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 At a Glance
South Asian potpourri
Afghanistan
Women’s community radio station
On the International Women’s Day (March 8) this year, an independent women’s community radio station, Radio Zohra, in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was officially inaugurated. It is supported by the institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Internews and USAID-OTI. Radio Zohra broadcasts on 90.5 FM in Kunduz and it covers a radius of 20 kms and reaches a population of approximately 350,000. It is the third in a network of independent women’s community radio stations in Afghanistan, established by IMPACS and Internews. The first station was Radio Balkhi in Mazar-I-Sharif, established in March 2003, the second one is Radio Sahar-in-Heart which went on air in October, 2003.
Bhutan
BBS serves Bhutan radio
Bhutanese radio broadcasting begun in 1973. With low literacy and a small percentage of electrical grid coverage, radio is a very popular medium in this country. Bhutan is served by the state-sponsored Bhutan Broadcasting System (BBS) which own and operate the broadcasting operation. BBS radio broadcasts 12 hours every day and gives a daily news bulletin in 4 languages. Its main objective is to inform, educate and entertain the public. Use of Internet was started in Bhutan in 1999, but still it has been restricted to urban areas. Bhutan’s only Internet Service Provider (ISP), Druknet was initially conceived merely as a domestic e-mail service, keeping Bhutan sealed off from the rest of the world; but the-then king decided to give Bhutanese citizens limited access to the World Wide Web. Internet was introduced to Bhutan in 1999. In 2000, UNESCO sparked the idea of radio-browsing programmes to
provide information from the Internet to the disadvantaged and illiterate people and to increase awareness of new ICTs.
India
Namma Dhwani (Our Voices)
India’s first independent community radio initiative is in Boodikote village, Karnataka. It is a cable radio service because India forbids communities to use the airwaves. With the help of UN funds, a media advocacy group, VOICES laid cables, sold subsidised radios with cable jacks to villages and trained young people to run the station. Since March 2003, the beginning of broadcast, Our Voice Community Radio has played a major role in community life. It is cracked with the sound of school children singing songs and giggling to jokes, of young girls talking fearlessly about evils of dowry and admonishing boys for teasing them at school; of women giving out recipes and teaching others how to open a bank account and of farmers debating the vagaries of weather and fluctuating crop prices.
Pastapur Women’s radio
The Zaheerabad area in Medak District of Andhra Pradesh where the Deccan Development Society (DDS) works, falls in one of the least developed regions of the country, Telengana, and is contiguous with the least developed districts of North Karnataka. Deccan Development Society (DDS), a grassroots organisation working with Sangams (village level groups) of poor women, most of whom are Dalits, have evolved programmes with three principles: gender
justice, environmental-soundness and people’s knowledge. The UNESCO recognised the presence and services rendered by the DDS in the region with regard to empowerment and education
of the poorest of the poor women and facilitated funding for
establishing a radio station in Machnoor village.
On October 2, 1996, James Bentley, Regional Communication Adviser (Asia), UNESCO had a consultation with about 35
women from the sangams of DDS. Based on the felt needs, narrated by the local women and UNESCO’s interest in women’s development and democratisation of communication media, DDS was identified as a suitable partner for UNESCO’s ‘Women Speak to Women’ project.
It was proposed to operationalise a low-cost radio station,
subject to issuance of a license by the Government of India. As part of this, DDS initiated necessary steps for establishing a radio
station. The FM station is designed to work on the audiocassette technology. It has two FM transmitters and a 100-meter transmission tower, which has a capacity to broadcast to a radius of 30 kms, roughly, the coverage area of DDS. DDS inaugurated its Community Media Centre on October 15 (the International Rural
Women’s Day) 2001.
The Pastapur Women’s radio, in spite of its long time readiness to go on air, is still awaiting a community-broadcasting license as the Central government is still finalizing the regulations of the new broadcasting legislation. In the meantime, the studio facilities are being used to produce audiocassettes on issues related to women empowerment, agricultural needs of semi-arid regions, public health and hygiene, indigenous knowledge systems, biodiversity and food security and local song and drama.
Maldives
Maldives radio (Community radio and SHE)
‘Radio Haveeru’, a 15-minute radio programme broadcast from the Voice of Maldives, focuses on rural development. It includes some aspects of adolescence reproductive health. The same programme is repeated in the evening when most of the people come back to their homes after work. Another women’s issue oriented programme is broadcast at mid-morning.
It aims at the women who stay at home. Radio spots on Thalassaemia and family planning had already been produced and broadcast by the Voices of Maldives, under the guidance of SHE. From 1996 to 1998, in total 45 radio programmes have been produced and broadcast 90 times. The topics targetting the community are adolescent sexual and reproductive health, thalassaemia, AIDS, family planning, pregnancies, food and nutrition.
Nepal
Radio Sagarmatha
Nepal has changed from a monarchy and a one-party political system to a more democratic form of government in 1990. This was the main factor that opened up new possibility to democratise the electronic media which was formerly controlled as a whole by the government. Nepal’s National Communication Policy Act (1993), prepared by a special task force was the main force behind Nepal’s first independent community broadcasting station as well as South Asia’s first major effort at ‘independent community radio’, Radio Sagarmatha. A major provision of the act was the private sector participation in FM broadcasting.
‘Sagarmatha’ is the Nepali name of the Mount Everest. It means the head in the heavens. The radio Sagarmatha was established with financial and technical assisstance provided under UNESCO’s international programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC). The programmes broadcast from this radio station cover growing air pollution problem of Kathmandu, urbanisation and its impact on the heritage sites, tourism, the threat of HIV/AIDS and garbage disposal.
It also celebrates the ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of the people around Kathmandu valley. It is an initiative of the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ) and is governed by a board that includes Himal Association, Nepal Press Institute and Worldview Nepal.
Pakistan
Internews initiatives
Internews has implemented a one year project funded by USAID that includes advising the Pakistan government on media law and providing training to journalists and station managers of the country’s first private radio stations. As a part of the project, it has built a state-of-the-art independent radio production facility at the Uks foundation, an NGO in Islamabad that works on the portrayal of women in the media. Here women journalists are being trained to produce radio programmes.
Prior to the Internews programme, none of the women worked for non-government radio. Only 3 per cent of all the journalists were women. The country’s first independent syndicated programmes were launched by Internews-trained women journalists at Uks Foundation. Internews also helped to build the country’s
first university-based community radio station at Peshwar University, situated in the North-West Frontier Province bordering
Afghanistan.
It has also worked with a community radio station in Lakki Marwat near the FATA region to raise awareness about modern farming practices in the region such as drip irrigation. The Lakki stations coverage includes tribal FATA region.
There are 26 licensees in Pakistan, distributed over 17 cities. The cities and the licensees are as follows:
- Karachi: Kohinoor Airwaves, Lahore; Shamal Media Services, Karachi; Vectracom, Karachi; Tradeserve International, Islamabad; Syndicate Entertainment, Karachi.
- Lahore: Kohinoor Airwaves, Lahore; Shamal Media Services, Karachi; Tradeserve Intl. Islamabad.
- Faisabad: Kohinoor Airwaves, Lahore; Tradeserve International Islamabad.
- Islamabad/Rwp: Kohinoor Airwaves, Lahore; The Communicators, Islamabad; Shamal Media Services, Karachi.
- Multan: Tradeserve Intl. Islamabad.
- Vehari: The Communicators, Islamabad.
- Sukkur: Shamal Media Services, Karachi.
- Peshawar: Interactive Communications, Islamabad.
- Sarai Naurang: SAIF Intl. Combined, Islamabad.
- Gujrat: Future Tech Engg. Islamad.
- Sialkot: Interactive Communications, Islamabad.
- Abbotabad: The Communicators, Islamabad.
- Hub Chowki: SALLAR Engg. Islamabad.
- Muridke: SALLAR Engg. Islamabad.
- Changla Gali: SALLAR Engg. Islamabad.
- Gwadar: SALLAR Engg. Islamabad.
- Bahawalpur: KATS Comm. Multan.
Sri Lanka
Mahaweli community radio
The Mahaweli Community Radio (MCR) concept was a modified version of the experience of Baandvaerkstedet – the Tape Workshop, a public access programme of Radio Denmark. The first of its kind in South Asia, Sri Lanka’s MCR was set up in 1981 by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation with the assistance of UNESCO and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). During 1981 to 89, MCR’s mobile teams visited some 1500 villages. The MCR experience has been widely used for an integrated rural development project in Bangladesh and also in developing and setting up rural broadcast systems in Bhutan and Cambodia.
Kothmale community radio
Located in the central region of Sri Lanka, Mawathura, about 25 kms south-west of Kandy Kothmale Community Radio (KCR) is one of 5 community radio stations, operating under the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC). It started transmission in 1989, broadcasting only 1 hour a week from a mobile station. In 1992, the mobile station became a permanent one with 3 broadcasting hours on every working day whereas now there are programmes everyday for 8 hours, in mornings and evenings. Three monthly listeners’ meetings are being organised to receive the feedback from the audience and to observe their opinions regarding the change in programmes.
To assess the prospects for converging community radio and the Internet to serve rural information needs and to assess its possible impacts in rural communities, the UNESCO funded Kothmale Community Radio Internet Project was launched in 1999. To make the Internet accessible to a wide rural audience, KCR started
including information from the Internet in its radio programmes. Although a major part of the listeners lives in a remote area in the country, they are interested enough in international matters. One of the main reasons is that many people of the region have family members working and staying in the Middle East. Part of the international news covers information about exchange rates and national market prices that is sent by the National Bank of Colombo.
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