So, Madurai Kamraj University gets a Gyan Vani station as well as a campus radio station.
The Hon'ble Vice Chancellor says that his campus station will broadcast programmes on education, social awareness, population and health "for the benefit of villages within a radius of five km radius from Andipatti." By an odd coincidence, this is what his Gyan Vani station would do as well, for the benefit of villages within a radius of 60 kilometres from Andipatti. By an odder coincidence, this is what All India Radio Madurai has been doing since 1987, for the benefit of villages within a radius of a couple of hundred kilometres from Madurai. Talk about overkill. It is instructive to note that PARD Madurai, a genuine community based organization from the same region, had applied for their CR license nearly two years ago. After being turned down more times than a bed-spread in a Karol Bagh lodge (and going to court to fight their case), they are nowhere close to getting a license. The Madurai Kamaraj University, whose name doesn't even figure in the list of CR applicants on the ministry's website,<http://mib.nic.in/CRS/crsgop260208.htm> gets not one, but two radio stations. I bet the Hon'ble Vice Chancellor didn't have to conduct Mad Hatter surveys<http://mib.nic.in/CRS/SurveyQuestionnaire.pdf>in his 'community', asking a thousand respondents whether they preferred to listen to the radio in the company of women (well, yes...) and whether they had any local beliefs about "not bathing during menstruation", which, as we know, is central to the establishment of community radio stations. Sajan [Thanks to George Lessard for this link] Madurai Kamaraj University to start community radio service at Andipatti Special Correspondent, The Hindu, 23 Jan 2009 It will be a radio service for the villagers, of the villagers and by the villagers: Vice-Chancellor Experts from Delhi to provide link between AIR station and university for FM radio service MADURAI: Madurai Kamaraj University will soon start a community radio service in Andipatti of Theni district in an initiative to apply technology for rural development. Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Vice-Chancellor R. Karpaga Kumaravel said that the proposed service would be stationed at MK University College. It would broadcast programmes on population, health, education and social awareness for the benefit of villages within a radius of five km from Andipatti. "It will be a radio service for the villagers, of the villagers and by the villagers," the Vice-Chancellor said. Recent studies, Dr. Karpaga Kumaravel said, had revealed that community radio services were immensely popular among rural masses and the Andipatti service would be an effort to reach the unreached. The Vice-Chancellor claimed that Madurai Kamaraj University was the only university in the country to get sanction for a Gyan Vani FM radio station and community radio service. Both the services would become operational by the middle of this year. The university had signed a memorandum of understanding with Indira Gandhi National Open University to run the Gyan Vani station for which equipment had reached the Madurai station of All India Radio. The proposed FM station would broadcast programmes for not less than six hours a day to reach listeners in a radius of 60 km. Programmes for the services would be produced by the Electronic Media Production Centre of the IGNOU and Electronic Multimedia Research Centre of the MKU. http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/23/stories/2009012350010100.htm
_______________________________________________ cr-india mailing list [email protected] https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
