There exists no doubt, considering the proactive role of mass communication in gathering, disseminating and gauging the public opinion and motivating them towards a desired change. This role by mass media is more important, particularly, in India where citizens are being seen as information starving and being deprived of much required knowledge to better their lives. Studies in the past have pointed out that, media have and continues to play an important and decisive role in nations that are categorized as third world countries, in bringing about development and leading to a predetermined social change. Furthermore, media can play an independent and objective role in a democratic political setup in India, by bringing forth various opinions and ideas, thereby nurturing an informed citizen about the polices, developments and issues concerning them.

This book is a significant study of an emerging alternative media scene in India in the larger context of the globalization of mass communication. It explores community radio in India. When the trend globally is toward mergers, acquisitions, and concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer corporate hands, civil society organizations all over the world have been promoting such alternative, community-owned media. This study investigates the ideologies and communication practices of various community-based organizations that have been using community radio as a means for empowerment at the grassroots. Adopting the case-study method, the authors do an in-depth analysis of four community radio projects in India-Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Jharkhand. This book provides documentation of best practices in community broadcasting, and also appropriate frameworks for policy-making as it includes a comparative study of the policies related to community radio in liberal, democratic countries and a comprehensive assessment of the history of Indian policy-making in broadcasting.

Transcultural Negotiations of Gender probes into how gender is negotiated along the two axes of ‘belonging’ and ‘longing’– the twin desires of being located within a cultural milieu, while yearning for either what has passed by or what is yet to come. It also probes into the category of ‘transculturality’ itself, by examining how not only does it pertain to the coming together of cultures from diverse spatial locations, but how shifts over time and changing performative modes and technological means of articulation, within what may be presumed to be the same culture, can also lead to the ‘transcultural’. The volume comprises four sections. Part I, ‘(Be)longing in Time’, examines negotiation of gender through transcultural acts of myths, rituals and religious practices being revised and revisited over time. Part II, ‘(Be)longing in Space’, studies how gender is renegotiated when people from different spaces interact, as also when public spaces and domains themselves become sites of such negotiations. In Part III, ‘Performing (Be)longing’, such transcultural negotiations are located in the context of changing modes of performance, considering particularly that gender itself is performative. The final section, ‘Modernity, Technology and (Be)longing’, traces how gender becomes transculturally negotiated in a space like India, with the advent of modernity and its companion technology.

India has a rich literary assemblage produced by its many different regional traditions, religious faiths, ethnic subcultures and linguistic groups. The published literature of the 20th century is a particularly interesting subject and is the focus of this book, as it represents the provocative conjuncture of the transitions of Indian modernity. This reference book surveys the major regional literatures of contemporary India in the context of the country's diversity and heterogeneity. Chapters are devoted to particular regions, and the arrangement of the work invites comparisons of literary traditions. Chapters provide extensive bibliographies of primary works, thus documenting the creative achievement of numerous contemporary Indian authors. Some chapters cite secondary works as well, and the volume concludes with a list of general works providing further information. An introductory essay overviews theoretical concerns, ideological and aesthetic considerations, developments in various genres, and the history of publishing in regional literatures. The introduction provides a context for approaching the chapters that follow, each of which is devoted to the literature of a particular region. Each chapter begins with a concise introductory section. The body of each chapter is structured according to social and historical events, literary forms, or broad descriptive or analytic trends, depending on the particular subject matter. Each chapter then closes with an extensive bibliography of primary works, thus documenting the rich literary tradition of the region. Some chapters also cite secondary sources as an aid to the reader. The final chapters of the book address special topics, such as sub-cultural literatures, or the interplay between literature and film. A list of additional sources of general information concludes the volume.