communications

31.08.2004 Published by ABC Ulwazi, a radio training and production house for development in South Africa, this manual discusses the aspects of community radio, including issues such as production of content and sustainability of radio stations.

25.08.2004 Participants at a Unesco workshop have supported the need for more community multimedia centres in South Asia. The four-day workshop held in Bangalore and Budhikote, India, focused on local content, people’s participation and sustainability of community media projects.

24.08.2004 Funds from the non-profit sector will help start a network of independent radio stations in Afghanistan as the country prepares for elections in October 2004. International assistance groups will remain the biggest single source of advertising income for these stations for the next two years.

24.08.2004 An Indian NGO is conducting audience research as the first step towards launching a community radio project in the country’s Jharkhand state. The World Bank-funded initiative will give rural communities a chance to raise issues that concern them through programmes broadcast from the government-run radio station.

20.08.2004 A South African company is offering 10,000 schools in the country a free SMS service that will help teachers and the parents of students stay in touch. While the schools will not pay to share information, the parents will receive up to five promotional messages a week.

19.08.2004 India’s telecommunications department has invited bids to set up public phones in nearly 0.1 million villages that do not have telecommunication facilities. The cost of the project will come from the Universal Obligation Fund to which all telecom service providers contribute five per cent of their annual revenue.

19.08.2004 Eleven Afghan journalists learnt to make radio programmes more listener-friendly at a month-long course in Kabul. The “My Life is Afghanistan” programme was meant to arm the journalists with radio skills by which they could highlight the lives and experiences of ordinary Afghans.

19.08.2004 Lack of supportive communication infrastructure could be a major deterrant for any e-commerce initiative, opined experts in a workshop here in Lagos, the Nigerian capital.

18.08.2004 An international media watchdog has condemned efforts by the Maldives government to combat political dissidence by cutting off the south Asian nation's Internet links last week -- the latest in a series of measures to block freedom of information on the island.

17.08.2004 India's space research agency is open to running a manned space mission if there is a consensus on its need. The chairperson of Indian Space Research Organisation has said that technologies are being identified for the mission that may take seven to eight years to build.

17.08.2004 New technologies are demolishing old practices in radio licensing. Thanks to cutting-edge technologies, radio spectrum is now considered abundant and its allocation or selling by governments taken to be illogical.

17.08.2004 Africa's urban poor have found innovative ways of using mobile phones at little or no cost. But, says leading ICT expert Mawaki Chango, building Africa's information society will take more than just giving people access to new communication technologies. Africa's culture of withholding information needs to change too.

13.08.2004 Edusat, the education satellite India has scheduled to launch in September this year, will transmit educational programmes across the country, especially in remote rural areas.

12.08.2004 A new report has indicated that West Africa’s telecommunications regulators are open to legalising VoIP telephony. The launch of several legal VoIP calling services in Mauritius in 2004 – the first by any African country – is being seen as a major step that other countries may follow.

11.08.2004 Some of the electronics and telecommunication industry giants are meeting in Busan, Republic of Korea, to explore the full reach of ICTs in the Asia-Pacific region. ITU TELECOM ASIA 2004, which will be held from September 7-11, 2004, promises to showcase the latest in mobile, wireless and satellite technologies as well as the growing opportunities in the region.

07.08.2004 Macedonia has one of Europe's lowest rates of Internet use, followed only by Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Surveys have found that only 3 per cent of Macedonians are online, and those who are only use the web for an average of nine hours per month. In Western European countries, by contrast, 85 per cent of the population is logged on for as many as 24 hours a day.

07.08.2004 Macedonia has one of Europe's lowest rates of Internet use, followed only by Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Surveys have found that only 3 per cent of Macedonians are online, and those who are only use the web for an average of nine hours per month. In Western European countries, by contrast, 85 per cent of the population is logged on for as many as 24 hours a day.

06.08.2004 Africa's urban poor are innovating to use mobile phones at little or no cost. But despite new communication technologies, a culture of official secrecy makes access to information in the continent more difficult than anywhere else in the world.

05.08.2004 Everyone needs and wants to communicate, and they do so with the tools at hand. Africa's needy urban people are using the most readily available communication technology for them, mobile phones, in innovative ways. But there is still a question over whether this access gives them true inclusion in the global "information society" the people with access to communication technologies and the information they share.

05.08.2004 UNESCO has announced the release of the French version of its community knowledge management software, eNRICH. This multi-purpose tool aims to help communities find information and knowledge resources on the Internet, voice issues and create their own content. Ready-to-use, eNRICH reduces the challenges faced by communities in using ICTs.