Internet and rural India

People in rural communities are now able to communicate back and forth because of the existence of the mass media. Children of this country are now able to obtain and expand on their education, there are continuous improvements in their health care system and even modern agricultural techniques are being developed. This is possible through the use of kiosks in these rural areas, which allows these people to access the internet within minutes. That may not sound remarkable, but in rural India it's a revolutionary act. For example, a member of the Adi Karnataka, one of India's "scheduled castes," formerly called untouchables, Nagabhushana has limited employment options. He earns a meager 5,000 rupees ($100) a year from rice and millet farming. But there is one ray of hope in his life: Private schools in his state, Karnataka, have abolished fees for members of scheduled castes. His two children can go to a good school for free -- so long as their father has the official "caste and income" certificate to prove his poverty.

The process of getting one -- and the bribery involved -- was too costly until the man with the kiosk came along. Thus, allowing him to obtain the certificate to prove his poverty through the internet.

UNICEF supported community radio station in central India

A UNICEF supported community radio station in central India is educating and empowering the disadvantaged groups and marginalised women. With training in basic editing and using basic icons, these tribal women are producing programmes on health, literacy, and gender issues.

Educational messages

Residents of Shivpuri, located in India’s Madhya Pradesh State, turned out in force for the recent launch of the station, which will broadcast to scores of villages in a 15-kilometre radius of the city. Traditional musicians beat drums, while girls with bells tied around their ankles danced in celebration.

Rather than preaching educational messages, the station uses humour and local entertainers to inform its audiences.

A voice in media

Dharkan 107.8 FM is collaboration between the community near Shivpuri, the district administration, two non-governmental organisations – Ideosync Media Combine and Sambhav – and UNICEF. Besides education, the station’s goals include improving community participation and giving villagers a voice in media.

A large proportion of the Shivpuri community is made up of traditionally disadvantaged groups. Nineteen per cent are so-called ‘scheduled tribe’ members, like Ms Adivasi, and 11% are ‘scheduled caste’ members.

"Mobiles, the Internet and globalisation have changed that entire process. It’s liberating communication that gives people a platform"

A recent survey found that radio was the medium most readily accessible to the community; more than half of respondents said they tuned in several times a day. The survey also found that the audience wanted to participate in programming.

‘Liberating communication’

Radio technology has advanced so far that it doesn’t take much more than mobile phones and laptop computers to get a radio station off the ground. The project in Shivpuri costs only a few hundred US dollars per month to maintain.

“Electronic media was once accessed only by the elite in cities,” said N. Ramakrishnan of Ideosync. “Now mobiles, the Internet and globalisation have changed that entire process. It’s liberating communication that gives people a platform.”

Community members, who may have little or no formal education, can use icons and to perform basic editing, added Mr. Ramakrishnan. “It’s quite easy to do, because they all know how to listen. You are only limited by your imagination,” he said.

Important debates

Vandana Dube, the station’s first manager, helps to produce programmes on hygiene, health and the importance of education. She said that listening groups, which have formed throughout the district, are having a major impact.

In particular, more women are now contributing to important debates on caste discrimination, female foeticide and female empowerment – issues that concern them directly.

“People listen to the radio very seriously,” said Ms Dube. The medium, she believes, “will have a real impact and help them to speak out.”

Ms Dube works long hours, often arriving home at 10 pm or even later. But her family is so committed to her blossoming career that they have relocated to be near the station. “My daughter says, ‘I will be an NGO worker like you,’” she said proudly. “She wants to be like her mother.”

Bridging gaps in knowledge

In 2005, Shivpuri was selected as a UNICEF-supported integrated district. As part of this project, representatives of the ‘panchayat’, or councils, at the village level were elected to identify community needs. Today, more than 1,500 village volunteers are working to advocate for the rights of children by connecting families with available services.

“This huge mobilisation of community leadership has dramatically improved the use of government services,” said UNICEF’s Chief of Field Office in Madhya Pradesh, Hamid El Bashir. “Many didn’t even know [services] were available,” he added.

Ms Adivasi herself serves as a bridge between the community and health services, referring expectant parents to ambulances so that their babies can be delivered at a hospital. Between 2000 and 2005, maternal deaths in India declined from to 540 to 300 deaths per 100,000 live births. The number is continuing to fall.

Organisers of the radio project hope that such information, when provided by Dharkan 107.8 FM, will move the community to adopt improved sanitation and health practices. The station also hopes to improve low literacy rates through continuous dialogue and education awareness.

TV benefits Women in rural India

A new study by Robert Jensen of Brown University and Emily Oster of the University of Chicago shows that television is having a distinctly helpful effect on women, at least in rural India,

Attitudes about women in rural India remain relatively traditional. Women are expected to cook and clean and to have lots of babies. Surveys from 2001 to 2003 show that rural Indian women don't have a lot of control over their lives. More than half need permission from their husbands to go shopping. Two-thirds need their husbands' permission to visit friends. Spousal beating is common and accepted: Sixty-two percent of women believe that it is sometimes acceptable. Thirty-four percent of the women surveyed believed a husband could hit his wife if she neglected the children, while nearly a third believed that showing disrespect and going places without permission warranted a beating. One fifth of women believe husbands are entitled to hit them for cooking a lousy dinner.

The usual avenue for bettering women's circumstances in the developing world is education. Women with more education have access to better jobs outside the home, better control of their fertility, and better bargaining power with their husbands. Education has other benefits, too, so it's understandably a big investment priority for most governments. But education changes attitudes slowly. So, how about TV, a quicker fix?

In the last decade, cable television has arrived in remote Indian villages, bringing with it commercial television programming heavy on game shows and Indian soap operas. Before you laugh—a feminist Days of Our Lives?—consider that the most popular Indian series take place in urban settings. Their emancipated female characters are well-educated, work outside the home, control their own money, and have fewer children than rural women. (One of the most popular shows in 2007, called Because a Mother-in-Law Was Once a Daughter-in-Law, Also, describes the life of a wealthy Mumbai family and features plots revolving around family and gender.) So, Jensen and Oster asked, does the arrival of these shows change attitudes in ways that improve women's lives?

The authors followed women in 2,700 households in villages in four states (Bihar, Goa, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu) and the capital, Delhi, from 2001 to 2003. Access to television in remote Indian villages has changed substantially in the past few years. Of the 180 villages the authors studied, 65 already had cable in 2001, and by the end of 2003, 21 more had access. Not surprisingly, when a village gets access to cable, villagers tend to watch more TV: Forty percent report watching weekly before cable came to town compared with 80 percent after.

What's the effect? In the places that didn't get cable by 2003, and in the places that already had it at the beginning of the period studied, attitudes concerning women remained relatively stable. (They were more pro-women in places that already had cable.) But in the 21 villages that got cable between 2001 and 2003, women's attitudes changed quickly and substantially.

The authors focus on three measures: autonomy (whether the woman gets to make her own decisions about shopping, health, and whom she visits), attitudes toward beating (the number of circumstances in which women view beating as acceptable), and whether women prefer having male children. After a village got cable, women's preference for male children fell by 12 percentage points. The average number of situations in which women said that wife beating is acceptable fell by about 10 percent. And the authors' composite autonomy index jumped substantially, by an amount equivalent to the attitude difference associated with 5.5 years of additional education.

So far, these results concern measures of attitude rather than behavior—indicating, perhaps, that TV just teaches women to give the answers that surveying do-gooders want to hear. But the authors also measured the women's average number of births and the likelihood that their children were enrolled in school. When cable came to town, boys' rates of school attendance stayed the same, while girls between the ages of 6 and 10 were 8 percent more likely to go to school. The effects on fertility were even more dramatic: For women under the age of 35, average number of births fell annually by more than half. It's possible, however, that this shows a change in the timing of births rather than overall lifetime fertility, given the study's relatively short duration.

Jensen and Oster think that TV works its magic on women by providing them a new televised set of peers and in turn changing their attitudes. Supporting this conclusion is evidence that TV's emancipatory effects were larger in places where women initially held more traditional attitudes. For example, in the places where women had formerly held high preferences for sons, the share preferring sons fell 20 percentage points with the arrival of cable, compared with a 12 percent decline overall.

Mass Media and Health in India

Despite extensive international and national efforts over the past several decades, the majority of under-five deaths in India is caused by communicable, maternal and perinatal conditions, and nutritional deficiencies. These largely preventable conditions constitute some 50 percent of the disease burden in India today, and India still leads the world in malnutrition, with an estimated 53 percent of children under five years being malnourished in 1996 and 217,000 children under five expected to die of diarrhea even in the year 2000. Among deaths associated with malnutrition, however, more than three-fourths are linked not to severe, but to moderate or mild forms. While India continues to suffer from huge numbers of child deaths, major economic and social changes have brought a new brand of health problems - that of noncommunicable lifestyle diseases among the middle class as well as the poor. Although mortality from communicable, maternal and perinatal conditions, and nutritional deficiencies is expected to fall from almost 5 million to below 3 million a year in India by the year 2020, according to the 1996 Global Burden of Disease series issued jointly by the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Harvard School of Public Health, deaths from noncommunicable disease and injuries in India are projected to almost double, from about 4 million to about 8 million a year.

Mass media coupled with traditional health education practices has been effectively used to promote health behavior worldwide. The opportunity today to reach the masses in India through television and other mass media is unparalleled in history. CECHE has successfully used mass media to educate, motivate and advocate health in its programs in Central and Eastern Europe. CECHE is using this experience to improve the nutritional status and prevent malnutrition-related illnesses and deaths of infants, children and pregnant and lactating women by promoting the following: the provision of adequate food during pregnancy and lactation; protection and support of breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices; frequent feeding and nutritional surveillance; supplementation of vitamin A, iodine and iron to prevent deficiencies for both women and their children; diarrhea prevention and treatment through early use of available food-based fluids and use of ORS, continued breastfeeding, small frequent feeds, catch up feeding following diarrheal episodes and appropriate treatment in severe cases; and pregnancy care and postpartum care of the mother and newborn

CECHE has completed a media training program as a first priority and produced a series of TV programs and PSA’s geared to reproductive health promotion in India.

CAN EIGHT OSCARS HELP INDIA’S POOR? (http://awearnessblog.com/2009/03/can-the-oscars-help-indias-poo.php)

There are two ways to view Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle's enormously popular film about the slums of Mumbai and one boy's unlikely rise to great wealth. The first won the film eight Oscars and box office returns of more than $100 million (as of last Friday). It's the view that has people around the world singing the film's praises, both as a feat of cinematic brilliance and a way to raise awareness of Mumbai's Dharvi slums, where the film takes place.

The other view is more critical, and much more political. Some -- including a large number of Indians -- find the film too simplistic and escapist to affect real change. Some have also argued that the film misleads people who aren't familiar with Dharvi, suggesting that the "slum" is actually a thriving place of entrepreneurship and perseverance, and a testament to the human spirit.

But one thing is certain: A lot more people are talking about India's poor than they were six months ago, and one organization has seized this opportunity to further its cause. OneWorld Health, the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the US, is leveraging Slumdog's success to fund its efforts. Last week, the organization launched a sweeping campaign that began with a full-page ad in the New York Times, and will soon include online advertising, social media initiatives and visibility activities in partnership with other global health leaders.

Due to the fact that the movie as helped the poor get noticed, a lot more is still needed so that the poor can now live a better life.

Condom Ringtone a hit in India

A ringtone that sings ‘Condom, condom, condom” has attracted over 270,000 downloads since it hit the market in September of 2008. This song was created by an Indian duo, Rupert Fernandes and Vijay Prakash. This song is downloadable from www.condomcondom.org. BBC World Service Trust helped fund the song.

The website is part of a mass media initiative to prevent the transmission of HIV in India. BBC world service trust aims to make condom more acceptable in the society. Using distinct, rigorously researched and tested television and radio advertisements, outdoor media and on ground activity, the ‘sikander-parrot condom normalization campaign met its objectives of changing attitudes and perceptions towards condoms.

The focus of this campaign is to get men to talk about condoms, as this has a positive effect on use, and position condoms as a product that men use to show they are responsible and care about themselves and their families. Making condoms more acceptable in society where they are taboo is in itself a huge communication challenge. But it was converted into an opportunity through an interactive campaign strategy, whereby audience becomes participants.

This campaign ran in 4 phases starting from December 07. it reached to over 150million men between the ages 15-49 across India. More men discussed condoms as a result of the campaign, and were less embarrassed to buy condoms. Now a greater proportion of men think that the use of condoms reflects smart and responsible behaviour.

This campaign, implanted on India will help the country to a large extent, as India currently has very high HIV-positive rates around the world. Now, because of this method of implanting the campaign through the mass media, the HIV rate will decrease effectively.

Influences of Mass Media in Sport

Mass media has many positive effects on many people. In countries such as India, mass media had made a tremendous change. People in rural communities are now able to communicate back and forth. Children of this country are now able to obtain and expand on their education, there are continuous improvements in their health care system and even modern agricultural techniques are being developed.

With the constant growth of mass media many opportunities for individuals have been arising. To show how mass media has opened many doors for many individuals, this paper will use the influences of mass media in the world of sports. Both the positive and negative effects of the mass media will be outlined.


In the NBA, media coverage has increased the capacity of "fans" for teams mainly due to the fact that the invention of television and other technological advancements which attempts to bring the games and players into the households. People no longer have to attend games to be considered a fan of the sport or cheer their favorite team or player. Fans of the sport can enjoy the entertainment of a basketball game in the pleasure of their home which in sense could be considered better than actually going to the game live because it is much cheaper than going to the game. Media coverage of basketball extends further than just the NBA to high school, NCAA (collegiate basketball) and both sexes male and female are showcased nowadays, although basketball was considered a male sport. The media attention on women's basketball has actually increased women participation in basketball and could be considered the main contributor to the expansion of women's basketball although women actually fought against sexism in basketball the media really helped their expansion efforts. The media has really expanded the game of basketball to international arenas and countries have now established their own leagues, which are actually competitive with American leagues such as the NBA and CBA. Media in all forms has created such an audience for the sport of basketball countries with established leagues compete for players with the NBA although they probably don't get the best players as yet but the growth of these leagues show the potential to reach the status of the NBA some day. The media could take full responsibility of creating the growth of basketball in the world, most schools and government programs that provide recreation for children and adults build basketball courts, which shows the growth of the sport, which is as a direct result of media, attention.

Media Censorship: Why is Censorship Good

Wonder why media censorship is necessary? Read on to find out...

There are several pros and cons of media censorship. In an age where freedom of expression cannot be stressed enough, a pro media censorship agreement can be considered as sacrilege! What people need to realize that censorship does not imply curbing the freedom of expression – it is merely drawing the line between freedom and unrestrained deviltry! Censorship is merely a reminder for people who have crossed the lines of morality and humanity under the name of freedom of expression.

There are several types of mass media, which are a means of expression of people around the world. When it comes to media, censorship is a must considering increasing instances of unrestrained inclusion of topics which might be inappropriate for certain age groups or topics which are morally wrong like racism. Most of the audiences across the world are ready for portrayal of subjects like sex and violence, however it is not these subjects but the method of portrayal that becomes an issue of concern. Censorship or discretion in viewers is necessary.

Children of impressionable ages are constantly being exposed to excessive violence as well as sexually explicit content. Media exposure is an instrumental factor in shaping the opinions and values in these children. A common example is the extremely violent video games that children are addicted to – tend to increase the aggressive tendencies in children. Several researchers across the world are studying effects of media on development of children. Use of abusive language as well as abusive actions can make lasting impacts on children and can result in increased aggressive tendencies.

Media censorship is necessary for checking the three main problem areas. These three areas are vulgarity (sexually explicit content), violence and racism. Media censorship is necessary to see to it that media is not being used as a tool to attack someone’s character or to discriminate and humiliate people.

Speaking of censorship, one section of the Indian media industry that is in dire need of censorship regulations is the news channels in India. Visuals of mutilated bodies during riots, bloodbath, massacre, television channels seem to have forgotten about media ethics in their rat race for TRPs. Being a witness to some of the most inhuman reporting scenarios in some of the most shattering catastrophes, it is my personal opinion as a viewer and as a global citizen that censorship should be about keeping the media real enough to reflect the society but subtle enough to keep it humane.

A boost to transparency in environment regulation

Recent rulings by the Central Information Commission offer hope that decision-making in environmental regulation will be more transparent and participatory henceforth, and embrace suo moto disclosures. Kanchi Kohli reports.

05 January 2009 - This past October saw two very significant orders related to environment governance passed by the Central Information Commission (CIC). The orders were passed by Ms. Annapurna Dixit, one of three recently appointed Information Commissioners. While the first order pushed the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) towards disclosing documents related to the approvals it has granted, the other pushed the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to provide information related to discussions within the ministry related to proposed amendments to the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification.

The introduction of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2005 has critically transformed the way citizens can seek transparency in decision making and implementation of policies, programmes, legislations in any given sector or particular project. At the same time the Act allows one to demand for disclosure of information which an authority or department has failed to suo moto put in the public domain. When it comes to environmental governance, RTI undoubtedly is a key advocacy tool. Groups all across the country have been using it to seek information related to clearances of development projects, government expenditure on programmes as well as development of legislations.

However, the information sought has not always been forthcoming. Typically, a tedious process needed to be followed before favourable and just decisions were made. With the new rulings, one hopes that will change.

Significant steps

Each of the two orders is significant in its own right. Together, they give thrust to two important points - that of suo moto disclosure of information by public authorities even before the information is sought by the public; and also that decision making needs to be open and transparent. These are two very critical principles of the RTI Act.

But the reality is also that these orders took 8-9 months to be realised, and did not come easily. This isn't an exception, as anyone using or following the implementation of the RTI Act will know. One can only hope that orders such as these act as precedents and lessons for other instances of disclosure and fair decision making. And more importantly, this should be a reminder to the power structures that they must not allow themselves to reach a point where the RTI Act has to be used to appeal and fight for a space that should have been given to citizens by right in a democracy.

In India

In India there is growing evidence that adolescents are becoming more sexually active outside of marriage. It is feared that this will lead to an increase in spread of HIV/AIDS among adolescents, increase the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, and give rise to conflict between contemporary social values. Adolescents have relatively poor access to health care and education. With cultural norms opposing extramarital sexual behavior "these implications may acquire threatening dimensions for the society and the nation."

Motivation and frequency

Sexual relationships outside marriage are not uncommon among teenage boys and girls in India. By far, the best predictor of whether or not a girl would be having sex is if her friends were engaging in the same activities. For those girls whose friends were having a physical relationship with a boy, 84.4% were engaging in the same behavior. Only 24.8% of girls whose friends were not having a physical relationship had one themselves. In urban areas, 25.2% of girls have had intercourse and in rural areas 20.9% have. Better indicators of whether or not girls were having sex were their employment and school status. Girls who were not attending school were 14.2% (17.4% v. 31.6%) more likely and girls who were employed were 14.4%(36.0% v. 21.6%) more likely to be having sex.

In the Indian sociocultural milieu girls have less access to parental love, schools, opportunities for self development and freedom of movement than boys do. It has been argued that they may rebel against this lack of access or seek out affection through physical relationships with boys. While the data reflects trends to support this theory, it is inconclusive. The freedom to communicate with adolescent boys was restricted for girls regardless of whether they lived in an urban or rural setting, and regardless of whether they went to school or not. More urban girls than rural girls discussed sex with their friends. Those who did not may have felt "the subject of sexuality in itself is considered an 'adult issue' and a taboo or it may be that some respondents were wary of revealing such personal information."

Contraceptive use

Among Indian girls, "misconceptions about sex, sexuality and sexual health were large. However, adolescents having sex relationships were somewhat better informed about the sources of spread of STDs and HIV/AIDS." While 40.0% of sexually active girls were aware that condoms could help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and reduce the likelihood of pregnancy, only 10.5% used a condom during the last time they had intercourse.