It does not take a Bill Gates to notice that Only Connect is mostly about computer and Internet-related issues, but that is of course not the whole story. Only Connect is interested in the broad question of connectedness, and the technologies that make it possible. This technology could be anything from a clay tablet to a silicon chip, from carrier pigeons to geostationary satellites.

This week Only Connect is wildly excited, and for a somewhat personal reason. Some of you may know that I earn my bread by teaching at Jadavpur University, and a very nice place it is too. But it is about to get nicer. As I write, the university is in the process of setting up a community FM radio station. This is happening at some speed, so Radio JU (or whatever we decide to call it — any suggestions?) will be up and running any time now, spreading good cheer in a 10-km radius from the campus. That is a substantial part of south Calcutta and the 24-Parganas, stretching all the way to Sonarpur in the south and Sealdah in the north. Several million souls reside within this area so we are looking at fairly large audience.

What is the nature of community radio? Worldwide, the community radio movement is a thriving one and a station typically works outside the ambit of large corporate radio stations. There are two broad aspects to it — programming which caters to the needs of the community, and wide-based participation and involvement on part of the target audience.

In India, the community radio movement received a shot in its arm when in 1995 the Supreme Court ruled that airwaves were public property. Since then, however, not much has been done to set up such stations. There are a few campus radio stations in the country — the first was set up by Anna University in 2004 and another by Pune University the following year — but the quality of programming has not exactly set the airwaves on fire.

At JU, we are in the process of carrying out a survey in the target area to gauge what sort of programming would be most attractive. If any of you have any ideas or suggestions please do not hesitate to let us know. Would you for instance, like live broadcasts of carom tournaments, or would you prefer Swahili language classes? Does your taste run to marathon antaksharis or do you desire more information on rice weevil bugs? By the way, not everything goes at community radio. Some of my students are salivating at the prospect of becoming shock jocks on late-night radio phone-ins and suchlike, but they had better be warned that there are lots of dos and don’ts for campus radios. But that is for the future. In the meantime, here is Only Connect calling all radioheads and signing off.