Skip to content Skip to navigation

JFA bats for community radio in Northeast

Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA), while conveying greetings to the broadcasting journalists and other media employees engaged in the pioneer medium of communications on the occasion of World Radio Day, advocates for better community radio access in northeast India.

As proclaimed by UNESCO's 36th General Conference in November 2011, following the proposal from Spain, 13 February is observed as the World Radio Day. The United Nations General Assembly endorsed the proclamation in December 2012.

Recognizing the radio’s reach to over 95 per cent of global population, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed hope that the radio would provide space to 1.8 billion young people around the world to speak about their imaginations.

“Radio matters for youths across the world. As the international community shapes new sustainable development goals and the new global agreement on climate change, we need to hear the voices of young women and men loudly, strongly and urgently,” said the UN Secretary-General. Compare to the global scenario, the growth of All India Radio remains phenomenal and today the AIR emerges as one of the largest media organizations in the world covering over 99 % population of India. The reach of AIR was also reiterated with Prime Minister Narenra Modi’s ongoing special program ‘Mon Ki Baat’.

The JFA, in a statement issued by its president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria, emphasizes on instituting more community radio centers in the alienated Northeast, as the region with 60 million population has various communities speaking different languages & dialects.

“Community radios can broadcast programs in local languages, which are normally ignored by the mainstream media. It also discriminate vital information to the audiences reflecting the realities of local life,” added the JFA statement.

Author info

Nava Thakuria's picture

Senior journalist based in Guwahati.

Add new comment

Random Stories

Workshop on Human Rights Violation in Assam at Nagoan

28 Jun 2008 - 4:11pm | editor
Union Grants Commission (UGC) sponsored workshop on HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION IN ASSAM is all scheduled to be held on 28th June 2008 with a day long program at ADP College premises Nagaon organized by...

Gogoi averse to budget benefit!

26 Jul 2014 - 10:21pm | AT News
Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday tore apart Tarun Gogoi alleging that the chief minister was hardly interested in the budget benefit.  Talking to reporters in Guwahati, Sonowal...

Ayursundra doctors conduct OPD clinic at press club

1 Apr 2017 - 11:40pm | Nava Thakuria
Ayursundra Superspecialty Hospital conducted the weekly evening OPD clinic at Guwahati Press Club on Saturday (1 April 2017) for the benefit of its members and their dependants. Dr Prerit Sarma (...

Rajnath wraps up stock taking visit

30 Jul 2016 - 4:15pm | AT News
Union home minister Rajnath Singh has wrapped up his stock taking visit to the flood-hit Assam on Saturday where 36 people lost their lives. Accompanied by minister of state for home affairs Kiren...

Other Contents by Author

It’s shocking to report that a number of Guwahati-based scribes and RTI (right to information) activists have been facing interrogation and even arrest by Assam chief minister’s special vigilance cell following the allegations of Sewali Devi Sharma, the prime accused in Rs 105 crore State council of educational research and training (SCERT) scam, as being blackmailers to her in different occasions. The arrestees include a female reporter (identified as Pujamoni Das alias Honey Kashyap, who reportedly took a large volume of money from Ms Sharma) along with a satellite news channel reporter named Bhaskarjoti Hazarika.  RTI activists namely Rabijit Gogoi (who pretended to be a...
Can we imagine a world of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero carbon emissions with a new approach in post-corona economics! Ask Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and he will answer in the affirmative. The university professor turned revolutionary banker believes that the human race should not only dream about a safer world by reducing global warming, wealth concentration and unemployment, but also work in that direction with personal and collective capacities. In his latest book titled ‘A World of Three Zeros’, Prof Yunus proposes a new economic system focusing on every human being as an entrepreneur in the making. He believes that humans are not born to work only for...
Guwahati: Assam is all set to host first sustainable financial working group (SFWG) meeting and Youth 20 inception meeting as part of India's year-long G20 presidency, where it is meticulously chalked out various tour programs that would help in promoting the State’s rich biodiversity and socio-cultural heritage in international arena. The authorities have completed the preparation to welcome the foreign delegates to the State. Guwahati is adorned with digital wall painting, thematic gates, flags of G 20 countries, LED cut-outs, standees, hoarding, etc as part of branding and beautification. The government has also completed the arrangement for the visiting delegates to places of...
Guwahati: India observes National Press Day on 16 November with an aim to pay tributes to everyone who contributed to the growth of print media along with its mentor & watchdog the Press Council of India (PCI). Moreover, it’s also an occasion for the practicing media persons to introspect seriously over their noble profession where it has been heading in the post-Covid-19 pandemic era. Since its inception and functioning, the PCI continues to symbolize a free and responsible press in the largest democracy in the world. Among all press or media councils, functioning in various countries, the PCI is recognised as a unique entity that exercises authority over the media and also safeguards...
Participating in a debate on satellite television or digital channels needs some homeworks to make the deliberations short and clear. Unless you face an arrogant anchor and unruly participants, the experience in talk shows normally emerges as an intriguing one. It happened to me, as I had recently participated in a digital media discussion on the pertinent issue of National Register of Citizens  (NRC) in Assam, where the prime guest was none other than the immediate past State NRC coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma. The talk show host Dikshit Sharma put the questions in a clever way so that the issue comes alive and my part was just to interpret Dev Sarma’s version for clarity to the valued...
Guwahati: It was an amazing experience to attend the foundation day of a 25 year old press club in central Assam on a lazy Sunday, where a number of senior citizens along with rural scribes and novice journalists were waiting to listen to my speech. It’s easier to address a journalist’s meet- where we can discuss many issues with liberties, but while the audience includes respected senior citizens and young people, it becomes a difficult task to speak to them together. First, the question that arises, how much should I highlight the eroding credibility of the mainstream media around India in general and Assam in particular and secondly what may be the role of social (alternate/digital)...
Guwahati: A year-long celebration of 100 years of sports journalism in Assam begins coinciding on the day while the first ever news related to a football competition is published in Asomiya (a weekly news magazine mentored by Chandra Kumar Agarwala) on 1  July 1923. Assam Sports Journalists Association (ASJA), which is affiliated with the Sports Journalists Federation of India (a national affiliate of the International Sports Press Association), has taken the lead in celebrating the occasion that will culminate on 1  July next year. On Saturday, flags for ASJA and the centenary celebration were hoisted by ASJA’s founder president Balendra Mohan Chakraborty and his successor...
Reactions from the public (sensitive readers) against a news item in any newspaper (also news channel) are usual in India, but outrages against the mainstream media outlets in digital platforms for not covering a particular issue is definitely an unusual phenomenon. The north-eastern state of Assam witnessed such public fury against some of the editor-journalists for avoiding press conferences by opposition political parties where they targeted the state chief minister for his family’s alleged land scam. The organized public uproar in the alternate media was so intense that the celebrity editor-journalists of Assam did not dare to clarify their positions. They preferred to avoid the...
Hyderabad: The Indian Journalists Union (IJU) has strongly condemned the incident of assault on a Manipur journalist and urged the state chief minister, N. Biren Singh, to book the culprits under the law. The National Union of Subscribes also wished for an early recovery of Elangbam Rameshwar, who works as a Thoubal correspondent for the Naharolgi Thoudang regional daily newspaper, which is published from Imphal. Local media hinted that the handiwork was masterminded by some Congress workers in the Thoubal locality of the north-eastern state, who were attacked by a group of 20 to 25 masked men in the morning hours on 24 October. The rural reporter faced assault at his residence in the...
Hyderabad: The national executive committee meeting of Indian Journalists Union (IJU), which concluded on Sunday in the capital city of Telangana, discussed various burning issues concerning the practitioners of journalism across India and emphasized on effective safety & security to journalists, reforms in Press Council of India (PCI) and basic minimum facilities to the media fraternity sustaining the spirit under freedom of the press to serve the largest democracy on the globe. Chaired by IJU president K Sreenivas Reddy, the two-day meeting held at Tourism Plaza in Begumpet locality expressed serious concern over killings of journalists by anti-social elements and filing of cases...