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Gurgaon Ki Awaaz starts streaming
Now, listen to Gurgaon Ki Awaaz sitting anywhere in the Net-enabled world. Our icecast link page is made possible by the collective efforts of Gramvaaniand Nomad India Network and the support of the Radiophone project....
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Gurgaon Ki Awaaz Community Radio celebrates three months on air
On Thursday, February 25, 2010, Gurgaon’s only community radio station celebrates three months of round-the-clock broadcasting to a community that has remained voiceless throughout the transformation of Gurgaon from a sleepy cluster of villages 20...
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Education in rigor mortis: a 10-year report card
Can anything possibily change in the Indian education system. A comparison between a survey done in 1996 and another done in 2006 seems to suggest that nothing much has changed in our education system. Read...
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Bringing in winds of change through Radio Ga Ga
So early on in the process of starting a community radio station, it is evident to me the transformation it is capable of bringing into communities and individuals. Here’s a story from “Media For Freedom”...
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Lalit Lokvani gets set to air
I’ve been hearing about Ideosync’s CR project in Lalitpur for a while now, but a news story finally suggests that they’re close to getting on air. Here’s the full story. Village Community Radio will give...
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Radio: A companionable presence at the turn of a switch
According to Elise Nordling, “The primary function of radio is that people want company.” Assuming that to be true, what kind of company do people normally want? Who do you and I like to talk...
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Radio for emergencies
The Mumbai tragedy has once again highlighted how the radio can be the most effective medium of communication in the time of crisis, be it floods, earthquakes, war, or terror strikes. With electricity supplies cut...
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The next step
We’ve taken the next step. Ideosync is going to be TRF’s technical partner in setting up the community radio station, and handhold us at least for the first six months to get us ready for...
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Will it be Lalu on radio next?
At the risk of being taken seriously, I look forward to the day I can hear Lalu Prasad Yadav, our right honourable Railways Minister, coming on in between some truly ribald Bollywood numbers playing on...
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Radio for the visually disabled
An excellent idea has just come downstream from Sajan Venniyoor. He suggests that we utilise the radio for making print available to the visually disabled. This would include everything from school textbooks to novels, short...
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Reading through radio
I’m thinking of that child left behind. The one who cannot follow a lesson because she cannot read what the teacher has written on the blackboard, even though she has faithfully and correctly copied it...
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Gems in the sand
Another round of surveys, in yet another school. I really look forward to them. I’m never sure what I’ll find. Never sure how the children will do the surveys. I’m never even sure how they’ll...
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Radio for those left behind
We’ve just finished the first half of our needs assessment survey in a government school in Gurgaon. As batches of children, both boys and girls, sat in the Edusat room in this village school, I...
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Tejeshwar Singh Memorial Fellowships
An excellent opportunity for those looking seriously at how media is shaping our society, and how society is shaping media, is the Tejeshwar Singh Memorial Fellowship that will support such an endeavour by paying scholars...
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Community radio: programming is the key
There’s no doubt about it - we face challenging days ahead. The terror of air time is about to hit us. Even though we’re intending to start slow, with four hours of programming each day...
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One step closer to the Wireless Operating License
So there I was at Sanchar Bhavan today morning. I left about 45 minutes later clutching my precious SACFA clearance letter, and a frequency allotment letter. Next step, we complete our survey (which is waiting...
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Terrorism has no religious affinity
Finally, someone has spoken out against the strident, unrelenting branding of all terrorism being Islamic, and all Muslims being terrorists. According to a news report in The Times of India, Sharad Pawar asks a very...
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IGNOU to start course on community radio
Delhi-based Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has announced that it is launching a six-month certificate course in community radio in association with Commonwealth Educational Media Centre. According to a report in The Times of...
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Gurgaon CR gets its frequency allocation
Its unofficial. But we’ve got our frequency. Yesterday’s visit to Sanchar Bhavan yielded this wonderful nugget of information that TRF has been allocated 107.8 as their CR frequency. An official letter follows next month. Meanwhile,...
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Symbiosis Institute to set up CR station in Pune
Symbiosis Institute is on its way to starting a CR station on-campus sometime early next year. According to a report in RadioandMusic.com, the SIMC Students’ Council President Mitin Chakraborty has confirmed, “We have already applied...
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Anna FM mired in controversy
India’s first CR station seems to have got caught in internal bickering. According to a story in The Indian Express, “The first community radio Anna FM was launched with lot of fanfare by the Media...
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Jamia CR station helps quell rumours
Two wonderful stories about how the Jamia community radio station in Delhi contributed to keeping peace in Jamia Nagar where the recent shootout took place. Run by MCRC Jamia Millia Islamia University, the CR station...
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Community radio: Indian Idol revisited
A story just came through that reminded me of something N Ramakrishnan of Ideosync had thrown in the air as an idea worth pursuing. Using community radio, at a very local level, for the community...
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Community radio: round 1 of paperwork
Our file is apparently finally complete. That mystery form which has confounded brighter minds, is finally filled and filed. How did we do it? Er, with a little help from some people from WPC. I...
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Bihar Flood Relief
I find it hard to breathe when I think of the scale of the catastrophe in Bihar. More than 25 lakh people affected by the raging waters of the Kosi. As I browse through news...
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Community radio: teaching English
We’ve been seriously considering Teaching of English as a significant element in the CR station’s content offering. Centre for Learning Resources’ Dr Kurrien has mentioned that he would be happy to share the content that...
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Community radio: online application finally done
We’ve finally done it. Today I spent the entire morning weaving my way through the corridors of Sanchar Bhavan, and sitting with a very helpful person who screen by screen helped me fill out the...
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Community radio: a Philippines model broadcasts peace
An interesting story out of Philippines. According to the Inter Press News Service Agency (IPS), “amidst the raging conflict between government forces and Muslim rebels on the island of Mindanao, the religiously mixed population in...
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Community radio: drafting a survey questionnaire
A question of questions: what do we include in the survey that we have to conduct in our target villages of Garhi Harsaru and Dhankot? In a bid to get as many inputs as possible...
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Community radio: content conundrums
Just a passing thought as I chew the back of my pencil (or the keyboard). In my online search for Haryanvi folk music (yes, I have unending faith in the power of Google to turn...
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Community Radio: Sajan Venniyoor's views
Here’s a video link sent by Frederick Noronha through the CR-India mailing list. Sajan is the founder of the Community Radio Forum. Currently with Doordarshan, Sajan has 15 years of experience with radio. He has...
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Community radio: agricultural colleges go live
The Telegraph has just run a story on the Birsa Agricultural College’s radio station that was launched in March 2008. Seems that the college is so enthusiastic about the response, they now want to set...
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Community radio: Deutsche Welle partners with IGNOU
Great news just filtered in. According to a report at www.indiantelevision.com Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) to broadcast DW-Radio...
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Community radio: building bridges
We’re in a whirl of thinking, doing, worrying, talking, emailing. So far, it looks like that beyond our basic content components of Health (Talk to the Doc), Education (short “explainers” that elaborate on various concepts),...
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Broadcasting news, Manipur style
A great example of community news broadcasts comes to us from a little village in Manipur, where some villagers have got together to do a daily morning broadcast of news culled from local newspapers. No...
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Community radio: grappling with forms
I eat my words. Okay not all of them. But at least the ones in the last blog where I cribbed about the WPC site. It turns out that the site has all the links...
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Community radio: at the mercy of a shoddy website
Here we are, at the receiving end of a Letter of Intent from the Ministry of Communications informing us that they were considering the possibility of bestowing upon us a community radio license for Gurgaon....
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Community radio: ready for a recce
The NGO I work with (not for), The Restoring Force (TRF), has received the preliminary Letter of Intent from the Ministry informing TRF that it has been granted a license to start a community radio...
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Corporate websites: cater to media
It’s part of my job as the editor of an industry-specific magazine to visit corporate websites in search of company information, contacts, and images. Some companies are large multinational conglomerates with head offices in Europe...
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School Kids make a trip to the Yamuna River
The class seven students of The Shri Ram School, DLF Phase 3, made a trip to the Yamuna to experience first hand the state of the river just before it enters Delhi from neighbouring state...
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Giving a shot to Google Docs
In trying to use a new word processing program, such as Google Docs, it is typical to resist a new order of icons. Fingers follow muscle memory, and the mind, focused on the task of...
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Myspace keels over on safety concerns
There’s a raging debate out west about giving parents access to community sites frequently visited by kids, sites like myspace.com which has been described by some US attorneys as “a towering danger to kids.” As...
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Who moved the ketchup?
It’s six in the morning, we’re jet lagged, and sleepy in the sleepy little airport of Perth, on our way to Sydney from Delhi, via Singapore. The kids trundle to the cafeteria looking for fries,...
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A bonanza for budget travellers
Many trips just don’t happen because we’re perennially counting our pennies. Even if we can cough up the airfare, the thought of hotel tariffs in countries like Italy, Greece, France, Australia is enough to deter...
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Bonding over mealtimes
Finally, something I’ve known all along gets the expert stamp. Children belonging to families that eat together have a much lower chance of slipping into addictions and trouble. For proof check out Columbia University’s National...
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From the magical world of Amitava Ghosh
I’m surrounded by the cadences of Bangla in the wordy wonderful world of writer Amitava Ghosh. In the middle of a finally-arrived Delhi monsoon, I’ve emerged from the cyclonic chaos of the Sunderbans in The...
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Pluto's gone!
Pluto’s gone! In one day, the ring of planets stuck on the ceiling of my kids’ room has become outdated. I need to reach up and yank out little Pluto. What’s the big deal, you...
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Bringing up a blog
I’ve spent the better part of this week wandering around in the alphabet-strewn, bits and bytes world of IT, software, hardware, all the stuff that techie geeks do sitting in front of a computer screen....
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People watching
I like people, suspect technology. If I pick up the phone, I’d prefer talking to an inept operator than an efficient machine. Till a year ago, if I wanted a train ticket, I’d prefer wading...
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How do films get rated?
How do films get rated nowadays? The new and “improved” Superman is just out and everyone is making a beeline to see it. Especially kids. All hell broke loose when my six-year-old daughter Damini discovered...
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Sailing through Spiti (Part II)
It’s freezing cold when we leave Losar. The guest house chowkidar tells us the temperature at night is normally sub-zero. So, on that cheerful note, we leave behind Losar’s square white houses, their roofs trimmed...
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Spiti: Swirling box of crayons (Part I)
Spiti has been hovering in our travel consciousness for a while now. We’ve been hovering near Spiti too, but somehow we’ve never quite made it. Last year we reached as close as Kalpa, about 12...
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Trekking to Beas Kund
Seven adults, five kids take a trek to Beas Kund, moving away from the trodden path and opting instead for a route that is spectacular, challenging, and at times, downright tricky. The oldest beyond 40;...
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Bhaji on the bypass
We’re on our way to peace, quiet and stupendous views of the Himalayas in the distant hill station of Kausani in Uttaranchal. Barely an hour out of Delhi, and the cow belt hits you, literally....
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In search of a hero
A review of “Impressions of Bhima” Directed by Veenapani Chawla At British Council Division It’s been almost ten years since Veenapani Chawla attended Eugenio Barba’s theatre laboratory. Ten years, two substantial productions and a few...
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The Enlightened Body
The history and practise of the Indian martial art Kalarippayattu Dawn. Outside, a cool “half-light” heralds the ritual of prayer, as temple bells wake a sleeping village. Inside, however, the flickers of light from a...
