Community Radio and Local Elections in India...Live!

This article describes the recent steps and results of a local radio station's election coverage in the village of Karnataka, India. According to the article, until now there has never been media coverage of local elections; the community radio station Namma Dhwani (Our Voice) set out to change this. Namma Dhwani is a cable community radio and multimedia centre which uses a wide range of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support local development. It is supported by several UNESCO programmes, including the International Programme for the Development of Communication, the Research and Innovation Network on ICT Applications to Achieve MDGs [Millennium Development Goals], and the global Community Multimedia Centre initiative.

The article characterises the station's efforts as helping ensure a free and fair election as well as "greater degrees of transparency, accountability and community participation in the voting process." The radio station, according to the article, identified local governance as a critically important factor in the area’s development and thus set out to create a series of special programmes around the elections.

As part of the campaign, reporters recorded people's opinions and broached the delicate issues of corruption and violence. According to the article, these steps helped encourage voter participation, which is described as "high." Krishna M.N., the local baker and a listener of Namma Dhwani, stated, "we never had this before" and he requested that the radio not play music so that up-to-date election results could be broadcasted without interruption.

The article alludes to village meetings held two years ago by Namma Dhwani; coverage of these meetings turned out to be "disallowed" by local officials after several months. In the lead-up to this last election, Namma Dhwani interviewed all the local candidates and asked specifically, "if you win, will you allow Namma Dhwani to cover and record all the local Panchayat meetings…?" The article affirms that most of the candidates agreed, but that "time will tell."

The article ends with this statement: "Alongside the candidates, the winners in this election are clearly Namma Dhwani, its listeners and the local community. Together they put media's role in good governance into practice in their village."