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Strengthening Charkha's Feature Service in India
4,200,000 yen [Grant Project]
Charkha Development Communication Network (India)
The information divide between cities and local areas is very serious in India, and it is quite difficult in local areas to receive necessary information through the media to improve everyday life, and to dessiminate local news and information to policy planners and intellectuals in large cities. To improve the current situation, the project aims to strengthen local news dissemination systems (CDCN acquires certain space in newspapers in large cities for the dissemination of local news and information reported by local reporters) and develop effective ways to acquire necessary news and information through the mass media.
In this final year of the project, the local news dissemination systems will be further reinforced while utilization of substitute media such as regional radio and operations of regional information center will be tried out as ways to effectively obtain information in remote areas.
- Reinforcement of Local News Dissemination Systems
The following activities will be carried out in five target states: Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
(1) Regular meetings: Representatives of major newspapers, local reporters, local non-governmental organizations and others will meet regularly to beef up their capabilities of delivering local news.
(2) Capacity-building meetings: Opportunities for capacity building in writing articles (in Hindi, Urdu and English) will be provided for specified local reporters.
- Review and Analysis of Substitute Media including Regional Radio (State of Chhattisgarh)
Regional radio program will be created and provided to radio stations on an experimental basis (broadcasting scheduled in around July) to analyze its effectiveness.
- Operations and Analysis of Regional Information Center (States of Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal)
For the purpose of efficient obtention of information delivered by the mainstream media, regional information center will be operated as a test case. The experiences gained in this operation will be further analyzed, and its utility will be depicted in a report.
- Regional Conferences (February 2008)
About 25-30 journalists representing local reporters, mass media in urban areas as well as neibouring countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh will assemble to share experiences and discuss the role of the media.
(Final year of a 3-year project)
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