Public Relations in Grassroots Innovations

Public Relations in Grassroots Innovation
Dr. Manoj Lodha*
Prof. Shashikant Bhagat**
Ms. Anita Dhami***
Abstract:
Public Relations have been an integral part of human communications, since time immoral. It
developed as an art and science in the 20th century. Today, there is no sector, whether it be
Government, Private or NGOs, who do edgy in their operations. The ever escalating cost of
advertising too has contributed to the significant growth of this industry.
While Public Relations, known by other sophisticated names such as advocacy, spin doctor, spin
in-spin out etc, has immensely contributed towards highlighting socio-cultural issues,
development affairs, exploring the innovative inventions, maintaining and harnessing the
organization goodwill in the market. As far as grassroots innovators are concerns they do have
knowledge abundance, and some want to use this knowledge to try things out. Public Relations is
the tool to promote and explore those knowledge abundance across the human being.
Keywords: Grassroots Innovation, Innovators Public Relation Inventions, Innovation.
*-HOD, Department of Journalism, HNGU, Patan, Gujarat, India
**-Faculty, National Institute of Mass Communication and Journalism,
Ahmedabad
***-PR Executive, SETU PR, Ahmedabad

Introduction:
Communication is the basic needs of the society. There are various means, medium and model of
communication have been developed across all sections of society. ‘Communication’ (together
with its twin ‘information’) is perhaps one of the most hyped words in contemporary culture. It
encompasses a multitude of experiences, actions and events, as well as a whole variety of
happenings and meanings, and technologies too. Thus, a conference or a meeting or even a mela
or procession is a ‘communication event’, newspapers, radio, video and television are
‘communication technologies”, and journalists, advertisers, public relations personnel, and even
camera crew and news-readers are ‘communication professionals”.
Public Relations (PR) can be defined as the practice of conveying messages to the public through
the media on behalf of a client, with the intention of changing the public’s actions by influencing
their opinions. It is a systematic effort to create and maintain goodwill of an organization’s
various publics (customers, employees, investors, suppliers, etc) usually through publicity and
other non- paid forms of communication. These efforts may also include support of arts,
charitable causes, education, sporting, events, etc. PR practitioners usually target only certain
segments of the public, since similar opinions tend to be shared by a group of people rather than
an entire society. However, by targeting different audience with different messages to achieve an
overall goal, PR practitioners can achieve widespread opinion and behavior change.
Public relations help our complex, pluralistic society to reach decisions and function more
effectively by contributing to mutual understanding among groups and institutions. It serve to
bring private and public policies into harmony. Public relations help organizations manage
changes, something they must do to stay competitive and efficient. But since change is
threatening and often resisted smooth transition through a necessary change guided by public
relations professionals is a real money- saver. As a management function, public relations
encompass the following:
i) Anticipating analyzing and interpreting public opinion, attitudes, and issues that
might impact, for good or ill, the operations and plans of the organizations.
ii) Counseling management at all levels in the organization with regard to policy
decisions, courses of action and communication, taking into account their public
ramifications and the organization’s social or citizenship responsibilities.
iii) Researching, conducting, and evaluating on a continuing basis, programs of action
and communication to achieve the informed public understanding necessary to

success of an organization’s aim. These may include marketing, financial, fund
raising, employee, community or government relations, and other programs.
iv) Planning and implementing an organization’s efforts to influence or change public
policy. Setting objectives, planning, budgeting, recruiting and training staff,
developing facilities-in short, managing the resources needed to perform all of the
above.
Public relations do seek to persuade people. It can influence what you buy, how you use a
product and what you do to improve your health. Yet the average person may have no real
idea of how omnipresent public relations is in their lives. In fact, most people do not know
what public relations and Critics warn us that the hidden public relations industry is a danger
and that stealth is a strategic choice. A public relations is unseen largely because people
choose not to see it.
Public relations is just below the surface in our daily lives. We can realize its existence and
potential influence on our lives if we critically examine the messages generated by public
relations. Public relations should be able to survive thoughtful interrogations. Those who
would abuse and misuse public relations should fear public relations literacy. The tricks of
these charlatans could and should be exposed. With the evolution and development of new
communication technology public relations has slightly shifted towards online and known as
‘online pr’ which covers almost all dimension of tools which connects the publics.
Review of Literature:
Innovation in developing countries is a wildly unappreciated phenomenon – there are
incredibly interesting things going on in places like India, China and Brazil. Some of them
are built around finding innovative ways to provide goods and services to poorer people at
much lower costs. Turning ideas into new products, services or practices often requires
systematic steps in a process of innovation. Aravind Eye Care and the Tata Nano car are just
two good examples of how this works. Mr.Gupta who is a founder of Grassroots Innovation
Said Grassroots Innovation is normal, useful and creative way of solving the solution of
bottom level people. He is not approaching poor people as consumers, but as inventors.
Grassroots-level, alternative innovation activities recognize the ingenious solutions
continually developed locally to improve livelihoods and promote sustainability. Rooting
innovation in local problems, resources, capabilities and socioeconomic conditions makes it
meaningful to communities, which maintain control over the processes and outcomes.
Grassroots innovation requires adaptable, locally inclusive policies — quite different to the
mainstream.

Development organizations, funders, governments and non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) recently put grassroots innovation back on the agenda. But for practitioners, it never
really went away. Many networks have supported it since the 1970s or earlier, when
organizations like the Intermediate Technology Development Group (founded in 1966, now
called Practical Action) and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation drew initial attention to
grassroots innovation as part of an alternative to the high-technology and large-scale
industrialization dominating development theory and practice.
Diversity of grassroots innovation in terms of technologies, people involved, organizations,
purposes and contexts makes it difficult to define. Overlapping terms such as user-led
innovations, inclusive innovation, social innovation and hacking cultures can add to
confusion. But there is one defining characteristic: grassroots innovation must emerge from,
or be directed towards, local development.
Grassroots innovations develop through networks of activists, practitioners and organizations
generating novel, bottom-up solutions for sustainable development, solutions that respond to
the local situation and communities' knowledge, interests and values. Grassroots innovation
can be viewed from three distinct perspectives, each focusing on a different part of the
process. The local ingenuity perspective focuses on innovations from local groups or
individual inventors. They might be farmers developing irrigation systems or drivers
developing gear trains for their cycle rickshaws. The emphasis is on people innovating for
themselves and their community, perhaps drawing upon traditional and indigenous
knowledge, and occasionally turnings it into social enterprise, sometimes with outside help.
Organizations such as the Honey Bee Network and complementary institutions seek out and
help innovators documenting and developing knowledge, ideas and products, such as a pedal-
powered washing machine and a compost aerator device.
A second perspective focuses on local empowerment resulting when communities and
technology developers interact. Local groups may not be the innovators, but developers make
sure they are fully included in adopting and benefiting from technology, which may even be
mass-produced devices such as solar photovoltaic systems. In other cases, the technology is
deliberately developed with community engagement in the design, manufacture, maintenance
and operation. The emphasis here is on the innovation process as a tool or catalyst for
developing capabilities, relationships and organizational partnerships useful to wider
development processes such as generating revenues, improving security and livelihoods, and
building organizational capacity.
The third perspective is more critical sometimes, dismissing support for small-scale
initiatives and simple technology as romanticizing 'second-class' development. Grassroots
innovation programme are seen as overly optimistic and failing to address the root political,
economic and social causes of poverty, social exclusion and unsustainability — causes that
cannot be changed by working at the local level. Grassroots innovation does little to address
the distribution of power in trade and investment, or the knowledge economies that channel

scientific activities towards the interests of the wealthy and those controlling capital. But
supporters of grassroots innovation counter that bottom-up activity makes these sometimes
unjust economic and social structures all the more visible, and itself serves as criticism of the
exclusions associated with conventional innovation systems.
Grassroots innovators are generating valuable knowledge and experience. The challenge for
scientific research institutions or conventional innovators is to learn how to engage with that
diversity.
Among the available literature, The Author of the book title “Enabling Enterprise
Transformation” by Nagy K. Hanna (2010) traces that in a turbulent global economy, rocked
by market, technological and financial disruptions, innovation and transformation have
become a matter of survival. We live in an increasingly networked, interdependent, fragile
and unstable planet. To ensure sustainability and prosperity, economies and societies must
become smarter. Windows of opportunities are multiplying, but getting shorter. Agility is at a
premium. Possibilities must be explored and expanded by driving all forms of innovation.
Accelerated and orchestrated product, process and business model innovations have become
essential to capture the new opportunities. And making innovation work means aligning
knowledge and innovation platforms with business strategy and managing the accompanying
institutional change and learning.
According to Prof. Anil Gupta (2000) in his remarkable search on grassroots innovation and
mentioned title “Grassroots Movements” under author of the “Village in the future” by
Detlef Virchow and Joachim Von Barun stated that the grassroots movements can be seen as
a means of improving participation in decision making by the rural development activities
can their sustainability be ensured. The key impacts of grassroots movements have been (a)
the increased economic emancipation and social integration of specific sections of the
population (women and youth) into the society as well as the acceptance of the rural
population in general, (b) pressure on the state for becoming more accountable towards the
urges of the people at grassroots, and modify policies accordingly, (c) make research and
development systems more sensitive to the problems of the people at grassroots, (d) help
rural poor become actors in their own development and (e) learn from the innovations and
solutions developed by grassroots innovators on their own without outside help. As has
recently been seen, grassroots movements also play a significant part in fostering good
governance at the national and international levels.
Grassroots innovation is a further investment in a better rural future. The emphasis is on what
people already know in rural areas, on their knowledge systems, and on their ways of doing
things. It looks at their already existing capacities for innovation, for producing new ways of
thinking and of acting, new technologies, new ways of marketing, etc. the idea is to make the
rural societies dynamic not through the process of receiving knowledge either through
modern communication technologies or through formal systems of education but through the

creation of new systems of knowledge based on local perspectives, on already existing
systems of knowledge and on local capacities for innovation.
Objectives:
This study aims to find out:
1. Awareness about grassroots innovation among people at all levels.
2. Public Relations and its effectiveness to create awareness and bridging gap between three
entities i.e. Innovators, Organizations and Entrepreneurs.
3. Concerns over to not reaching to the people despite of doing different information
diffusion media tools and tactics.
Research Design and Methodology:
The research design helps to draw inference from the outcomes. In keeping view of extensive
secondary resources available for the research, we have taken up some 100 sample which
comprises PR professionals, PR agencies, Grassroots Innovators, general publics, scientist, and
professors which they are directly or indirectly somewhere connected with grassroots innovators.
Questionnaire survey, telephonic interview, personal meeting methods have been taken during
data and response collected period. It took 2 and half months to conclude the final study.
Results and Discussion:
India is a country where everything are diversified in nature which comprise in
states, cast, culture, religion and most strong in value systems. The country where
still 70% of people lives in rural area where there ideas are generated from roots
and that transform into development, used in various sectors by the government,
non-government, private & public, individual and collective entrepreneurs. One of
the root area is grassroots innovations where rural technologies are used by farmers
and villagers who have devised creative solutions to address their basic needs for
food, shelter and sanitation. SRISTI and Honeybee Network, which is part of
National Innovation, which supports grassroots innovations of India has compiled
a database 10,000 inventions and patents approx1,50,000 pioneered by rural
entrepreneurs, especially in rural areas.
Now, it is strongly believe that the only way India can sustain its long-term
economic growth is by unleashing and harnessing the creativity of its grassroots
inventions which lives in rural areas. But, there is challenge that these innovative
inventions have not getting momentum and space in government and
entrepreneurs’ sphere. What is missing here is lack of awareness and mechanism to

cross-pollinate and scale up these bright and nexus ideas among India’s 6,
00,000 villagers and over 250 million agriculture community.
Finds and observations are making here a strong points that there should be more
focused on grassroots innovations awareness and awakening which fosters,
motivate and persuade to adopt grassroots inventions. The persistent and dedicated
work of NIF under Prof. Anil Gupta and his leadership requires more exploration
in his documented fields such as agriculture, animal and human medicines, herbal
drugs, mechanical devices, rural technologies from the informal and unorganized
sector of rural people. There should be space given in all mass media through
which news, views and information to reach out to all people of country living in
various in parts and the world too.
An attempt to make from this dissertation to find out where is the loophole in mass
awareness. From the study we have seen that television and newspapers and
internet media are still favorites among people choice. But all forms of media, PR
agencies, PR Consultant needs to focus on exploring such unique inventions.
Last but not the least I would recommend that various tools which are used in
awareing grassroots innovations but four key essential areas in mass media like
technology, content, access and awareness are needs more attention in grassroots
innovations.
FORMAT OF QUESTIONNAIRE
FOR GENERAL PUBLIC
Title : Role of Public Relation in Grassroots Innovations
Name:
Age:
Gender: Female Male
Status: Married Unmarried
Education:
Occupation:
1. Which medium do you access more?
Television Web Newspaper Radio

Magazine Mobile
Any Other
Which Medium do you use for gaining information?
Newspaper Book Web Television
Magazine Radio All
2. Have you ever heard about Public Relations (PR)?
Yes No
3. What according to you is Public Relation?
PR is a mutual relationship between organization and people.
PR is just a publicity or propagandaand moreover advertisement
No Idea
Something Else
4. Do you know Public Relations tools? Yes No
5. If Yes then name few
6. Do you know about GrassrootsInnovation? Yes No
7. Have you ever read the column “Minds of the Margin” writes by Prof. Anil
Gupta in DNA Newspaper on every Sunday? Yes No
8. How do you come to know about Grassroots Innovation?
Newspaper Magazine/Newsletter Pamphlets / Periodicals /
Journals Govt/NGO Events Any Other_________
9. Do you aware of an event which organized by SRISTI?
Yes No Specify the Impact:_________
10.Have you ever visited any event which is being conducted by SRISTI?
*********************************************
FOR GRASSROOTS INNOVATORS AND NGO’S INVOLVED
Title : Role of Public Relation in Grassroots Innovations
Name:
Age:
Gender: Female Male
Status: Married Unmarried

Education:
Occupation:
1. Do you know what Public Relations is? Yes No
2. Do you think Public Relations play an important role for building image of
any organization? Yes No
3. How frequently do you approach to media?
Once in a Month Twice in a month In a week In 6 month
4. Where do you find difficulty for aware people about Grassroots Innovations?
5. Do you find any impact through an event organized in PRSIAhmedabad
Chapter?
Good Bad Average Excellence
6. Which medium do you use more for approaching to masses?
Newspaper Television Radio Magazine Web
Newsletter Pamphlet Any Other
7. What way do you like to read “Minds of the Margin” which published in
daily newspaper DNA on every Sunday?
Content wise Editorial wise Circulation wise
Any Other
8. Do you find any impact through “Minds of the Margin” by Prof. Anil Gupta?
Yes No
9. How frequently do you organize events?
Once in a month Twice in a month Once in a 3 month
Any other
10.Do you feel that there is need of better communication Strategy to create
more awareness among people about Grass RootInnovation?
Yes No
***********************************
On the basis of above questionnaire we took responses from 100 respondents for
both questionnaire-1 and 2 about the Grassroots Innovation. All the respondents

from different walks of life like Business men, Journalist and PR Professionals,
Professors, Collage and University students, Innovators, NGO and Research
Scholars.
FINDINGS & ANAYLSIS FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE-1 i.e. RESPONSES FROM
THE GENERAL PUBLIC:
1. Which medium do you access more?
Television Web Newspaper Radio
Magazine Mobile
Any Other
Table-1
From the total 100 responses about the media access TV, Web, Newspapers, and
Mobile are the favorites among all available media. Radio, Magazine and other media
are still finding their ways to reach out the people.
17%
27%
26%
4%
3%
23%
0%
Respondent
T.V Web Newspaper Radio Magazine Mobile Other
Medium Respondent
T.V 15
Web 24
Newspaper 23
Radio 3
Magazine 3
Mobile 20
Other 0

2. Which Medium do you use for gaining information?
Newspaper Book Web Television
Magazine Radio All
Table-2
In information technology age people are more reluctant to access web, newspapers
and TV media for getting information than the radio, magazine and other media. There
are also witness that 9% of people prefer to access all available media which alarming
more attention to lure people to watch.
24%
8%
33%3%
6%
15%
11%
Respondent
Newspaper Book Web Radio Magazine T.V All
Medium Respondent
Newspaper 19
Book 6
Web 26
Radio 2
Magazine 5
T.V 12
All 9

3. Have you ever heard about Public Relations (PR)?
Yes No
Table-3
40 people know about the public relations among all respondent which very less in our
country and more attention is required to put in forward for visualizing the importance of
public relations.
95%
5%
Respondent
Yes No
PR
Awareness Respondent
Yes 40
No 2

4. What according to you is Public Relations?
PR is a mutual relationship between organization and people.
PR is just a publicity or propaganda and moreover advertisement
No Idea
Something Else
PR Awareness Respondent
PR isa mutual relations 33
PR isjustPublicity/
Propaganda/Advertisement 5
No Idea 2
Table-4
In response to above question 82% of people which comprise 33 says that a public
relations is a mutual relations between organization and the public. 13% people said
that PR is just publicity, propaganda and advertisement while 5% have no idea about
public relations. There are some different responses come from the respondent says
that in following ways:
 PR has a wide definition which includes media masses, organization,
government, NGOs etc.
 Public Relations is unpaid form of communication and has a direct relations with
the public.
 Public Relations is bridge between the organization and media.
82%
13%
5%
Respondent
PR is a mutual relations PR is just Publicity/ Propaganda/Advertisement No Idea

5. Do you know Public Relations tools? Yes No
PR
Yes 34
No 10
Table-5
This is a very great significant that from the above diagram 77% of respondent knows
tools of public relations which shows that people somewhere uses public relations
personally and professionally to express news, views and information.
77%
23%
Respondent
Yes No

6. If Yes then name few
In response to naming few tools through which they come across are:
 Press Conference
 Personal Interaction
 Press Releases
 News Articles
 Magazines
 Web/New Media specially social media networking
 Newspapers
 Television
 Event
 Press Note
 Journals
 Interview
 Media/Press Visit
 Newsletters
 House Journals
 Outdoor Publicity
 Brochure, Pamphlet.
 Seminar and mouth publicity
From the above listed tools, it can be said that people very aware about the role and
functioning of pr tools which is indeed a great extent.

7. Do you know about Grassroots Innovation? Yes No
GRI
Yes 33
No 14
Table-6
It is good to see that 70% of respondent know about the grassroots innovation while
remaining 30% of respondent are of the opinion that they heard about grassroots or
jugaad technology but how it is an innovation, this is not clear in their mind.
70%
30%
Respondent
Yes No

8. Have you ever read the column “Minds of the Margin” writes by Prof. Anil
Gupta in DNA Newspaper on every Sunday? Yes No
NOTE: “Minds of the Margin” is column appeared on DNA
every Sunday writes by Prof. Anil Gupta.
Table-7
“Minds of the Margin” is a regular column which appeared on every Sunday in daily
newspaper known as “DNA” published from Ahmedabad edition. He focused to explore
new ideas about the grassroots innovation which he gathered from his “Shodh Yatra”
and through some other initiatives. 69% of the respondent read that column to know
about recent updates in this field. So far as his column is concerned he wrote 77
columns till to-date (retrieved from DNA website on 10/06/2012) in DNA.
31%
69%
Respondent
Yes No
Mindsof
the Margin Respondent
Yes 13
No 29

9. How do you come to know about Grassroots Innovation?
Newspaper Magazine/Newsletter Pamphlets / Periodicals / Journals
Govt/NGO Events Any Other
Table-8
From the above diagram it has shown that event is one of the favorable tool through
which grassroots innovation could put forward in display and exhibit to more people.
59% and 22% respondents respectively feel that event and Govt. and NGOs are more
conducive platform to create awareness about grassroots innovation among people.
22%
11%
0%8%
59%
Respondent
Newspaper Magazine/Newsletter
Pamphlets/ Periodicals/Journals
Govt/NGO Events
Mediumwhich awares GRI Respondent
Newspaper 6
Magazine/Newsletter 3
Pamphlets/
Periodicals/Journals 0
Govt/NGO 2
Events 16

10.Do you aware of an event which organized by SRISTI?
Events Organized
By SRISTI Respondent
Yes 15
No 28
Table-9
From the above table-9 it reveals that 35% are aware with an event organized by the
SRISTI whereas 65% are not aware with an event conducted b y SRISTI. Recently we
have seen that Food Festival and PRSI Ahmedabad Chapter have conducted seminar
to talk about the Grassroots Innovation and invited Professor Anil Gupta, later on it has
seen that some of the volunteers joined hands to work with SRISTI.
35%
65%
Respondent
Yes No

11.Have you ever visited any event which is being conducted by SRISTI?
Events Visitedby
People Respondent
Yes 18
No 25
Table-10
As table 9 shown that people have know some of the event organized by SRISTI. Now
in this table 58% respondent have visited SRISTI events to know, feel and observed
various technology and techniques used in Grassroots innovation. Only 42%
respondents have not visited any of an event which alarms that campaign, publicity, and
branding have not been used extensively to create awareness.
42%
58%
Respondent
Yes No

FINDINGS & ANAYLSIS FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE-2 i.e. RESPONSES FROM
GRASSROOTS INNOVATION:
1. Do you know what Public Relation is? Yes No
Awareness
about PR Respondent
Yes 19
No 2
Table-11
From the above table which shows that 86% people from grassroots innovations knows
about public relations while 14% are not aware with the concept of public relations. The
people who don’t know about PR may assume that they might be using in some other
way but technically they don’t know.
86%
14%
Respondent
Yes No

2. Do you think Public Relations play an important role for building image of
any organization? Yes No
PR build image of the
company Respondent
Yes 18
No 3
Table-12
As public relations is an image building tool for a company or an organization.
Interestingly respondent also accepted that PR plays an important and pivotal role in
sustaining and maintaining harmonious relationship between people and the
organization. As far as grassroots innovation is concern SRISTI and allied organization
uses the frequent popular tools to disseminate the information about what’s going in /
out in the organization. But, here also be noted that 14% people may or may not agree
in influence power of PR which is to be a concern and that has also to be taken care.
86%
14%
Respondent
Yes No

3. How frequently do you approach to media?
Once in a Month Twice in a month In a week In 6 month
Approach to
Media Respondent
Once in a Month 1
Twice ina month 1
In a week 10
In a 6 month 2
Table-13
From the above table-13, shown that 72% people use and approach in a week to see,
share and talk about the grassroots innovation is good in exploration of the innovators’
innovations. While rest of the respondent says that approaching to the media depends
upon the requirement of the organization’s activity.
7%
7%
72%
14%
Respondent
Once in a Month Twice in a month In a week In a 6 month

4. Where do you find difficulty to aware people about Grass Root Innovation?
All those people who have been associated and actively engaged with grassroots
innovations directly or indirectly are having following opinions while finding difficulties in
awaring the people:
 Sensitizing planner / Policy Maker / Academicians and Researchers
 Means to create awareness to people about grassroots innovations are very
limited and not affordable.
 Multi-Language database.
 Access to the channel which communicates Grassroots Innovation.
 The concept of grassroots innovation might be communicated incorrectly or
misunderstood.
 Pre-conceive notion that grassroots innovations are not useful or important.
 Yes, people know about innovation but to understand grassroots innovations,
people takes much time and understand slowly and steadily.
 Takes time to reach out and accept people about Grassroots Innovations (GRI).
 Convincing people about GRI is difficult task.
 Difficult to explain in their language.
 Needs to design innovating mass tools which every people understand it
irrespective of their geography boundary and to touch to their feet, heart and
mind tools about GRI.
 It’s difficult for entrepreneur to take GRI forward and encourage people for its
usability.
The above comments from respondents reveal that still massive and guerilla kind of
promotional activities required to create more and more awareness among people
and entrepreneurs to take this forward so that feel that indigenous things are living
among us.

5. Do you find any impact through an event organized in PRSI Ahmedabad
Chapter?
Good Bad Average Excellence
Impact Through
PRSI Respondent
Good 3
Bad 0
Average 8
Excellent 1
Table-14
Above diagram shows that 67% people find average impact through different organized
events organized by SRISTI and rest are having different impact in mix of good, bad
and excellent.
25%
0%
67%
8%
Respondent
Good Bad Average Excellent

6. Which medium do you use more for approaching to masses?
Newspaper Television Radio Magazine Web
Newsletter Pamphlets Any Other
MediumUse for
Approaching Respondent
Newspaper 15
T.V 15
Radio 6
Magazine 5
Web 8
Newsletter 7
Pamphlets 5
AnyOther 4
Table-15
Again here newspaper and television are most frequent medium which is also useful in
disseminating information about grassroots innovations. Other available media require more
attention to feel that gap and efforts should be put from both mass media and organizations
involved in grassroots innovations.
23%
23%
9%
8%
12%
11%
8%
6%
Respondent
Newspaper T.V Radio Magazine Web Newsletter Pamphlets Any Other

7. What way do you like to read “Minds of the Margin” which published in
daily newspaper DNA on every Sunday?
Content wise Editorial wise Circulation wise
Any Other
SelectionOfDNA For Minds Of The
Margin Respondent
ContentWise 11
Editorial wise 1
CirculationWise 2
AnyOther 1
Table-16
“Content is the king of contemporary media” which again here reflecting that 73% of the
respondent likes to read the content of the minds of the margin. But here are some respondent
who feels that it should appear in national and vernacular language too so that it can reach out
to many people and media must give some space.
73%
7%
13%
7%
Respondent
Content Wise Editorial wise Circulation Wise Any Other

8. Do you find any impact through “Minds of the Margin” by Prof. Anil Gupta?
Yes No
Impact Through Mindsof the
margin Respondent
Yes 15
No 2
Table-17
Regular reader of the column are of the opinion that yes it does impact on the reader’s
mind which quite interesting to visualize that column and advertorial and editorial are
important tools in public relations which creates favorable opinion about goods and
services. Here 12% of respondent do not much like to read the column which might
draw some reasons towards language, technical words and not adjusting in the reader’s
mind.
88%
12%
Respondent
Yes No

9. How frequently do you organize event?
Once in a month Twice in a month Once in a 3 month
Any other
Frequencyof organizing
events Respondent
once in a month 11
Twice ina month 5
Once in a 3 month 0
AnyOther 3
Table-18
People who active in grassroots innovation with the organizations saying that events and
promotion activities are organizes monthly wise in every corner of the country to create
awareness among all people about grassroots innovations but it is just occupying 58% which
requires more attention of that by organizing every 15 days wise depending on the place and
people participation.
58%26%
0% 16%
Respondent
once in a month Twice in a month Once in a 3 month Any Other

10.Do you feel that there is need of better communication Strategy to create
more awareness among people about Grass Root Innovation?
Yes No
Needfor bettercommunication
Strategy Respondent
Yes 20
No 1
Table-19
95% of the respondent says that they feel that more and more awareness needed in grassroots
innovation and different-different communication strategies should be deployed depending on
the nature of communication programme.
95%
5%
Respondent
Yes No

Conclusion and Recommendations:
Some more suggestions and recommendations proposing in context to media communication
mix which invariably construe towards the public relations tools:
To take it forward my suggestions I would like to give some inputs which have collected orally
by Dr. Nitin Maurya with personal talk and he said that:
resource people are not multi-tasking to meet deadline with media to transmit
messages/information to reach out at the right time to the public.
Government machineries are also supporting us but we want more involvement so that
grassroots innovations reach to all level of publics.
We receive general queries and feedback through rediff.com, telephone calls, e-mails
and some of print publications.
Entrepreneurs do come to approach us for seeking new product development with
grassroots techniques and if they find to fit in their requirements they adopt and
purchase.
We (SRISTI) also participate in the exhibition at local, national and international level
for displaying our innovations so, that people come to know and ask their inner most
queries on the spot.
We choose the mass medium to diffuse information according to the technology and
likely to accept by maximum people.
One thing he interestingly insisted that while asking about using of traditional media that
we do not use frequent such medium, we used in the past and developed some folk lore
and folk songs during our shodh yatra.
We have not participated in rural market but used road side market, rural fair, roadside
meeting only during the shodh yatra.
Some more suggestions: -
After knowing different facts which are based on my dissertation and some of the inside-outside
conversations with people who are directly or indirectly associated with the grassroots
innovations, I must say that lot of efforts being put forwarded to disseminate the news, views and
information about the innovations. But, there are need of some improvements in the areas of
media and public relations. As the research findings says that still lot of people do not know
about what is grassroots innovations, the reasons may be anything but the fact of matter is
medium uses for information dissemination are not effectively been reaching out to the all
people. There are almost all medium have been used in great extent to reach out to people but
influence, pervasiveness and persuasion are not impacting them, may be due to language,
technical words or due to inconsistency of messages.

But to overcome or to eliminate of these short comings I wish to propose some tools and
techniques which are used in public relations:
1. Use of regular traditional medium like puppet shows, story telling, folk drama should be
developed in all regional, national and international language so that people can
understand easily and recognize the grassroots innovations.
2. Features and advertorial could play vital role and it must pass through all forms of mass
media.
3. FTII, NSD, NFAI, Central and State Information Department and some research
organizations should come forward to take the initiatives through their wings and aligned
institutions.
4. Academic fraternity and students should take up some offline projects to come out with
new findings.

REFERNCES:
 Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions
(SRISTI)
 NATIONAL INNOVATION OF FOUNDATION (NIF)
 Tripathy Manoranjan, Public Relations Bridging Technologies and Monitoring
Public & The Media, Chapter-1, Page-No 1&2, Authors Press Publisher of
Scholarly Book, Delhi, 2011
 Indra Gandhi National Open University, Principles and Functions of Public
Relations 2, Unit-3 Function of Public Relation Structure Page-39.
 Reddi C.V.Narasimha, Effective Public Relations and Media Strategy, Page-No
3,4,46,53,54,59, PHI Learning Private Limited, New Delhi, 2009
BIBLOGRAPY:
 Levy Stuart, Public Relations and Integrated Communications, Lotus Press, New
Delhi, 2009
 Parthasarathy M.K, Corporate Communication, Apple Publishing International (P)
Ltd, Chennai, 2010.
 Fernandez Joseph, Corporate Communications, Response Books, New Delhi,
2004
 Hanna Nagy K, Enabling Enterprise Transformation, Spring New York Dordrecht
Heidelberg, London, 2010
 Virchow Detlef and Barun Joachim Von, Village in the future, Spring New York
Dordrecht Heidelberg, London, 2010.
 http:/www.voteforus.com/publicrelationshistory.html
 www.sristi.org/hbnew/scout.php
 www.sristi.org/cms/activities
 www.nif.org
 www.nif.org.in/bd

Public Relations in Grassroots Innovations

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