Dr. Bidu Bhusan Dash, Assistant Professor and Course Coordinator, KIIT School of Mass Communication was invited as a resource person and expert to a capacity-building workshop, organized by Young India and sponsored by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), Government of India on 16th September 2021. This capacity-building workshop was organized virtually for the operational community radio stations (CRSs) of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Telangana, and West Bengal, where community radio practitioners from over 40 CRSs participated.
The programme began with a welcome note by Mr. N. A. Shah Ansari, President, Young India. In the first session, Mr. G. S. Kesarwani, Additional Director (CRS), MIB spoke about the two decades long history of community radio in India. His talk outlined broadcasting code, guidelines and advisories related to CRS. Dr. Dash with Dr Shisir Kumar Das, President of Community Radio Association of Odisha (CRAO) took a session on programme production and community engagement. Dr. Dash also shared his experiential knowledge gained from his research work associated with CRSs across India.
He structured his talk into three parts: understanding community and community radio, programme production, and community engagement. He emphasized the inclusion of people’s voices in programme production to strengthen community engagement and empower community and CRSs.
“Dr. Dash’s interaction with the participants not only added value to the content of the workshop but also was extremely useful for the participants”, said Mr. N. A. Shah Ansari. Young India.