The Hindu : New Delhi News : Using radio in mobilising rural masses

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 20, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Using radio in mobilising rural masses

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 19. Following the successful demonstration of the use of radio for strengthening local self-governance by Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) -- a non-government organisation working to strengthen local self-governance across the country --- in association with and through a grant provided by the Ford Foundation, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has now come forward to re-broadcast these programmes -- many of which were produced in local dialects to engage citizens in rural areas -- through it Gyan Vani channels across the country.

Already, the Delhi radio pilot has been broadcast by the Gyan Vani studio here and the programmes produced by other non-government organisations under the PRIA initiative are also slated to be broadcast in the near future. The Ford Foundation supported radio programmes were initiated in nine States in the year 2002 and the focus was to promote citizen's engagement through strengthening the information base of the citizens.

While the programme produced by Sahayi in Kerala titled "Swayambharanam" focussed on talk shows, interviews, panel discussions, experiences and responses from the field, the Centre for Youth an Development in Orissa developed the programme "Ama Hati Ama Shasan Dori" around the life of a journalist, who during the course of his work, visits a village to mobilise the masses and subsequently mobilises the people of the village in a bid to strengthen the institution of the Panchayat in the village.

The programme developed by Unnati in Gujarat revolved around a few characters such as a newly elected sarpanch, ex-sarpanch and ward member and was called "Gamda No Dhabkar". Samarthan in Madhya Pradesh took the audience through its programme "Apn Gaon Mein Apna Raj" by focussing on the roles and responsibilities of the gram sabha and committees. Similarly, programes were produced by Roshni in Haryana, CENCORED in Bihar and PRIA itself in Himachal Pradesh.

"All the programmes were broadcast through an arrangement with All India Radio and the Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies was asked to carry out an assessment. The feedback from the listeners across various States implies that radio still remains a key instrument for information dissemination," said Sandip Das of PRIA.

And therefore, IGNOU's offer to broadcast the radio pilots through its Gyan Vani channels in Allahabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, Bhopal and Vishakapatnam is being seen by PRIA as a second opportunity to engage the citizens in issues involving local self-governance. And in the coming years, PRIA and its partners aim to use both audio an electronic media more extensively for the dissemination of information.

"We are in the process of producing radio programmes for strengthening PRIs in Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Rajasthan. The experience gained through PRIA initiated radio programmes will help us in conceptualising future programmes in a more professional way," said Mr. Das.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi