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On
March 27th 2006, a team from the I&B ministry
accompanies by local district authorities
swooped down at Mansoorpur and closed the three
year old FM radio station run by Raghav Mahto.
The community radio station which was spreading
socially useful messages like Pulse Polio
programme besides providing entertainment was
shut down.
A grassroots innovator had nurtured a dream in
spite of very severe lack of resources and not
having much formal education, improving his
radio station month by month, where it could be
heard in a radius of up to sixteen kilometres.
He could have been a role model for innovation
and social entrepreneurship. However, our system
chose to condemn him to illegality.
A reading of the Indian broadcasting law indeed
renders the running of the radio station
illegal. The moot question still remains, who is
culpable?
Low cost FM broadcasting technology suited for
community radio service that can be used over a
small local area has been available for decades.
However, how many FM stations do we have in
India outside major cities? Absolutely none. It
is a tragedy of unparalleled proportions that in
spite of almost sixty years of democracy,
elitism of the “Dilli Darbar” coupled with a
totally misplaced sense of national good has
prevented our masses from benefiting from such
technology. Gandhiji had said that ‘The soul of
India lives in its villages’. Our rulers
continue to destroy that soul with an impunity
that would have done the former colonial rulers
proud.
Alas, we have several parallels of equally
misplaced priorities and ill conceived policies.
If we wind back to the eighties, older readers
would recall how much of a hassle getting a
telephone was. One could easily have to wait for
up to five years to get one. Rulers of the day
felt telephone was a luxury and hence made
inadequate investment into it. Private parties
were not allowed to invest in it. When Sam
Pitroda tried to revolutionise the telecom
sector, he had to face many challenges.
Ludicrously, when he came up with the idea of
public call offices (PCOs) so that hee could
take the benefits of whatever infrastructure was
there to the masses, responsible guardians of
the society actually opposed it saying criminal
and antinational activities may go up! Life was
made so difficult for him that he had a heart
attack and ultimately had to leave India a
second time sometime around 1990.
Mercifully, the wireless revolution happened in
the telecom sector and now India can boast of
the cheapest telecom service anywhere in the
world.
Television was kept in a similar vice like grip.
A large state like Bihar was without a single
full fledged television studio (or Doordarshan
Kendra) during the heydays of Doordarshan. To be
honest, the situation was somewhat better
because of the farsighted I&B minister Vasant
Sathe who had ushered in the low power
transmitter (LPT) revolution during the Asian
Games of 1982. The successor of Sathe, Ajit
Panja thought it fit to vandalise the Upgraha
Doordarhan Kendra, Muzaffarpur when he wanted a
“Metro” studio at Calcutta. Equipment and staff
were transferred out without any regard to the
local sentiments.
The revolution happened when STAR (Satellite
Television Asia Region) of Hong Kong started
beaming four free to air channels to India via
satellite. Soon we had indigenous programming by
Zee TV due to the vision of Subhash Chandra and
a new industry was born. Again, Indian cable TV
is the cheapest in the world where we get more
than 100 channels for the princely sum of Rs 200
per month. Sadly, till date, terrestrial
television continues to be a preserve of the
government machinery and therefore continues to
languish.
Twice within twenty years, technological
innovation came to the rescue of the masses when
the elitist “Mantralayas” of Delhi tried to
stifle progress. Is it too much to expect that
the ministry concerned shows better sense this
time around? Can we expect some changes in the
laws which make community radio stations like
Radio Raghav legal and commercially viable? We
had learnt at school that Democracy is a
government by the people, of the people, and
equally crucially “for” the people.
With an economist as a PM and a good man as a
CM, let us hope we would be third time lucky.
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Comments: |
Here
in Saudi Arabia, one of the leading
English daily "The Saudi Gazette" in
its 2nd April edition has given this
news almost a quarter page coverage
praising him for his creativity and
ability to do something different.
It was also mentioned that 2-3 NRIs
from Australia and UK have come
forward with financial help which is
very heartening to note.
I have requested local readers to
provide us his information so that
we can also help him in whatever
manner we can. Will somebody please
provide us necessary information
about him? - Anjum Parwej - Apr.
3, 2006 |
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