[cr-india] "Centre will Open over 1, 000 Radio Stations: Javadekar"

Thu Jun 26 00:19:17 CDT 2014

How I wish, opening of a 1000 'CR' stations in India, could in some odd
way, actually mean good news for all!?

That's approximately 30-35 stations in each state of India. We already have
23 in TN. Also, if Nepal can have 200, and Bangladesh about to have 32, why
not some of the states in India? Smaller states may aim for less.

About a 100-110 sanctions every four months by MIB, GOI for the next three
years could do the trick.

BUT, but, do we have the applicants, where are the capacities, funding, or
processes to issue the licenses/WOL at this rate?

And, of course, the moot point is - how many of these CRSs would work
towards/be driven by parity of participation, freedom of expression and
democratic communication? And accountability to whom and how?

I would not be surprised if all educational institutions/NGOs would soon
get a GO that having a CR is mandatory for them to get government
funding/recognition.

Then we'll have all the numbers being projected, but maybe still 'no CR
stations'.

And news still remains a contested territory?

One can only hope for 'good times' for the CR sector in India...

Best,

Kanchan

On 26 June 2014 02:12, Vickram Crishna <v1clist at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Aside from tropes and mantras, the tragedy is that numbers like 6000 (I
> seem to recall that was our recently resurrected Ms Swaraj's estimate) and
> 4000 are quoted as though some sociological study has revealed the likely
> capacity of Indian to run radio stations - or to listen to them.
>
> In fact, no such study has ever been done, and I would like to meet the
> person who is so confident that such a study can reliably act as a basis
> for forward planning (if any is needed).
>
> There are two ways of assigning an upper limit: either divide the
> country's geographical size by the area a single station can reach, that
> will give the total number of areas that can be covered by radio stations;
> or else, try and ask people whether they will listen to a hypothetical
> radio station that does not exist in their area. Good luck with that one.
>
> To remind this list, I did the first calculation some years back, for
> stations that could cover a radial distance of 5 km (I advocate FM coverage
> of that distance for the vast majority of pioneer stations, but won't go
> into that now): if looking for the maximum number of stations that can be
> supported theoretically, the total is some 750,000 stations (I had first
> got 1.25mn, but had mistakenly assumed more stations per zone than is
> actually possible, at the time, New York City had the most stations in the
> world, 72, so I reduced the number accordingly). If we further cut the
> number of stations to just one per zone, we guess upwards of 10,000
> stations.
>
> Such estimates must be measured against the experience of countries that
> actually think community radio is a valuable component of modern society.
> 10,000 will then look pathetically, ridiculously, small, and I frankly
> wonder why the ministry officials are always so determined to think even
> smaller. It must be the only ministry that is so consistently ready not to
> create results for itself.
>
> And now it has a minister who has been quoted as implying he expects its
> role to vanish entirely. I suppose, better than a ministry that fails to
> achieve any results, might as well not have a ministry at all, and allow
> chaos to reign.
>
> Vickram
> http://communicall.wordpress.com
> http://vvcrishna.wordpress.com
>
>
>   On Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 21:13, Sajan Venniyoor <venniyoor at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> At the National CR Sammelan last year, the I&B Minister, Manish Tewari
> said
> <http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-11/news/37039180_1_community-radio-stations-crs-i-b-minister-manish-tewari>
> they'd set up set up 500 new Community Radio Stations during the 12th
> Plan period. His Secretary has said elsewhere that we'd have "1000 CR
> stations in 5 years".
>
> Manish Tewari's predecessor, Ambika Soni had said
> <http://southasia.oneworld.net/archive/ictsfordevelopment/indias-publicsector-broadcasting-to-be-fully-digitised>
> that "the government is working to ensure that at least 4000 Community
> Radio stations are operational in the next three years". This was in 2010.
>
> In 2007, the then Secretary, I&B is quoted as having said
> <http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=24250&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html>
> that "in the next few years, 4000 community radio stations will have sprung
> up in India under the new enabling community radio policy announced by the
> Government." Several Secretaries and Ministers have sprung up -- and away
> -- since then, but only 170 CR stations have come up so far.
>
> Mr. Javadekar is back with 1000 CRS.
>
> 1000 is just a number, and a pretty meaningless number going by any factor
> or combination of factors. If I were to crunch just one set of numbers,
> 4000 CRS in three years translates into 3.6 CR stations per day. Even a
> thousand CRS within this Plan period would mean almost a station a day.
> When the first CR policy was written, it was mentioned in passing that
> India had the potential for about 4000 CR stations. What started as a
> general observation by some AIR engineers armed with a map of India, a
> calculator and a comprehensive ignorance of community broadcasting soon
> became a trope and then a *mantra. *
>
> It's like one of those old *samizdat *jokes:
>
> "Comrade, how many CR stations came up last year?"
> "Well, it's hard to say, but if all the CR stations that came up last year
> were stacked one on top of the other, they would reach the knees of God."
> "But, comrade, you know there is no God!"
> "Yes, comrade, and you know there are no CR stations."
>
> Sajan
>
>
> On 21 June 2014 20:20, N.Ramakrishnan <nram at ideosyncmedia.org> wrote:
>
> (With due apologies for cross-posting)
>
> At least there's a more realistic 1000 stations being discussed. Loved the
> part about 'allowing' stations
> Ramakrishnan
>
> Source link:
> http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/Centre-will-Open-
> over-1000-Radio-Stations-Javadekar/2014/06/20/article2289440.ece
>
> --
> N.Ramakrishnan
>
>
> Join the Community Radio Forum.
>
>
>
> Join the Community Radio Forum.
>

-- 

*Dr. Kanchan K. Malik*

Associate Professor, Department of Communication

Faculty Fellow, UNESCO Chair on Community Media

Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication

University of Hyderabad

Gachibowli, Hyderabad 500046

Phone: +91-40-23135506 (O)

           +91-990-858-2613 (M)
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