[IMC Bombay] Community Radio in India

[Vickram Crishna]

There is a very active list running at the SARAI servers from Delhi 
which discusses issues relating to the birth of community radio in 
India.

List-Subscribe: <http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india>,
	<mailto:cr-india-request@mail.sarai.net?subject=subscribe>
List-Id: India - Community Radio nationwide discussion list 
<cr-india.mail.sarai.net>

The archives have a description of the first village level live radio 
broadcast operation in India, which can also be seen at 
http://www.radiophony.com/html_files/oravakal.html. It is called Mana 
Radio, which means Our Radio in Telugu.

This is happening at a village called Oravakal in Andhra Pradesh. The 
villagers are producing programmes on their own, and using a low 
power frequency modulator to disseminate the recorded content to the 
village, which can get it in their homes using ordinary FM receivers. 
Perhaps at some stage in the future, as telecom and Internet 
penetration increases, this content will find its way to larger 
distribution.

Although this village was relatively small, it still hosts some 5,000 
inhabitants. There are many smaller communities in India, hamlets 
with 30-40 houses or thereabouts. We have to evolve meaningful 
technology options where the creative talents of people from these 
communities too can find expression - to give them a voice, a 
stepping stone to finding themselves new opportunities hitherto 
closed.

-- 
Vickram