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Radio, Telephone, Internet and Empowerment.
An interview with Arun Mehta,
head of the Society for Telecommunications Empowerment.
This interview is reproduced with permission from
Frederick Noronha at BytesForAll.Org.
Radio via cable TV? Empowering farmers with a telephone? All this and more is possible, and technology is the magic wand which Dr Arun Mehta wants to wield to make life more tolerable for
the commonman (and woman) in India. This engineer heads the
Society for Telecom Empowerment, and is using his skills and
campaign background to improve the reality at the grassroots.
Dr Arun Mehta,
an IIT-Delhi educated electrical engineer, worked with computers
since 1971. He worked with Siemens-Germany and in the US, and
did a PhD on esoteric subjects like crane control. Later, he
was an activist with Amnesty International and headed the India
branch of this global body for a couple of years. Today, he
is bent on using his skills to boost communications among the
commonman. He spoke to FREDERICK NORONHA during a recent visit
to Goa to outline his goals and dreams:
Q: What got you started on Net-related campaigns?
Arun Mehta: Issues
were coming up vis a vis the Net, which weren't being handled
in a civil liberties style. My first involvement with cyber-activism
was when the Indian government was threatening to slap hefty
Rs 1.5 million fees on kids running BBSs (bulletin- board services).
We started the Forum for Rights to Electronic Expression around
1994.
Later
there were plans to shut down ERNET, then the country's sole
access to the Internet and e-mail. That was in 1995, before
Indians had other options to get onto the Internet. The UNDP
funding was finally, finally, finally closing, and the Government
was not willing to step in with funding. After a joint campaign,
we managed to get that decision reversed too.
Q: You are now campaigning for allowing local-level community radio
stations. Where does that fit in with your interests?
Arun Mehta: Actually,
it is THE ONLY electronic communication medium that the poor
man in India can afford. It is something we automatically have
to pay attention to in this country; but we are NOT.
It's
a completely different medium from television, and it is now
being re-discovered. The Internet is a major, major contributing
factor to that now. Radio stations have become global. You don't
need to have very high powered transmitters, or be a BBC or
a Deutsche Welle, to go global via radio now. You can do it
via the Internet.
The
Internet has done a great service to radio. It has also made
radio much more competitive. I have a choice of 8000 radio stations
on the Net.
But the problem still remains that of the famous 'last mile'.
Today, Internet radio is only accessible by someone who has
a fancy computer and an Internet connection. But to be popularised,
radio should be easily receivable on the cheapest possible device.
That is an FM or a simple radio receiver. So, we have to find
new ways of distributing radio waves, possibly through the cable
TV operator.
Q:
You mean a cable TV operator could send out a signal and I could
receive it on my FM radio?
Arun Mehta: Correct.
You see, depending upon the quality of the cable that is being
used, it leaks power. The worse quality of the cable the more
power it leaks. So radio is much more easier to receive (from
lossy cables).
Radio
requires much less signal strength. So you could get radio at
30, 40 or 50 metres from the cable. No problem. This way, one
doesn't have to fight against colonial laws dating back to 1885
(rpt 1885) that block the citizen from starting a radio station
without paying huge licence fees. You can start your own station.
You don't have to ask anyone for permission.
Cable
is a very, very important medium for the Indian environment.
There are about 30 million Indian households with cable TV connections.
Q:
What's blocking India from getting access to more people- friendly
communication and broadcast options? Is it the unhelpful laws
in place, or a lack of suitable technology? Or both?
Arun Mehta: I
would say a lack of technological courage. If something comes
to us from the US, then we start doing it, if they do it there.
But
the fact is that the US doesn't need to solve this kind of that
we have. A person here can only afford $2 for a communication
device, and cannot afford monthly fees. We don't have that sort
of situation in the US. Why will they solve it? We have to solve
it!
The
technologies are not rocket science technologies. It's just
that we don't have this approach of using technology to solve
our problems in our own way. In electronics, we like to ape
the West in our R&D. That's a great pity.
Q:
What are the options available?
Arun Mehta: As
I said, the cable-TV operator can carry your radio station for
almost nothing. Each one of your satellite TV channels can carry
several audio channels. They can carry many languagues. All
of those could be treated as independent radio channels.
It
would need a cable operator to tune into. He could feed it via
FM into the cable; so you receive it on a FM radio. You have
to put things together and make it work. We in India are good
at that.
Another
possibility is satellite broadcasting of Internet content, like
radio or newspapers. Just as you have a dish which receives
TV, and you're receiving the same content as everybody else
at the same time, you can do the same with data. That's not
being done with data currently.
Q:
Can you tell us of any interesting experiments being undertaken
in South Asia on this front?
Arun Mehta: In
New Delhi, Raman Nanda runs an Internet radio station. He has
been doing news and current affairs. That's quite interesting.
But, Internet radio is not a very good broadcast medium. If
a thousand people start listening to the same station, the server
packs up. Radio also somehow has to be wireless in your psyche.
You can't be tethered to a computer.
Q:
What about the experiment at Kothamalee in Sri Lanka?
Arun Mehta: In
Kothamalee what they're doing is firstly just normal community
radio. So that in itself in South Asia is almost unique. Sagarmatha
(the community radio station recently started in Kathmandu)
and Kothamalee are the only two proper community radio stations
in South Asia.
That
in itself is good; but what they are doing is also another very,
very interesting thing in Sri Lanka. They do community Internet
surfing for the listeners of that station. That means people
can phone in their questions; those running the radio station
will then surf for them, and give them their answers in the
local language, over the radio.
Q:
This all offers a huge potential for countries like ours...
Arun Mehta: Absolutely.
The way I see it, is that the first thing the Internet is going
to do is bring distance education. And in a country like India,
there's probably a huge demand for courses in English. Because
it improves your marketability and your monthly income too.
I'm not too comfortable with information mediaries, or someone
else deciding whether my question is important enough. Plus,
the beauty of the Internet is the followup. You're reading an
article, you can do follow-up, and work on various links.
Q:
Lastly, could you tell us something about your organisation?
Arun Mehta: We've
recently set up something called the Society for Telecommunications
Empowerment. Our goal is to bring telecom to the people, and
empower people through telecom in all its forms. We want to
find ways -- by getting changes in policy, in the legal position,
also technology awareness. We want to showcase some examples
that work.
Telecommunications
are very important to people. Studies have calculated the number
of miles the Indian farmer travels in vain. For example, going
to a fertilizer depot and finding there's no fertilizer there.
He could have saved these trips if there was a phone at both
ends. If there was a phone at the fertilizer depot, there probably
would have been fertilizer available there!
So
one can think of the amount of saving of wasted hours of poor
people. People who can least afford it. I get very angry when
people talk of modern telecommunications as a tool for the rich.
I think it's a tool for the poor, and they know how to use it
for their own ends. It's a basic human need.
Non-techies
get hypnotised when the word 'technology' is mentioned. Engineers
meanwhile have tunnel vision, and don't look at the social impact.
There needs to be much more social awareness among the engineers;
it is coming. The social scientist must understand technology,
and the role technology is playing.
The
Internet did not come from the social scientist, who decided
that people need to be connected. Here were technologists who
thought that this was a great idea; and everyone has now got
on the bandwagon. It's necessary for social scientists not
to lag behind in this. It's important to overcome this.
(ENDS)
India Together
September 2000
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