When things were looking like have I done it all on radio considering the parameters of RJ-ing on FM on a public service broadcast, I found out that a German institute (Max Mueller Bhavan) is organizing a media discussion on “Media in India – Conflicts and Contradictions” on Oct 8, 08. I was more inclined to attend this as I was given to understand that this marks the launch of a German radio broadcast Deutsche Welle in India. I was quite keen to attend this and it was exactly a week ago that I attended this launch. Honestly have got bugged listening to any other competitive fm station in Bangalore. Sincerely I feel my channel, FM Rainbow 101.3MHz is somehow doing some amount of variety in terms of radio talks, quizzes etc (even though we are lacking on not organizing gifts and other goodies for listeners) I guess we are moving on because of content and loyal listenership. Thank God!

I have heard BBC broadcasts and have been quite impressed with it, parts of them, I mean. Coming to the launch of the new broadcast here in India, the Bangalore event had a quite a handful of audience.  As I rushed in (I was 10 minutes late to the scheduled time) I was pleasantly surprised to see Ms. Indu Gajraj from All India Radio on the dias. There was also Nupur Basu, C.K Meena and Ramachandra Guha.

From the routine media is no longer what it is supposed to be, to an overview of how print, online, television and radio is working, to an interesting round of Q& A with the audience I was quite content with the evening. I had a question for the panel too which I think kind of put off some people on the dias but they were polite enough to answer it. I had asked if all the discussion would actually lead to any improvement and if the members of the panel would go back and do something to improve the situation of media in India. No form of media changes and all we do is talk at more such discussion forums? As I said, I was politely told that they are mainly freelancers and at best they could hope for the right kind of media in India.

I had a word or two with the representative, Ms Priya Esselborn from DW radio on their Hindi broadcasts and how they function. She was glad to tell me a few things and seemed very helpful. The session ended with some personal interaction with the panel members at Café Max. I had dinner at TGIF and headed home thinking that I would blog about this one!