Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee
World Radio Day
13 February is observed as the World Radio Day.
Radio, besides being one of the most popular mass
medium is also recognized as a powerful communication tool and a low cost
medium. Radio is specifically suited to reach remote communities and vulnerable
people: the illiterate, the disabled, women, youth and the poor, while offering
a platform to intervene in the public debate, irrespective of people’s
educational level. Furthermore, radio has a strong and specific role in
emergency communication and disaster relief.
There is also a changing face to radio services, which
in the present times of media convergence, are taking up new technological
forms.
The
first experimental radio broadcast in India took place in Bombay (now Mumbai)
in 1921. More systematic radio broadcasts began in 1923 through radio clubs
located in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bombay and Madras (now Chennai). The Radio Club of Bombay broadcast the first
programme in 1923. This was followed by the setting up of a Broadcasting
Service that went on air on July 23, 1927 in Bombay under an agreement between
the Government of India and a private company named The Indian Broadcasting
Company Ltd. It marked the beginning of organised broadcasting in India.
Calcutta began its service five weeks later.
The first ever news bulletin in the
country went on air from the Bombay Station on July 23, 1927. A month later on
August 26, 1927 a news bulletin in Bengali was started from the Calcutta
Station. Until 1935, two bulletins, one each in English and Hindustani
were broadcast from Bombay and a bulletin in Bengali and English was broadcast
from Calcutta.
The Indian Broadcasting Company went into
liquidation in March, 1930 following which broadcasting came under the direct
control of the Government of India. It was Sir John Reith, founder and the
first Director General of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who persuaded
the Government to have a national broadcasting service for India. The
Government appointed a BBC producer Lionel Fielden as the chief architect and
controller of what was initially named the Indian State Broadcasting Service
under the department of ‘Controller of Broadcasts’. It was renamed All
India Radio on June 8, 1936. (It also came to be known as Akashvani in
1956)
The breakthrough in news
broadcasting came after January 1936 when the first news bulletin from the
Delhi Station went on air on January 19, 1936 coinciding with the start of its
transmission. Besides, news bulletins in English and Hindustani, talk
shows on current affairs were also started in both the languages.
Decades later, Radio is still the most dynamic,
reactive and engaging medium there is, adapting to 21st century changes
and offering new ways to interact and participate. Where social media and
audience fragmentation can put us in media bubbles of like-minded people, radio
is uniquely positioned to bring communities together and foster positive
dialogue for change. By listening to its audiences and responding to their
needs, radio provides the diversity of views and voices needed to address the
challenges we all face.
This precisely is the theme of this year’s Radio Day:
Dialogue, Tolerance and Peace.
Moral Victory
After Kolkata Police-CBI spat and
Supreme Court advisory- both TMC and BJP are claiming ‘moral victory’ over one
anther. Now, it is beyond my comprehension, how in case of a war- both the warring
parties can claim victory.
Politics, in deed is the art of
impossible.
Valentine Day
Valentine Day, which is observed on 14
February, has a long and colorful history. And like in many other occasions-
its history has different versions. The details differ- but one common aspect remains:
celebration of love. Over a period of time Valentine Day has become synonymous
with celebration of love.
Cut to present times, when everything-
every emotion, every occasion have been commoditized. Market, now, has turned
Valentine Day into a day of buying gifts (gold and diamonds and expensive
perfumes are specially recommended) and eating out in fancy restaurants.
Advertisements urging you to buy gifts and stuff for your beloved floods media
and marketplace weeks before the D-day.
Market has been successful in creating
this notion: if you do not buy a gift for your girl/boyfriend- you don’t love
him/her enough. Take a step further. You buy stuff- to show or probably to
convince yourself that you love
her/him.
That is the ultimate irony.
That is what market ultimately does to
emotions.
Tail piece: Small doubt!
Son: Daddy, I’ve a small
doubt!
Dad: Please ask my dear.
Son: Daddy, I learned that Prahlada
became great by ‘not listening to his Dad’ in Satya Yuga.
Dad; Yes.
Son: Shri Rama became GOD by ‘listening
to his Dad’ in Tretaya Yuga.
Dad: Yes.
Son: Now, please clarify should I listen
to you are not.
Dad: My dear Son, In Kali Yuga, it is good for both of us to ‘listen
to your mother’ to have a normal life.
Tail piece 2: Only in Mumbai.......
Banana is Kela; Single is Akela;
Tired is Thakela; Bored is Pakela; Stuck-up is Atkela; Angry is Satkela;
Hung-up is Latkela; Lost is Bhatkela and........Dead is Tapkela.
(Courtesy: Social Media)
***
Journalist-turned media academician Mrinal
Chatterjee lives at Dhenkanal in Odisha. He also writes fiction. An anthology
of this column published in 2018 will be shortly published. Persons interested
to get a free e-copy may send a mail
to him at mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com
This column is published every Sunday in Gangtok based English daily Sikkim Express and www.orissatimes.com
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