 Namaskar. We welcome you today to Krishnakanta Handic State Open University. And today in our studio we have with us Dr. R. Shridhar who is an eminent media educational broadcaster and professor emeritus and he is also a pioneer in the field of community radio service in the country. And today we are going to talk with him regarding community radio stations and its functioning and the role of community radio stations in the society. Welcome you sir. Thank you, welcome. So, first of all we would like to know from you the main philosophy behind the setting up of a community radio station and how is it different from a public service broadcaster such as all India Radio. Thank you, you have also very nice question. What is community radio? When we have got all India Radio, national channel, regional channel and they have got a local radio channel and why and there are lot of commercial radio station, commercial FM they call it the lot of radio station. What is the need for a community radio station? The philosophy of community radio station is you know they always call it for the people, by the people, after people, from the people. So, any media is for the people. So, if you take all India radio they have to do programs for the people. You know this is the scheme of the government of India, government of Assam, you have to apply like this for scholarship, you will get farmers will get this subsidy all sorts of thing they will inform you. Doctor will come and say be careful, this is this is Chikungunya, this is Malaria they will come and tell you that, that is to inform you, to educate you and to give entertainment. This is normal radio, what is community radio? It is by the people, after people and from the people. This is the philosophy of community radio, that is it should give voice to voiceless. So, it should create grass root leaders, you have seen local newspapers, small, small, gahati times. Similarly, we should have local radio, which is see if you are having a temple, there is a festival today. If all India radio will not take care, because all India radio will have to take care of entire Assam and private radio station will ask you money, but you are having a particular colony or a particular place, where there is a temple or a church or a mosque, there is a festival. Where is the way we can tell people to come? There is a polio camp, particular area may doctors have come, how will you tell? You need a medium and audio medium is the best medium, make a phone call, can talk, can tell the people. So, the community radio is for the voice of the voiceless, giving voice to them and giving information to them, giving entertainment to them and they themselves will give the information. Like the citizen reporter, they will give you information, they will sing song, you will get new singers can identify that is the community radio. Sir, since now we know what our community radio station is. It is not, we have many all India radio. Yes. India radio starts with morning, one day mother many ends with Janakanmana and then you will be talking about what is needed for that particular people or for a particular day. They are not bothered about world AIDS day, world TB day and all, why should we bother. If there is something immediately malaria take, talk about that. Sir, what kind of measures can be adopted in order to strengthen or boost the volume and diversity of the kind of programs that are made in a particular community radio station? See, community radio station should open the door. They should not be like this in a compound wall. Somebody should come into the first floor, second floor and then they have to see and normally we advise them to keep it on the come away from the compound wall. Any villager, any community the door should be open, then they will open their mind and then you cannot do programs by a professional anchor RJ radio jockey and then they coming and doing a program editing it. Programs is produced by them, they should be the anchor, they should be RJ, they should be the interviewer and they will tell about dengue or malaria in their own folk music. Just find out, if they are convinced malaria is coming like this and they put some music in it and as a beautiful tune may they will do it, then people will have remembering capability. What you call in media, how much they remember, recapture. So, you have to do this, if they do it in their own language, they have understood the meaning, they are able to, so community radio should see the impact. If I say take iron tablet during pregnancy, if I say go to the doctor once in three months and if the child is born without operation, a good weight of 2.5 kgs, then they have listened to radio and has become practicing it. That is what community radio should do, it should not preach, it should practice. That means the door should be open, that is all. And then one thing is, community radio is not only for your university, in Gauhati that can be only three radio stations, but that must be 300 schools, 3 and 2 colleges, universities, NGOs, they are not going to get a license, only three of you got the license. So, what about, why do not you open the door to them, they also want to do some programs, schools, colleges, give them some time, variety, so your load will come down and so give them, give them the chance to do it. Sir, do you suggest some ways how to approach our community? Have you had, you are already having an advisory committee, so community you have more members in that, talk to them, say how they will tell you in my locality that is a beautiful singer, in my locality so and so can do a good announcement, so get their suggestions from them and then have a meeting of all NGOs, education institutions, universities, colleges, schools and tell them we have got the radio, do you have talent, give us programs, they can even record the program and edit and give it to you, so you should open the door, you are a open university. Sir, if we are talking about the present world, we are seeing that a digital revolution is taking place in almost every field and we are sure that the world of broadcasting will not remain untouched by this phenomenon, so what kind of approaches should a community radio station adopt in order to survive in this particular digital world, digital revolution that is coming or how can we as you have said to increase the impact of a community radio station, what kind of measures can we take in the digital world? You see community radio should also live along with digital radio, so you have to link your Facebook, Twitter, social media with the community radio, you must be on the internet, you must be on the mobile, having said that India is becoming digital, may be in three years or five years time, India will have digital radios, so your community radio also will become digital, that means the radio will become a visual radio, now radio is an audio medium, so you can add visuals when digital comes, so it becomes radio vision or visual radio, that is a different question but speaking both of us is audio, whether it is telephone or mic or radio, digital, analog, speaking will never change, audio will remain, so community radio may take and do another format, community radio may become a digital radio but this audio conversation will remain till the human beings are there, so we have to join with the digital revolution but that will take a few years time, so we presently we can link our radio with the social media. That will also increase the reach of the particular station. See people want publicity today, if you do not have, even if you give gold, I am giving you gold come and take it, unless you tell people that I am having gold, nobody is going to, I am going to give you food, you should give publicity, today I am going to give you food free of cost, come and take it but that also needs publicity, so your community radio also needs publicity, there are, they have got 800 TV channels, so many newspapers, magazines, why should they bother about community radio, you should go and publicize your, publicity is essential and you know today it is the funding, the government money is very limited, private people will not give you money unless they have citizenship, so there is a new term called crowd funding, the content should also be crowd sourced, how is Facebook and Twitter content, how is Amazon is working, Flipkart is working, they have a website, I want to sell this, I am writing, somebody wants to buy it, they do it, so the content is given by crowd, content is sold by crowd, content is purchased by crowd, so community radio content also should come from the crowd, not from you, not from RJs, not from Bollywood, the content should come from crowd and the crowd also should fund it. Sir, since we are, as you have said that community radio is of the people and By the people, from the people. From the people, so what kind of role community radio station can play in improving the livelihood condition of a particular community. See, first of all this thinking you know, I know everything, the community does not know anything, this is how I am very rich, my conditions are very good, this condition is very bad, this is what we are normally thinking, you know you keep clean, you have to keep the house clean and all we are telling because I am clean, so you also keep, this should change, cleanliness should come from them, so you give them only the mic, let them discuss, let them come to a solution, sir in order to get out the mosquitoes, I must buy a net, it should come from them, somebody should tell them, sir I use this cream, I have got allergy, my child has got allergy, sir I use this coil, I am not able to breathe, so what is the solution, somebody will say I am using the mosquito net, so problem analysis solution should come from the crowd, in commercial radio they will say this soap is the best, so and so is using it, Shah Rukh Khan is using it, Kamal, M M Malani is using it, you buy this, that is another way, in all India radio they will say do not use chemical soaps, here they should come out what we used by my elders, what this soap has done for somebody, therefore we will, so everything should come from the community, and that particular community, they should interview the doctor, they should ask the question, they should ask the lawyer, not U R J, and may be that particular community itself has a doctor on an expert in among themselves, yes they should, you can only tell the doctor, sir government of India has identified government of Assam, these are our problems, adolescent girls or nutritious food or vaccination, immunization, these are our problems are malaria, but he should understand what is the problem of that community. Sir lastly I want to ask what kind of steps or measures can a community radio station can take to maximize its impact, maximize its reach and impact mostly in the present times. You see you again and again I want to repeat, open the doors, allow the community to come and speak, and then by word of mouth, by their own feeling, their own experience, the community will come to know that it is their radio, and when a lot of people are listening, your quality will go and your funds will come. So the one thing common between you, Krishna Ganta and the Co-opern University and the radio station is open the door to the public. And sir one more thing, sir since you have been related to this particular field from the very beginning, you were the pioneer who started the Anna University station, so it has been a long time till today. So what are your experiences, what can you say, what kind of you know improvement has been done in society. See when we started it, we started only for educational institutions. Nobody knows what is the community radio, what is the power, how to set up, what is the cost, nobody knew. So we tried our experiment. Our intention was to get 5000 radio stations in one year, but unfortunately elections came, another party came. By the time the new party understood what is community radio, 3-4 years have gone, but in India still the bureaucracy, red tape is very much there. And since community radio deals with spectrum free, because of the India spectrum scams, court cases, even today we have only 200 radio stations, after 15 years. Every year we are selling you, we will have 1000 stations, 5000 stations, government has given 100 crores. Government has given 100 crores in 2013 till today, not even 5 crores have been spent. So money is still there, license is not being given. And people, there are very good stations, very good stations which is making even 2 crore revenue. There are many stations which has closed down also. But I am not happy with the development. I think community radio license should be online real time process. If you are having already details, upload it. If the frequency is available you should get it next day. It is not a very big, once you are eligible you should get your license. That should be online. I do not know when it will happen. Sir, what would you like to say to the young people, young mass communicators who are coming up and maybe who are interested in working in the field of broadcasting at the community level, at the grass root level. Maybe there would be a new ray of hope with the coming of young people. Young people today, I go to all mass communication institute in the country and for other countries. They are all thinking first to go into films, film producer. Second they think they want to go to advertisement. Third they want to go to public relations. Fourth they want to go to television. Fifth they want to go to RJ for a commercial effort. Nobody wants to go to community radio. But I do not know about Assam. In my university, the first community radio, the first batch of students who worked in my community radio station. Within two years, seven of them were selected by BBC. At 10 lakhs per year. As early as 2007, the salary was 10 lakhs per year. Seven people. And then one girl became the best anchor in the whole Tamil Nadu. And there are people who are working in other TV channels. But they are all working with grass roots. Working with community radio will give you good salary. Working community radio will understand the real plight of our people. And working community radio is thrill and happiness. One of my vice chancellor used to tell me, let your student go and interview one person from the poverty line, below the poverty line. One interview in depth. They said your student is innocent. So he is going to interview. So he will go to his house, stay there, take a chai, take something, talk to them. Then he will understand that the shoe that he is wearing, cost is the income of one year of the family. So the student will understand the real situation. And because he is innocent, he is not like an intelligent RJ. So he will ask very basic questions. So the interview will become interesting. And the student will have a change of mind to help the community. So let them not think that community radio is not paying. Community radio is really, if they put their mind in it, they can even become a director of a community radio station. And this could be a very good beginning. Very good beginning father. So sir, thank you so much for being with us today. And thank you for sharing your valuable information, suggestions and inputs with us. We thank you from that part of the interview. Thank you. When your radio station was started, we thought we will add 100 radio stations in Northeast. Unfortunately we still have 3 or 4 stations. I hope Northeast gets 100 stations. Thank you very much. We are hopeful for that sir. Thank you so much. Thank you.