UoH ties up with poll panel for Festival of Democracy

Hyderabad: The Election Commission of India, in a first of its kind activity in the lead-up to the forthcoming general elections, entered into a partnership with the University of Hyderabad (UoH) to promote voter education and electoral literacy through community radios around the country.

The University’s UNESCO Chair on Community Media has entered into a collaborative arrangement with the Election Commission of India’s flagship programme, Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) to mobilize the potential of community radio as a tool for enhancing comprehensive electoral literacy and informed voter participation through a decentralized and bottom-up communication approach and community generated content.

In a project to be called, “Festival of Democracy,” about 50 community broadcasters from 25 stations across the country will assemble Hyderabad for a three-day workshop starting from February 22 to brainstorm on key themes and strategize on how to leverage the local, community character of community radio to spread voter awareness.

In a statement, Prof Vinod Pavarala, who heads the UNESCO Chair on Community Media at UoH, explained that after the capacity-building workshop in Hyderabad, participants will return to their stations and make about 100 hours of radio programmes collectively on a set of common themes related to voter education in over 10 different languages, including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odiya, Punjabi, Telugu, and Urdu. 

The plan is also for the chosen 25 community radio stations to share their content with two other stations in their respective regions, taking the coverage to a total of about 75 stations and their sizeable listenership. The UNESCO Chair at UoH will not only support the production but will also closely monitor the content that will be aired on these community radio stations.