After several years of lobbying, India’s new Community Radio Policy was finally approved, opening the door for civil society organisations, nongovernment organisations, and other non-profit organisations to apply for community radio licenses.

Prior to the policy, only well-established educational institutions are allowed to set up campus-based radio stations. But with the 1995 Supreme Court judgment in mind, which declared that the “airwaves are public property, to be used for public good,” members of the Community Radio Forum, an association of community radio broadcasters, activists and academics, advocated for the expansion of the eligibility criteria.

Over the past six years, the Community Radio Forum, together with international advocacy groups such as World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), other civil society organisations across the country, and international development organisations including UNESCO and UNDP, have held several consultative meetings with India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to expand the eligibility criteria to include community-based organisations.

Back in August 2005, the Community Radio Forum sent a petition to the Government of India, addressed to the Prime Minister, to “cease discriminating against community members, community based-organisations, non-government organisations, and other civil society groups, operating in the interest of the people of this country and on a not-for-profit basis, and allow them to exercise their right to set up, manage and run their own community radio stations in the country.”

The new policy is hoped to make “citizen’s radio” a reality.

Sources:

“Activists hail Decision by Group of Ministers/Cabinet Urged to Okay Community Radio Policy” from AMARC Asia Pacific, posted on October 13, 2006, <http://wiki.amarc.org/?action=shownews&id=749&lang=EN&style=asiapacific>.

Urging The Inclusion Of The Right Of The Communities Within The Community Radio Policy (Petition), <http://www.petitiononline.com/comradio/>