Mangalore unit of National Federation of Akashavani and Doordarshan Employees (NFADE) held a daylong national seminar on ‘Akashavani – Then and Now’ at the SDM College of Business Management, Mangalore on Thursday November 4. The seminar was organized in co-ordination with Karnataka Media Academy, Bangalore.

         In his presidential address at the one-day national seminar veteran journalist and  former chairman of Prasar Bharati,Mr.M.V Kamath severely criticised the style of functioning of Prasar Bharati which is not even in a condition to employee foreign correspondents. “The immediate necessity is to retract Prasar Bharati Act and allow Akashvani independently. There are highly talented personnel in Akashvani who are let down and are not given an opportunity to exhibit their talent,” he said.

        Calling Akashvani as the only radio station in our nation to offer education and entertainment hand in hand, he said that at a time when rest of the media houses are drifting away from the core objective, Akashvani should survive to cater to the listening habit of the people.

           In his presidential speech he mentioned his 56 years of association with Akashavani and highlighted the role of Akashavani and called upon to strengthen the national broadcast media which has been playing a quintessential role in building national pride among its people by promoting and also safeguarding and promoting India’s cultural vivacity, by reaching out to people in every nook and corner of the country covering 99% of the geographical area not reached by any other media.

            He added that however, both Akashavani and Doordshan which are managed by the Prasar Bharathi Board in the last 13 years are mismanaged to the core and are losing their focus and direction. There is a strong move to handover the vast assets of AIR and Doordarshan to Prasar Bharathi Board and to compel it to compete with private channels to amass revenue. This would mean the government funding of national broadcaster would completely disappear and it would be like any other private channel with focus only on revenue generation. He demanded that Akashavani and Doordarshan are in dearth of foreign correspondents. He asked the union government to take back the Prasar Bharathi and called Prasar Bharathi a national joke.

           The seminar was inaugurated by Dr D Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari of Shree Kshethra Dharmastala.In his address Dr D Veerendra Heggade said that the radio remained as an effective and educative media after the independence of the country. Both Akashavani and Doordarshan worked hard in uniting the nation from rural areas to urban. He asserted that the south Indians have been able to speak in ‘Hindi’ because of Hindi news and other programmes broadcast in Hindi language. He added that Akashavani promoted sports and boosted agriculture sector in the nation.

      Mr D Veerendra Heggade,  urged the Center to make efforts to maintain the identity of the two organisations by ensuring proper financial inputs. ''Both Akashvani and Doordarshan have stood for their efforts in providing information on various social, cultural, music, dance and arts. It is the responsibility of the Central Government to ensure that both Akashvani and Doordarshan maintained the identity in the present age of high competition among the media houses,''he said. Both the entities had also encouraged and promoted agriculture through its regular programme. ''I have been greatly inspired by these efforts in the promotion of agricultural activities in Karnataka,'' he said. He also recalled that Akashvani, in the earlier days, was instrumental in playing a pivotal role in creating awareness among the public through its rural network coverage. It had also played significant role in promoting culture, music and arts besides promotion of Hindi, the national language and English through its news bulletins, he added.

         MP Nalin Kumar Kateel released the commemorative issue (souvenir) ‘Banuliya Belaku’ on the occasion. In his speech he said that both Akashavani and Doordarshan made people to peep into the national and international affairs and made rural people aware of the issues of national and international importance.


       Friends of Prasar Bharati congratulate the NFADE unit of Mangalore and its Co-ordinator Mr.Chandrashekhar M for this successful event.

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