Dear Sajan,
Thank you very much for the frank comments on the directory. Even as we struggled to get the number of entries that we eventually managed to receive, we do realise that the current number of entries do not reflect the real picture of community broadcasting in the region. In addition to our inability to inspire broadcasters to respond to call for entries, language has been a barrier too. Many community broadcasters in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and countries in the Pacific cannot communicate in English. Many still do not use emails. I hope that these will be overcome as AMARC grows in these countries. The current edition of the directory and the first one as well, are at best seeds for a much comprehensive version to grow in future. Any support from you as well as members of this list will be enthusiastically welcomed. Thanks a lot once again and with warmest regards, Suman From: sajan venniyoor [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2009 10:11 AM To: CR India Subject: Re: [cr-india] AMARC Asia Pacific community Radio directory 2009 Dear Suman, Thank you for issuing the 2009 edition of the AMARC Asia Pacific CR directory. I am afraid I found it rather diasppointing, at least as far as the CR scene in India is concerned. The Directory seems to give the impression that there are just about five (non-operational) CR initiatives in India, along with half a dozen consultants, academic institutions and NGOs with an interest in CR. That is not the case. At the last count, 50 licenses were issued to CR stations in India, of which 45 are now operational, including 40 campus-based CRS. CR stations like Sangham Radio (Pastapur) and Radio Bundelkhand (Orchha) have been running successfully for almost a year now, but they don't figure in the Directory. Anna University's 'Anna FM' completed five years in February this year. The number of production houses, academic institutions and NGOs with an interest in community radio would run into the hundreds. I am also disappointed to see that countries like Thailand, with its hundreds -- if not thousands -- of community radio stations, don't figure in the Directory at all. The manner in which the Directory is compiled leads to these imbalances, I know, but with the accelerating growth of CR in the Asia Pacific, we need to find better ways of putting it together. Documenting CR initiatives in the region could be one of the issues that we discuss at the AMARC Regional Conference in October. warm regards, Sajan On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Suman Basnet <[email protected]> wrote: Dear friends and colleagues, I am very happy to inform you that the second edition of the AMARC Asia Pacific CR directory 2009 is available online at http://asiapacific.amarc.org/index.php?p=2_Conference_Asia_Pacific_2009 and please follow the link in that page. Or you can also directly visit http://amarcwiki.amarc.org/upload/documents/AMARC_CR_Directory_2009_Final.pd f. Please circulate this information in your networks. With warmest regards, Suman
_______________________________________________ cr-india mailing list [email protected] https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
