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Magazine
MEDIA MATTERS
Election signs
SEVANTI NINAN
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While the hard-sell will begin a little later, things are now being put in place for next year’s elections.
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Photo: Shaju John
Reaching out: Will community radio make a difference?
Elections are a year away and it’s time to look for tell-tale signs, folks. The hard-sell will begin later, may be by the end of this year, but right now it’s time to put things in place. Beginning with people. Last fortnight, one of Soni
a Gandhi’s handpicked bureaucrats quietly became chairman of Prasar Bharati: Arun Bhatnagar, the retired IAS officer who had been Secretary General of the now-defunct National Advisory Council. There isn’t a dot of media-related experience in his CV but why should that matter?
A little rearranging had to be done to make this appointment possible. The government decided earlier this year to amend the Prasar Bharati Act to change the age of eligibility of the Chairperson so that the incumbent would become ineligible! He was, of course, appointed by the previous government.
Expectations of autonomy from Prasar Bharati these days are low, but even so, this is a first. In its decade of existence, the first two chairmen have been journalists, Nikhil Chakravarti and K.V. Kamath. This time, newspaper reports said journalist Vir Sanghvi and former television executive and NASSCOM chief Kiran Karnik were in the running but Mr. Bhatnagar evidently outshone them.
Taken over by bureaucracy
This column is not about Prasar Bharati , but let it be said in passing that its takeover by the bureaucracy is complete. Now you have a chairperson, a CEO, and a part-time member who are former IAS officers, and three other members of the board, including an ex officio member, who are civil servants. Of the five part-time members including dancer Mamta Shankar who are non-bureaucrats, only one, who has spent his career in UNI, has a media background. Meanwhile, the staff of Prasar Bharati are agitating to be retained as government employees rather than being transferred to an autonomous corporation.
From the Emergency onwards, there is rich evidence that official media does not deliver election victories but governments tend to be incorrigible optimists. In 1989 Rajiv Gandhi tried through the notorious K.K. Tewary, and in 1996, Narasimha Rao was sold to would-be voters through a music video. In early 2004, the NDA government unleashed its India Shining campaign. Judging by the electoral verdict in each case, you could say the efforts bombed at the box office.
A pre-election year is a good time to begin reaching out to the masses and this time around there is a new selling point for the UPA government. It can claim that along with the Right to Information legislation, opening up of community radio to community organisations is one of its progressive legacies. Over the past decade, successive governments have found the idea of opening up local frequencies to community entities far scarier than allowing the private sector to get FM radio frequencies. So private FM has blossomed while community radio has been permitted only for educational institutions. Mr. Dasmunshi finally responded to long-standing demand for opening up community radio to non-profit organisations by announcing new guidelines in December 2006.
But the way community radio has actually panned out so far, it has been more urban than rural and more governmental than non-governmental. An applicant for a CR licence needs umpteen clearances, including one from the Home ministry. If the institution applying is government-funded, this clearance becomes fairly routine; if it is an NGO, an intelligence bureau man is dispatched to check out the organisation with slower and more unpredictable results.
Therefore, the first three applicants to clear all hurdles are universities. The first community radio station to start broadcasting under the new policy is on the Delhi University campus, headed by a retired deputy director general of All India Radio! In the list of 76 cleared Letters of Intent so far, NGOs number less than 25 per cent. Government schools, colleges and universities abound.
Opportunities ahead
Keen to get his ministry involved in community radio, Mr. Sharad Pawar is funding Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK) to the tune of Rs. 12 lakh each to start stations, some 13 of these are in the first LOI list. But at least KVKs are in the rural areas. More opportunity for retired AIR people: a former AIR engineer has set up an enterprising consultancy in doing turnkey community radio projects for KVKs!
The most intriguing entrants are from Bihar. Ten government schools, seven of them in Nalanda, chief minister Nitish Kumar’s constituency. The Bihar Government’s secretary for Information and PR told the Hindustan Times, “Once the licence is issued, we will set up FM broadcasting stations at select schools that will relay programmes related to local issues, fairs, etc. The core programming will be done in Patna while peripheral programming in districts.” Just what community radio was supposed to be about, right? And note the “we”.
Officials of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting sense that they need to get more rural, and fast. The secretary in the ministry now holds meetings every month to monitor progress under the new scheme. Officials are optimistic that community involvement will grow. Will it grow in time to make a difference next year?
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