Community radio has a reinvented radio with an FM technology for development. South Asia has had several successful community radio experiments. India has two types of community radio: educational institutions-run radio and NGO-run radio. Anna FM functioning in Anna University is the first community radio station in India. I was lucky to head the radio station.

1. Community Radio in South Asia
DR. I. ARUL ARAM
Professor of Media Sciences
Anna University, Chennai
(Institution with India’s first – Anna CR)

2. What is community radio?
• Community radio has a short range and caters to
the needs of the people in the surrounding area
• Ideally, it is owned, run and maintained by the
community
• It is called popular or educational radio in Latin
America, rural or local radio in Africa, public radio
in Australia, and free or associative radio in
Europe. All these describe the same phenomenon
– gaining voices and democratizing
communication for a community

3. Community radio . . .
• Is very inexpensive and it is owned by the community (it
may cost from Rs. 5 lakh to Rs. 25 lakh to set up a station)
• The signal is broadcast in an FM mode 100 watt
transmitter and it reaches up to 12 km depending on the
topography
• A user can reach the services with a very inexpensive radio
anywhere in the coverage area. Or listen using mobiles
• Can broadcast weather, agricultural information, visits of
higher officials, persons of interest, workshops, camps, call
to the doctor, fire station and emergency services, mandi
prices and availability and workload, local music,
interviews with local officials

4. Important difference . . .
• Does not cost anything to the Government
• May be run by agricultural universities, NGOs,
educational institutions (as representatives of
the community)
• The Government may use it for disaster
management, emergency announcements,
and the like
• Enrichment (life skills) versus instructional

5. Benefits of community radio
• Builds local identity, character and culture through a diversity
of programming and content
• Promotes community access to local community content
• Focuses on specific community issues, concerns and events,
and helps realize local aspirations
• Highlights various interest groups and community
personalities
• Shares local information by giving voice to the voiceless with
the Government
• Provides local people to voice their ideas and share their
knowledge which enables them to solve problems
• Includes minority and marginalized community members

6. . . . Benefits of community radio
• Facilitates mastery of radio equipment and basic
broadcasting techniques
• Promotes democratic process, social change,
development, civil society and good governance
• Acts as a form of public-service broadcasting
independent of government and party politics
• Relies on the community resources it serves
rather than the whole nation
• Complements oral tradition of communication
(such as folk songs)
• Narrowcasting, leading to subaltern public sphere

7. Utility in education
• It can be used for education by broadcasting programmes in
coordination with local communities in their own languages and
dialects
• Translate knowledge gained in science into public health
• Educating farmers in organic farming, millet cultivation, livelihood
generation
• Raising HIV/AIDS awareness
• Creating health and hygiene awareness
• Drug abuse, violence against women, vaccination, childcare
• Training and counselling to women who are socially and
economically disadvantaged
• Guidance in the areas of finance, management, procurement and
marketing
• Help communities get reward in the ethnic areas of painting, singing,
dance, etc

8. Challenges
• Sustainability
• Developing content
• Sharing content
• Capacity building
• Local producers shall produce content with local
people
• Difficulty in developing proposals locally
• Disruptions in electricity, email, fax and
telephone connections
• Technical expertise to service and maintain

9. Successes
• Community involvement promotes citizen-based
governance
• Interest has been mounting from national
governments, regional and international
stakeholders (including UNESCO and UNICEF)
• Community residents take much pride in their
work and culture
• Stakeholders are nurtured in their independent
efforts at improving themselves rather than
relying solely on development funding
• Collaboration among different stakeholders

10. Community radio in India
• 1 February 2004 – Anna FM is India's first
campus 'community' radio, launched at
EMMRC, Anna University
• 16 November 2006 – The Government of India
notified new Community Radio Guidelines
which permit NGOs and other civil society
organizations to own and operate community
radio stations

11. Anna FM 90.4 MHz
• Under the leadership of Dr. R. Sreedhar, Anna FM came into being
in EMMRC, Anna University
• The programmes are produced by both the community (slum
clearance tenement women) and students of the Department of
Media Sciences
• It had strong tie-up with the Department of Science and
Technology, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, the Police
Department, the Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine
(tuberculosis) and the Tamil Nadu AIDS Control Society, and this
reflected in quality content
• Empowerment of underprivileged women: Jameela said, “My
husband bashes me often; but I will not allow my children’s
studies to be spoiled by my husband’s unruly behaviour”
• During my tenure as Director, EMMRC, I recruited one
Selvakumari from the community to work in the radio station

12. The Science for Women project ‘Sakthi Arivayadi’
(Radio Series) funded by DST

13. Science for Women Health and Nutrition for
Women and Children ‘Nalam Peruvai Thozhi’

14. Nutrition workshop to community

15. ‘Planet Earth’ funded by DST
Focal themes of project include
• Water and sanitation
• Bio-diversity
• Greening of locality
• Rainwater harvesting
• Conserving energy
• Climate change – rural radio stations have
documented grassroots perceptions of climate
change as well

16. Capacity building workshop

17. ANNA CR DURING DISASTER
Chennai Flood – Kotturpuram 2015

18. ANNA CR DURING DISASTER
Chennai Flood – Kotturpuram

19. Sangham Radio 90.4 MHz
• The first community-based radio station licensed to an
NGO (as distinct from campus-based radio) was
launched on 15 October 2008, when Sangham Radio,
licensed to Deccan Development Society, in Pastapur
village, Medak district, Telangana state went on the air
• Sangham Radio is backed up by Dalit women collectives
• The community radio station is managed by "General"
Narsamma, with shares from 5,000 women collective
• Apart from this, they have video documentations of
issues to be played for group discussions. Some other
radio stations have video documented issues and put
them on Facebook

20. Nepal’s Radio Sagarmatha 102.4 MHz
• Established by the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists
in 1997
• On the frontlines for fights for freedom of expression and right
to information
• Other aspects of programming include an initiative named
‘Safa Radio: The Clean Air Campaign’ in which the station
works with the Nepal Environmental Scientific Society to
measure air pollution in Kathmandu and broadcasts
information about the capital's air quality
• Though prohibited at first from broadcasting news, the station
airs summaries of daily news stories in a format mixed with
music and broadcasts daily community-news programmes

21. Sri Lanka’s Mahaweli CR
• Sri Lanka is still restricting radio within the government’s fold
• The Mahaweli Community Radio, started in 1979, has
overwhelming response in terms of listenership as well as
active participation
• Programmes revolve around the needs of the target audience
who are mainly farmers – new methods for farming for a settler
population of the Mahaweli Development Project
• It empowered farmers by: providing timely agricultural
information, offering a knowledge base, sharing local
knowledge, bridging local farmers and agri-service delivery
entities, shaping agricultural behaviours, providing knowledge
about new technologies, acting as an effective extension tool,
farmers’ rights, and making authorities responsible

22. Bangladesh's Meghna CR
• Community Radio Meghna, started in 2015, in Bangladesh also
provides farmer information
• The radio is being run in Charfession upazila of Bhola district; a
largest island in Bangladesh
• It is trying to empower the women, especially the adolescents in
the community
• The dropped out adolescent girls of 12-18 years of age are the
future mothers so if they are given proper education and awareness
on reproductive health and hygiene along with skill training then
they will be a productive force in the family.
• The adolescents gain knowledge required for parenting and
conjugal family
• Years earlier, one of my doctoral students Sudhamshu Dahal worked
in a similar CR initiative in Nepal

23. Some focal issues of CR stations
• Social issues
• Health and nutrition
• Environment
• Disaster Management
• Health and hygiene
• Self-motivation
• Personality development
• Science awareness and education
• Career guidance