kanak Mani Dixit is a civil rights activist and journalist based in
Kathmandu.)

**
*Koraput tribals listen to Dhimsa
Radio*<http://www.thehoot.org/web/Koraput-tribals-listen-to-Dhimsa-Radio/7246-1-1-3-true.html>

Koraput's community radio Dhimsa has become the voice of tribals to convey
their messages to the administration, says RAKHI GHOSH
Posted/Updated Saturday, Jan 18 18:05:23, 2014

Tribals of Koraput, a district in Odisha, may not be able to deliver their
complaints and grievances directly to the administration but with the help
of community radio jockeys like Julie, Sahadev, Bhakta and Udai, they are
definitely heard.

Koraput, about 500 kms from Bhubaneswar, may not have many modern
facilities, but the tribals there have Dhimsa Community Radio, a dedicated
FM radio station to listen to their voice. The first and only community
radio in the southern part of Odisha, Dhimsa FM Radio station, established
by the Unicef in collaboration with Southern Odisha Voluntary Organisation
(SOVA) in 2012, is now a forum that pays attention to the problems faced by
the local people.

Dhimsa's radio jockeys are known in the community for their support through
communication. As the local dialect in Koraput is Desia, the villagers
found it difficult to understand the government programmes and schemes. In
comes Dhimsa Community Radio, which solved this problem by delivering these
programmes in Desia.

Founder of Dhimsa radio station and secretary of SOVA, Sanjit Patnaik
expressed, "Communication is an old trend and community has a practice of
listening radio broadcast by All India Radio. Going little ahead to this,
Dhimsa Radio provides community members a medium to share their views,
raise voices, and present their performances in kind of drama, song and
interviews. For the first time tribal community is feeling great experience
in taking the flavor of FM band listening radio programs in their own
dialect especially voice of their known community members".

Manu Jani, a villager of Dumuripadar says, "The mainstream media never give
enough space to our concern while community FM radio played an important
role in solving our long-standing demand. In last Panchayat election it was
promised to us that the connecting road to our village would be repaired
soon, but all in vain. When our grievance aired during the radio programme,
district administration immediately responded. He called the concerned
engineer to enquirye about it. Later, he sanctioned Rs 3 lakh and the
construction of road was completed by the end of January 2013".

Patnaik explains, "Radio Dhimsa is well equipped with a sound digital
studio; skilled staff members received regular training on different
technical issues, thematic issues & also the capacity to manage a station
by themselves.  Presently, the radio has about 30 thousand listeners by
covering 45 villages and some points of Koraput township area. Though we
have the technical challenges due to hilly area we manage to reach our
target population through narrowcast activities".

Talking about its cost and other expenses he said, "The approximate cost
for station management would be around Rs 2 lakh (including salary of
staff, station equipment maintenance and management and also need based
capacity building for staff and community members cost). At present this
cost is met by Unicef and we have also started mobilising different
government community mobilisation fund from different departments like
-DWSM, NRHM, SSA etc. Our group-M team has been provided with training in
marketing skills to work out a sustainable financial plan of Radio Dhimsa
like how to generate revenue from local market, government line
departments, and NGOs".

Presently, this community FM radio broadcasts programmes from 9 am to 12
noon (Udila Suraj) in the morning and 6pm to 9pm (Sanjuabela Gharejiba
Bela) in the evening. Besides this, they have repeat programmes from 2pm to
5pm (Uparbela Aram bela) during afternoon. The programmes cater to the need
of community people, ranges from health, education awareness issues to
interviews of community leaders, experts, government officials and tribal
songs by community singers.

Talking about Dhimsa Radio programme "Lenka Master Ro Kahani", popular
among children, Trinath Mali of Gulelput village said, "Our village is
cut-off by Kolab River and citing this as a major problem the school
teacher was attending only twice a month. But with this Radio programme our
children are now able to continue their studies. Parents also understand
the need of education and are sending their children to hostels for further
studies. They have also formed a Bal Sangh providing a chance to the
children to express their grievance related to their rights."

Udaynath Hantal, popularly known as RJ (Uday) says, "The Radio Station has
given us a wonderful platform to air our community problems. In this area,
child marriage is a burning issue and with regular intervention we created
awareness among the community people. Even though television sets have
replaced radio sets but our frequency available in FM band and youths using
mobiles are tuned to our FM band. This brings a change in the community as
the youth are extending their helping hand".

The experience of running a community radio station has helped the RJs
learn much more about the needs of the communities and have come closer to
the community members. This doesn't limit to only knowing about their needs
but Radio Dhimsa also stands with the community in times of action. In A
chat show program focusing on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Gurantee Act (MGNREGA) has helped in the settlement of wage payment of 3
villages. This has helped them build a good and positive rapport with
community members. They have also formed listener's club in 45 villages and
have supplied them with radio sets. This has helped them bridge the gap of
communication between the communities and district administration and bring
in social changes.

**
FYI

Ram
_________________________________________________________
Himal Prakriti - Information on Uttarakhand Floods and Post Flood Scenario
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Homestay with a difference
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