Sat Ma­haraj

?In the clos­ing days of June, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Inc re­mained locked in the High Court (San Fer­nan­do) over the cost and com­pen­sa­tion is­sue of the cel­e­brat­ed ra­dio li­cence for Ra­dio Jaagri­ti 102.7 FM. On Ju­ly 4, 2006, the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil ruled that the State dis­crim­i­nat­ed against the Ma­ha Sab­ha and al­so held that the Ma­ha Sab­ha's con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion was vi­o­lat­ed.

Three years af­ter that land­mark judg­ment, the State is yet to pay com­pen­sa­tion and cost to the Ma­ha Sab­ha. The or­gan­i­sa­tion is not, how­ev­er, be­hold­en to the State and con­tin­ues to op­er­ate the ra­dio sta­tion and our par­ent body, de­spite our fi­nan­cial bur­den of lit­i­ga­tion from High Street, San Fer­nan­do, to Down­ing Street, Lon­don, pro­vides sup­port to our broad­cast am­bi­tions.

Ra­dio Jaagri­ti is con­cerned about the with­hold­ing of cost and com­pen­sa­tion by the State but we con­tin­ue to thrive in per­haps the most com­pet­i­tive niche in the ra­dio in­dus­try. Hold­ing the sta­tion to na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, the man­age­ment of Ra­dio Jaagri­ti has con­tin­ued to in­vest in equip­ment and train­ing.

On­ly re­cent­ly se­nior man­age­ment and staff of Ra­dio Jaagri­ti at­tend­ed a week­end work­shop in Mi­a­mi to fur­ther aug­ment our knowl­edge and skills with­in the broad­cast in­dus­try. Iron­i­cal­ly, Ra­dio Jaagri­ti was the on­ly Trinidad-based ra­dio sta­tion or me­dia house in at­ten­dance. Ste­ga En­gi­neer­ing from Trinidad, which pro­vides Jaagri­ti and oth­er sta­tions with tech­ni­cal ad­vice, was al­so at the work­shop.

De­signed for ra­dio and TV en­gi­neers and man­agers, the work­shop of­fered talks and hands-on demos from in­dus­try pros. It was a valu­able source of in­for­ma­tion for any me­dia man­ag­er. This two-day "broad­cast de­pot work­shop" pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn about the lat­est IP au­dio con­soles for on-air and pro­duc­tion stu­dios. It al­so in­clud­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn au­dio pro­cess­ing for AM and FM, re­mote broad­cast­ing via IP, con­trol and op­er­a­tional pro­ce­dures from A to Z, as well as a host of oth­er rel­e­vant ar­eas were taught and dis­cussed.

In T&T, ra­dio sta­tions are con­stant­ly on the search for small and com­pact re­mote broad­cast equip­ment. The out­side broad­cast (OB) equip­ment now in use is gen­er­al­ly large and cum­ber­some and re­quire sep­a­rate ve­hi­cles to trans­port to re­mote lo­ca­tions. The "Com­rex," a re­mote broad­cast piece, is easy on trans­porta­tion costs but re­lies on the avail­abil­i­ty of land­line tele­phone. But many of the phone lines are "call wait­ing" and car­ry oth­er fea­tures that from time to time in­ter­rupt the broad­cast.

The in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Sony con­duct­ed a full one-hour ses­sion in which it dis­played its lat­est and best TV cam­eras based on the in­di­vid­ual needs of tele­vi­sion sta­tions. The claim was that the prod­ucts were cost-ef­fec­tive and tai­lored to spe­cial needs. Har­ris, well known in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, not on­ly man­u­fac­tures and sup­plies print­ing equip­ment but is al­so in­volved in the man­u­fac­ture and sup­ply of "serv­er and au­toma­tion sys­tems for TV sta­tions." Har­ris en­gaged del­e­gates in an hour-long ses­sion in which it pre­sent­ed dis­play, dis­cours­es and demon­stra­tions of their prod­ucts.

In lit­tle T&T there are 39 ra­dio sta­tions with­in a lim­it­ed "band width." It is there­fore im­por­tant that an­ten­na sys­tems are able to pro­vide a cov­er­age pat­tern that will en­hance the broad­cast re­cep­tion. An en­tire ses­sion was de­vot­ed to "How to de­ter­mine the cov­er­age pat­tern of your ra­dio and TV an­ten­na sys­tems." The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha holds the view that the mod­ern world is be­ing dri­ven by our mas­tery of mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy. We have been ad­vis­ing our flock, es­pe­cial­ly our younger peo­ple, to un­der­stand mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion and how to mas­ter its use.

In fact the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has in­tro­duced, through the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil, at Ad­vanced Lev­el a "Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies Syl­labus." The ra­tio­nale ac­cord­ing to the syl­labus: "The abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate thoughts, emo­tions, ideas and at­ti­tudes is a crit­i­cal fac­tor in our man­age­ment of the phys­i­cal and so­cial en­vi­ron­ment. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion stud­ies pro­vides stu­dents with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond cre­ative­ly to the im­plied chal­lenges, through the de­vel­op­ment of their com­mu­nica­tive aware­ness abil­i­ties.

"The fact that com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a com­plex set of process­es to which lan­guage is cen­tral, in­forms this pro­gramme of study. The plac­ing of lan­guage in this con­text em­pha­sis­es the na­ture of lan­guage as a unique mark­er of per­son­al, cul­tur­al and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, as well as of so­cial and po­lit­i­cal re­la­tion­ships. Lan­guage as a tool of in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion is al­so high­light­ed."

The syl­labus in­te­grates, en­hances, deep­ens and broad­ens lan­guage skills and aware­ness al­ready de­vel­oped in the CSEC Eng­lish A cur­ricu­lum. It fo­cus­es spe- cif­i­cal­ly on the de­vel­op­ment of ad­vanced com­pe­ten­cies in Stan­dard Eng­lish and at­tempts to de­vel­op an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the lin­guis­tic di­ver­si­ty of the Caribbean and the im­pli­ca­tions of this di­ver­si­ty for so­cial, cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic trans­ac­tions.

"The Caribbean re­gion com­pris­es the small is­land states and main­land ter­ri­to­ries, the Greater and Less­er An­tilles and all the oth­er is­lands in the Caribbean Sea (in­clud­ing the Turks and Caicos Is­lands of the Nether­lands An­tilles). It in­cludes al­so Be­lize, Suri­name, Guyana and Cayenne."

�2 Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha