Satellite Instructional Television Experiment

Satellite Instructional Television Experiment From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

An ISRO technician next to a working model of the solid-state television set, designed with NASA assistance, for use in SITE. Image courtesy NASA

The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment or SITE was an experimental satellite communications project launched in India in 1975, designed jointly by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The project made available informational television programmes to rural India. The main objectives of the experiment were to educate the poor people of India on various issues via satellite broadcasting, and also to help India gain technical experience in the field of satellite communications.

The experiment ran for one year from 1 August 1975 to 31 July 1976, covering more than 2500 villages in six Indian states and territories. The television programmes were produced by All India Radio and broadcast by NASA's ATS-6 satellite stationed above India for the duration of the project. The project was supported by various international agencies such as the UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and ITU. The experiment was successful, as it played a major role in helping develop India's own satellite program, INSAT.[1] The project showed that India could use advanced technology to fulfill the socio-economic needs of the country. SITE was followed by similar experiments in various countries, which showed the important role satellite TV could play in providing education.

Contents 1 Background 2 Objectives 3 International collaboration 4 Technical details 5 Village selection 6 Programming 7 Evaluation 8 Impact 9 References

10 Notes

[edit] Background

The ATS-6 satellite that was used for SITE

As part of its Applications Technology Satellites program in the 1960s, NASA sought to field test the direct broadcast of television programs to terrestrial receivers via satellite and shortlisted India, Brazil and the People's Republic of China as potential sites to stage the test. The country which would receive these broadcasts would have to be large enough and also close to the equator for testing a direct-broadcast satellite. While the communist regime of China was not recognised at the time by the U.S., Brazil was also ruled out as its population was concentrated in the cities, affecting the outreach of the broadcast across the country. As a consequence, India emerged as the only suitable candidate; however, its strained relationship with the U.S. prevented the U.S. government from directly asking for its assistance, preferring India to make the first request for assistance for its own nascent space program.[2]

At the same time, India was trying to launch its national space program under the leadership of Vikram Sarabhai. India was interested in the role of satellites for the purpose of communication and asked UNESCO to undertake a feasibility study for a project in that field. Between 18 November 1967 and 8 December 1967, UNESCO sent an expert mission to India to prepare a report on a pilot project in the use of satellite communication. The expert panel concluded that the such a project would be feasible. Following the report, a study team of three engineers from India visited USA and France in June 1967, and came to the conclusion that India could meet the technical requirements for the project.[3] Following this, the Indian government set up the National Satellite Communications Group SATCOM in 1968 to look into the possible uses of a synchronous communications satellite for India. This group consisted of representatives from various cabinet ministries, ISRO and All India Radio (AIR) And Doordarshan. The group recommended that India should use the ATS-6 satellite– a second generation satellite developed by NASA– for an experiment in educational television.[3]

Arnold Frutkin, then NASA's director of international programs, arranged to have the Vikram Sarabhai approach NASA for help. Sarabhai saw this as a great opportunity for India to expand its space program and to train Indian scientists and engineers. Consequently, the Indian

Department of Atomic Energy and NASA signed an agreement regarding SITE in 1969.[4] The experiment was launched on 1 August 1975.

[edit] ObjectivesAs per the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two countries, the objectives of the project were divided into two parts—general objectives and specific objectives. The general objectives of the project were to:

gain experience in the development, testing and management of a satellite-based instructional television system particularly in rural areas and to determine optimal system parameters;

demonstrate the potential value of satellite technology in the rapid development of effective mass communications in developing countries;

demonstrate the potential value of satellite broadcast TV in the practical instruction of village inhabitants; and

stimulate national development in India, with important managerial, economic, technological and social implications.

The primary social objectives from an Indian perspective were to educate the populace about issues related to family planning, agricultural practices and national integration. The secondary objectives were to impart general school and adult education, train teachers, improve other occupational skills and to improve general health and hygiene through the medium of satellite broadcasts. Besides these social objectives, India also wanted to gain experience in all the technical aspects of the system, including broadcast and reception facilities and TV program material.

The primary US objective was to test the design and functioning of an efficient, medium-power, wide bandspace-borne FM transmitter, operating in the 800–900 MHz band and gain experience on the utilisation of this space application.[4]

[edit] International collaborationA joint ISRO-NASA working group was established even before the Memorandum of Understanding was signed. This working group studied the possibility of using a communications satellite for TV broadcast in India. After the MoU was signed, many review meetings were held between NASA and ISRO scientists. Indian scientists visited NASA to study front-end converters and earth station operations. On India's request, the INTELSAT organisation agreed to provide free satellite time for pre-SITE testing.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provided assistance of $500,000 for setting up the Experimental Satellite Communications Earth Station (ESCES) at Ahmedabad and nominated the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as the executing agency for this project. The UNDP provided another $1.5 million, for setting up a TV studio at Ahmedabad and a TV transmitter at Pij in Kheda district. It also gave assistance for setting up a TV Training

Institute to train many of the programme production staff who would join All India Radio to work on SITE. UNESCO was the executing agency for this project. UNICEF contributed to SITE by sponsoring 21 film modules produced by Shyam Benegal, a noted Indian film-maker. This resulted in a lot of interaction between film-makers and folk-artists. Shyam Benegal went on to include many of these artists in his children's feature film Charandas Chor (1975).[5]

[edit] Technical details

ATS-F coverage of India at 860 MHz

The production of the television programmes was decentralised, with three Base Production Centres located at Delhi, Cuttack and Hyderabad, and an ISRO studio located in Mumbai. Each of the centres had a production studio, three IVC tape recorders, two 16 mm. projectors, a slide Projector in Telecine and audio equipment like tape desks and turntables. Each centre also had 2–3 full fledged synchronised sound camera units, an editing table (Delhi had two) and a film processing plant. There was also a sound dubbing studio equipped with a pilot tone recording plant and an audio mixing console.[6]

The television programmes prepared by the Indian government at the four studios were transmitted at 6 GHz to ATS 6 from one of two ground stations located in Delhi and Ahmedabad. These signals were then re-transmitted at 860 MHz by the satellite, which were directly received in 2000 villages by community television receivers with 3 m parabolic antennas. Regular television stations also received the signals and broadcast them to another 3000 villages in the standard VHF television band. Each television signal had two audio channels to carry audio in two major languages of each cluster.[7] This setup was called the Direct Reception System (DRS). Apart from the direct broadcasts, the earth station at Ahmedabad was micro-wave linked to the TV transmitter built in the village of Pij. The Delhi studio was linked to the terrestrial TV transmitters of AIR. A receive-only station was built in Amritsar and linked to the local TV transmitter.[8]

The DRS undertook terrestrial broadcasting for large cities and direct broadcasting to SITE television sets for remote villages. However, it did not provide for small towns where the TV set density was higher than in the villages while not as much as in a city. The concept of a low-power limited rebroadcast (LRB) TV transmitter system was evolved to overcome such situations. The LRB consisted of a simple receiver system having a 4.5 m chicken-mesh parabolic antenna with a low-noise block converter, that served as the front-end for a low-power TV transmitter at the same location. Two suitable locations, Sambalpur in Orissa (75 villages) and Muzaffarpur in Bihar (110 villages), were tentatively identified for implementing LRB transmitter systems. This experiment was expected to provide useful data on the trade-off between DRS and LRB. However, due to financial constraints, these two LRBs had to be shelved, and instead an LRB was set up at SHAR, Sriharikota.[9]

[edit] Village selectionAs the broadcasting time was limited, it was decided that the direct reception receivers would only be installed in 2400 villages in six regions spread across the country. Technical and social criteria were used to select suitable areas to conduct this experiment.[10] A computer program was specially designed at ISRO to help make this selection. As one of the aims of the experiment was to study the potential of TV as a medium of development, the villages were chosen specifically for their backwardness. According to the 1971 census of India, the states having the most number of backward districts in the country were Orissa, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka. Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal were eventually left out, as they were slated to get terrestrial television by the time SITE would end. SITE was launched in twenty districts spread across the other six states. Each of the states thus selected was called a "cluster". In each cluster, 3–4 districts, each containing around 1000 villages, were identified. Finally, around 400 villages were chosen in each cluster.[10] Close to 80% villages selected for SITE did not have electricity in the buildings where the SITE TV sets would be installed. A special project called Operation Electricity was launched to urgently electrify the villages before the start of SITE. 150 villages would have television sets running on solar cells and batteries.[11] These sets were specially designed by Indian engineers with help from NASA.[2]

Clusters selected for SITE[12]

Cluster District Maintenance centersAndhra Pradesh Hyderabad Hyderabad

Kurnool NandyalMedak SangareddyMahbubnagar Nagarkurnool

Karnataka Gulbarga Gulbarga, BagalkotRaichur RaichurBijapur Bijapur

Bihar Muzaffarpur MuzaffarpurChamparan MotihariSaharsa SaharsaDarbhanga Darbhanga, Samastipur

Madhya Pradesh Raipur* Raipur, MahasamundBilaspur* BilaspurDurg* Rajnandgaon

Orissa Sambalpur SambalpurDhenkanal Dhenkanal, AngulBaudh Khandmals Baudh

Rajasthan Jaipur Jaipur, ChomuKota KotaSawai Madhopur Gangapur

* These districts are now located in the state of Chhattisgarh.

[edit] ProgrammingAll India Radio had the main responsibility for programme generation and the programmes were made in consultation with the government. Special committees on education, agriculture, health and family planning identified their own programme priorities and conveyed it to AIR.

Two types of programmes were prepared for broadcasting: educational television (ETV) and instructional television (ITV). ETV programmes were meant for school children and focussed on interesting and creative educational programmes. These programmes were broadcast for 1.5 hours during school hours. During holidays, this time was used to broadcast Teacher Training Programmes designed to train almost 100,000 primary school teachers during the duration of the SITE. The ITV programmes were meant for adult audiences, mainly to those who were illiterate. They were broadcast for 2.5 hours during the evenings. The programmes covered health, hygiene, family planning, nutrition, improved practices in agriculture and events of national importance. Thus, the programmes were beamed for four hours daily in two transmissions. The targeted audience was categorised into four linguistic groups—Hindi, Oriya, Telugu and Kannada—and programmes were produced according to the language spoken in the cluster.[13]

Due to linguistic and cultural differences, it was agreed that all core programmes would be cluster-specific, and would be in the primary language of the region. A brief commentary giving the gist of the programme would be available on the second audio channel, to keep up the interest of the audience in other language regions. All clusters would also receive 30 minutes of common programmes, including news, which would be broadcast only in Hindi.[14]

An example of a schedule for evening transmission: schedule for 1 November – 31 March[15]

6:00 7:00 7:30 7:50-8:30

Mins. Bihar/Madhya Pradesh/Rajasthan

Common Programme Mins. Orissa Mins. Andhra

Pradesh/Karnataka

10 Agriculture (MP) News (all clusters) 10 Agriculture 10 Agriculture (AP)

20 Cultural 10 Cultural 10 Cultural (Urdu)

10 Health 10 Cultural (Karnataka)

15General Education/Information (Film)

10General Education Community Matters (Karnataka)

5 Short Film

[edit] EvaluationThe social research and evaluation of SITE was done by ISRO's special SITE Research and Evaluation Cell (REC). The REC consisted of around 100 persons who were located in each of the SITE clusters, at the SITE studio in Bombay, and at the headquarters of the REC in Ahmedabad. The research design was finalized by the SITE Social Science Research Co-ordination Committee under the chairmanship of Dr. M. S. Gore, Director of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Bombay. Impact on primary school children was studied under a joint project involving ISRO and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). The overall evaluation design was divided into three stages. The first stage, the formative or input research, was a detailed study of the potential audience. The second stage, process evaluation, was the evaluation carried out during the life-time of SITE. This evaluation provided information about the reaction of the villagers to different programmes. The third stage, the summative evaluation, involved a number of different studies to measure the impact of SITE. These included the Impact Survey (Adults) to measure the impact on adults, SITE Impact Survey Children (SIS-C) to measure the impact on school children, and the qualitative anthropology study to measure, at a macro-level, the change brought by TV in rural society.[16]

Besides the social evaluation, a technical evaluation was also carried out to help India develop future systems. All major sub-systems of the earth station were tested and evaluated before SITE was launched. This was done firstly using a spacecraft simulator from NASA, then using the Indian Ocean INTELSAT satellite and finally using the ATS-6 satellite. All the components of the Direct Reception System were also thoroughly tested. The TV set was tested by the British Aircraft Corporation. The 3-meter antenna was tested thoroughly before deciding on the final design. Data on failure rates was collected and analysis of the first 1800 failures was carried out to help design future DRS systems.[17]

[edit] ImpactAs decided in the original agreement, the SITE program ended in July, 1976 and NASA shifted its ATS satellite away from India, despite demands from Indian villagers, journalists and others such as noted writer Arthur C. Clarke (who was presented with a SITE television set in Sri Lanka) for NASA to continue the experiment.[2]

The SITE transmissions had a very significant impact in the Indian villages. For the entire year, thousands of villagers gathered around the TV set and watched the shows. Studies were conducted on the social impact of the experiment and on viewership trends. It was found that general interest and viewership were highest in the first few months of the program (200 to 600 people per TV set) and then declined gradually (60 to 80 people per TV set). This decline was

due to several factors, including faults developing in the television equipment, failure in electricity supply, and hardware defects, as also the villagers' pre-occupation with domestic or agricultural work. Impact on the rural population was highest in the fields of agriculture and family planning. Nearly 52% of viewers reported themselves amenable to applying the new knowledge gained by them.[18]

Similar experiments were conducted in the Appalachian region, Rocky Mountains, Alaska, Canada, China and Latin America in the mid-seventies and early eighties. These experiments demonstrated that satellite TV could play a very important role in providing education.[19]

Before SITE, the focus was on the use of terrestrial transmission for television signals. But SITE showed that India could make use of advanced technology to fulfill the socio-economic needs of the country. This led to an increased focus on satellite broadcasting in India. ISRO began preparations for a country-wide satellite system. After conducting several technical experiments, the Indian National Satellite System was launched by ISRO in 1982.[20] The Indian space program remained committed to the goal of using satellites for educational purposes. In September 2004, India launched EDUSAT, which was the first satellite in the world built exclusively to serve the educational sector. EDUSAT is used to meet the demand for an interactive satellite-based distance education system for India.[21][22]

[edit] References

EVALUATION REPORT ON SATELLITE INSTRUCTIONAL

TELEVISION EXPERIMENT (SITE) - 1981

1. The Study

The Department of Atomic Energy of the Government

of India entered in 1975 into an agreement with the

National Aeronauntics and Space Administration (NASA) of

the U.S.A to conduct jointly a Satellite Instructional

Television Experiment (SITE) with a view to provide

informal education to the rural population of India

through an intimate medium of communication.

Accordingly, the SITE programme was launched on 1st

August, 1975. This joint venture of NASA, Indian Space

Research Organisation (ISRO) and All-India Radio (AIR)

had the objectives of (a) exploring the potential of

satellite for nation-wide communication through the

medium of TV and (b) broadcasting instruction programmes

in the field of agriculture, family planning, education

etc. The SITE programme was introduced in 2400 villages

in 20 districts of Rajasthan, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya

Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The programmes under the SITE were classified

into two broad categories i.e. (a) educational televison

(ETV) which was meant for the school children in the age

group of 5-12 years and (b) instructional television

(ITV) for adult audience, primarily designed for

neoliterates and illiterates. ETV programme was focussed

to make education more interesting, creative, purposive

and stimulating and also to create an awareness in the

changing society. The telecasts for adult viewers were

to cover incidents of national importance, improved

practices in agriculture, health, hygiene, family

planning, nutrition, etc. and some recreation

programmes. The programmes were telecasted for a

duration of four hours each day in two transmissions.

The programmes were produced after categorising the

target audience into four linguistic groups viz Hindi,

Oriya, Telugu and Kannada. The SITE was in operation for

one full year from August 1975 to July 1976 and covered 6

states.

At the instance of the Planning Commission, the

Programme Evaluation Organisation (PEO) conducted an

evaluation study of the Programme in three phases, viz, (i) Bench-Mark Survey during July, 1975, (ii) Concurrent

Observation running in three rounds from August, 1975 to

July, 1976, and (iii) Repeat Survey from August, 1976 to

November, 1976. The study was confined to those aspects

of the programmes telecasted for adults only.

2. Objectives

The overall objective of the study was to

understand the impact of the SITE Programme on the rural

communities. The specific objectives, however, related

to:

i) The change in knowledge, attitude, etc. in

respect of the various developmental

programmes in the fields of agriculture,

animal husbandry, health and family

planning;

ii) The views and reactions of the sample

respondents about the benefits derived from

TV;

iii) The viewing pattern and the socio-economic

background of the viewers; and

iv) The hardware (maintenance and functioning)

and software (programme content) of the

Satellite television

3. Sample Size/Criteria for Selection of Sample

The sampling design adopted for the study was a

multi-stage one. From each of the 6 States covered by

the programme, one district with the maximum number of TV

sets was selected. From each selected district two

Community Development Blocks were chosen with probability

proportional to the number of `TV villages' in them.

From each selected block, 4 villages were selected at

random from the alphabetically arranged list of TV

villages. Of these, the first two were taken as

`observational villages' and the other two were put in

the category of `non-observational villages'. The total

of observational villages formed about 1% of the total TV

villages. Two` non-TV villages' located between 15 to 20

kms from the periphery of TV cluster villages were

selected as `control villages' in each of the selected

blocks. The number of selected TV observational villages

remained the same during the first and third rounds of

the Concurrent Observation. For the quick second round,

10% of the total TV villages were selected through

multi-stage stratified sampling method.

In each selected village, 30 households were

selected. The households were stratified into

three-cultivators, labourers and others-on the basis of

the principal occupation of the head of the household.

The households were selected systematically from the

first stratum (cultivator households) and randomly from

the strata of labourers and others. A total of 2160

households were selected in 6 states. However,

information was collected only from 2140 households as 20

households were dropped on account of death or migration

to other villages.

4. Reference Period

The reference period, combined for the three

phases of study, ranged from August, 1975 to July 1976,

i.e., the period for which the experiment was done.

5. Main Findings

1. The maximum percentage of TV Sets (70%)

functioned in the month of August, 1975. The position

deteriorated in the subsequent period. Failure in

electricity supply and hardware defects were the factors

mainly responsible for the non-functioning of TV sets.

The loss of viewing days was greater in Bihar, Rajasthan

and Madhya Pradesh than in the other three states.

2. The time allocated for the development

programmes varied from 17% to 30%. Of this, three-fourth

of the time was for programmes on agriculture and health.

Over 2/5th of the (total) programmes telecasted dealt

with agriculture and nearly 1/3rd with health.

3. 78% of the development programmes observed by

the P.E.O field teams were rated as good and over 90% as

relevant to the local situations. About three-fourth of

the respondents felt that the development programmes

were, on the whole, useful and conformed to the local

conditions. Over one-fourth of the viewers could acquire

detailed knowledge of the new practices shown on the

television.

4. Nearly 52% of the viewers were in favour of

applying the new knowledge gained. About 34% of them

wanted government's assistance in terms of credit,

supplies, etc. for the application of the new knowledge.

87% were willing to try these practices with the present

information while the rest of them asked for supplementary information.

5. Size of audience per TV set declined from the

range of about 200 to 600 persons in the first round to

about 60 to 80 persons in the third round. The overall

decline was 59%. More than 1/3rd of the respondents

missed the telecast due to their pre-occupation with

domestic or agricultural work while another 1/4th missed

it because of indifferent health and fatigue.

6. About two-third of the total audience

consisted of adults, with men constituting more than

2/5th of the total and women about 1/4th. The remaining

1/3rd were children. During the third round of the

survey, only 1/3rd of the adult household members were

viewers.

7. The departmental extention machinary did not

adequately participate in the TV programmes; nor did it

perform its clarificatory and supporting role.

8. Gain in knowledge and attitude per respondent

was the highest in the field of agriculture followed by

family planning, animal husbandry and health. This was

mainly because of the numerical majority of cultivators

in the rural areas. Knowledge and attitude improved

invariably with the viewing of TV.

9. At the end of the SITE programme, a

substantial number of respondents opined that the

government took greater interest in promoting the welfare

of the poorer sections by disbursing loans and giving

other facilities more liberally than before.

10. After the introduction of the SITE

programme, some benefits of watching television like the

learning of new things about agriculture and allied

fields, knowledge about the happenings in other places,

information about the governmental efforts to promote the

welfare of the poor, entertainment and information

regarding availability of loans and other facilities to

villagers than before were recognized. Even occasional

viewers got their outlook broadened and changed

considerably.

National satellite for distance education

Edusat system  India successfully launched a communications satellite dedicated to teaching Sept. 20, 2004 aboard the third flight of its Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The $20 million Edusat spacecraft will link schools and colleges to remote classrooms in five states in what government officials called a precursor to a nationwide space-based educational service to be in place by 2010. The 1,950 kilogram Edusat was launched  from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota, 80 kilometers north of here, on the first operational flight of the GSLV.  Following the successful launch of an education only satellite by the government of India,  educators  were engaged in regional meetings throughout that country to ensure that Indian students are ready to compete globally in science, mathematics, engineering, and related disciplines. The Edusat system is intended mainly for primary through college education but also will support vocational training, ISRO said in a statement. It is configured for interactive distance learning and will transmit direct-to-home TV-quality broadcasts in different languages. Teacher training will be among the services provided over the system, which will operate with low cost user terminals.  A major challenge for educators in India, meanwhile, is to provide access to high -quality instruction in key subject areas, especially in rural and remote areas, explained the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which launched EDUSAT in late September. India faces a significant shortage of qualified teachers, ISRO said. EDUSAT aims to connect urban and rural educational institutions throughout India to provide a formal educational infrastructure and also to help spread knowledge about health and other related issues to more remote areas of the country. According to India’s Ministry of Education, of the nation’s 190 million children aged six to 14, only 150 million are in school. There is only one teacher per 71 students, and up to 87 percent of the students ultimately drop out of school. The satellite will enable distance education to take place throughout India by interfacing with video from each school. The ISRO satellite program currently covers more than 1,000 schools and is expected to grow to 10,000 schools in the next three years. India first used satellites to distribute educational programs in the mid-1970s, using the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) to beam programs related to hygiene and family planning to a large number of Indian villages. India first demonstrated the space -based distance-learning concept in the mid 1970s using a NASA Applications Technology Satellite. Subsequent educational telecasts using India’s own Insat satellites prompted ISRO to build a satellite

dedicated to teaching. In the early '80s, multiple educational programs were telecast. Because those programs had such success, ISRO formed the EDUSAT Project in October 2002, the group said.  The satellite will be used for learning in many ways, such as beaming local language instruction programs to address illiteracy. For example, one program allows students to send video questions to any teacher in any connected classroom, anywhere in India, using a streaming video card over the EDUSAT satellite. The teacher then responds to these questions through EDUSAT. The satellite also will be used in teacher training. The satellite will use multiple regional beams to cover different parts of India, according to ISRO. Schools and teachers using the satellite will be expected to generate classroom content, and ISRO says the quality and quantity of content ultimately will determine how successful the EDUSAT program is. Five regional conferences have been organized to help create awareness about the educational satellite and its potential. Today the INSAT system provides satellite development communication. Besides, efforts like Training and Development Communication Channel which was also extensively utilized by IGNOU and the efforts at defining the GRAMSAT system are now leading to the evolution of the Edusat system.  Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE)  The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) conducted in 1975-76 was the task bed of satellite broadcasting. Direct Reception TV sets were installed primarily in about 2400 primary schools or gram panchayats. Programmes for school children, primary school teachers, and rural audiences were transmitted to carry education and information to distant and remote villages. The results not only established the technical feasibility of the configuration but demonstrated its efficacy in supporting primary education and carrying development oriented information to rural audiences. The system was used to provide training to 50,000 primary school teachers. It demonstrated increased interest and increased vocabulary among students and it showed significant gains in areas of health, hygiene, nutrition, animal husbandry, political orientation, and modernity.Training and Development Communication Channel (TDCC)  ISRO introduced the use of one-way video two-way audio teleconferencing interactive networks for education and training. Such networks cater to specialised audiences and provide for interaction and are therefore being termed as interactive narrow casting networks. Three major areas of applications have emerged. These are distance education, training/continuing education, and training for rural development.The Indira Gandhi National Open University was one of the early users of the network, followed by AIMA and other agencies involved in distance education. Of course, now, IGNOU has shifted the teleconferencing to the Gyan Darshan channel, but DPEP continues to be a major user of the network. The TDCC networks are being utilised by the State Governments for regular training of their field staff and of late engineering college networks have been established in Gujarat and Karnataka to conduct engineering classes over the network. 

Satellite Instructional Television Experiment. Television comes to village: An evaluation of SITE

Agrawal,   B.   C.

Unknown

The design and conclusions of India's satellite instructional television experiment (SITE) are presented and discussed. The socio-cultural changes triggered by the introduction of satellite TV were the central interest of the investigation. Seven villages, one each from six clusters and Kheda, about 20 to 30 km away from an urban centre and least contaminated by urban influence were selected. The field

work was divided into three phases: pre-SITE, during-SITE, and post-SITE. Anthropological field methods were the main tools of data collection. The data were analyzed at two levels; household and village. Instructional, recreational, and children's programs were broadcast. Results indicate that, due to TV exposure, a number of innovations were adopted. Also, viewers' attendance was found to be intimately linked to agricultural and religious activity cycles of the village. The major implications which can be drawn to provide planning inputs for future national satellite based TV systems are summarized addressing problems in program type, schedules, and language differences.

Acronym Definition

SITE School of Information Technology and Engineering (University of Ottawa)SITE Society for Information Technology and Teacher EducationSITE Society of Incentive Travel ExecutivesSITE Superfund Innovative Technology Evaluation (US EPA)SITE Search for International Terrorist Entities (Washington, DC)SITE Sculpture in the Environment (architecture group; New York, NY)SITE Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (Indian Space Research Organisation)SITE Standard Income Tax on Employees (South Africa)SITE Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics and East European Economies

SITE Society for Information Technology Education (now ACM Special Interest Group for Information Technology Education)

SITE Strategic Information Technology EffectivenessSITE Society of International Travel ExecutivesSITE Systems Integration, Test & EvaluationSITE Sind Industrial Trading Estate (Pakistan)SITE Sushree Institute of Technical EducationSITE Sensor Integrated Test EnvironmentSITE Stormwater Innovative Technology EvaluatorsSITE Systems Integration Testing EnvironmentSITE Shipboard Information - Training & Education

50 years of Indian TelevisionDuring the last 50 years television, one of the greatest inventions of the scientific world has contributed immensely to the development of mankind. It has brought people of different countries and regions closer to each other, enabling them to learn about the culture and traditions flourishing in different parts of the world. It is perhaps the most powerful means of mass communication for education and entertainment.

The history of television in India started around later fifties. In 1955 a Cabinet decision was taken disallowing any foreign investments in print media which has since been followed religiously for nearly 45 years. Under this circumstances, television in India was introduced on September 15, 1959 in Delhi when UNESCO gave the Indian Government $20,000 and 180 philips TV sets. The programs were broadcast twice a week for an hour a day on such topics as community health, citizens’ duties and rights, and traffic and road sense. In 1961 the broadcasts were expanded to include a school educational television project. The first major expansion of television in India began in 1972, when a second television station was opened in Bombay. This was

followed by stations in Srinagar and Amritsar (1973), and Calcutta, Madras and Lucknow in 1975. In 1975, the government carried out the first test of the possibilities of satellite based television through the SITE ((Satellite Instructional Television Experiment)) program. For the first 17 years, broadcasting of television spread haltingly and transmission was mainly in black & white. By 1976, the government found itself running a television network of eight television stations covering a population of 45 million spread over 75,000 square kilometers. Faced with the difficulty of administering such an extensive television system television as part of All India Radio, the government constituted Doordarshan, the national television network, as a separate Department under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

There were initially two ignition points: the first, two events triggered the rapid growth of television in the eighties. INSAT-1A, the first of the country's domestic communications satellites became operational and made possible the networking of all of Doordarshan's regional stations. For the first time Doordarshan originated a nation-wide feed dubbed the "National Programme" which was fed from Delhi to the other stations. In November 1982, the country hosted the Asian Games and the government introduced color broadcasts for the coverage of the games. In this period no private enterprise was allowed to set up TV stations or to transmit TV signals.

The second spark came in the early nineties with the broadcast of satellite TV by foreign programmers like CNN followed by Star TV and a little later by domestic channels such as Zee TV and Sun TV into Indian homes. When the solitary few soaps like Hum Log (1984), and mythological dramas: Ramayan (1987-88) and Mahabharat (1988-89) were televised, millions of viewers stayed glued to their sets. Fifty years after it switched on, Doordarshan, India’s public television broadcaster, continues to face the trinity of the three R’s that haunt such broadcasters worldwide: REVENUE, RELEVANCE and REACH.

Nonetheless, mainstream media for most seemingly news-hungry Indians today is TV. TV news is India’s vicarious new reality. When urban Indians learnt that it was possible to watch the Gulf War on television, they rushed out and bought dishes for their homes. Others turned entrepreneurs and started offering the signal to their neighbours by flinging cable over treetops and verandahs. According to an IRS survey, there are now 67 TV channels in 11 Indian languages devoted only to news-way above any country in the world. TV viewership for news has gone up from 333 million in 2000 to 437 million in 2007.

Advertising had discovered television in early nineties. In years to come, it would reorder the medium to serve its purpose. Beginning with equipment gifted from a foreign government, a makeshift studio and a clutch of 21 television sets installed in homes, TV now means 160 satellite channels broadcasting into India, earning revenues of more than Rs. 79 billion from advertising alone. Now, with over 66 million homes connected to Cable, India is the third largest cable-connected country in the world after China (110 million) and quickly closing in on the US (70 million).

History of site

Shopping for someone’s birthday or special occasion has just gotten so much easier and far more sensible thanks to the good folks at DirecTV. How many times have you gone out to look for a gift for a friend or loved one and walked up and down the isles, hopelessly looking and looking in a futile attempt to find something that you are sure that they would appreciate and make good use of? Then when you do come up with something, they just don’t seem to really need what you got them, or they already had something similar.

Isn’t it nice though, when you get a loved one a gift for a special occasion and it turns out to be something that they make good use of and it is truly appreciated? Now the good folks at DirecTV make it so easy to do just that and there are several reasons why.

The first reason is that the prices are very reasonable and you have your choice of several programming packages that start out with an introductory entry level economy package and progress up through their mid level packages and finish out with their top programming package.

It’s their Total Choice series of packages and they are heralded as the best selection in the industry for the money. It doesn’t stop with just the programming though and just wait until you see all that you get from DirecTV in the way of promotional goodies.

To start with they give you a free satellite TV system that comes complete with everything, including the dish and the receiver. It’s all installed absolutely free of charge, by DirecTV’s own team of in house team of installation experts.

It’s all top of the line Hughes electronics components, because that is the only brand that DirecTV uses for their satellite TV systems. There are five models of Hughes receivers that you can select from and they are all loaded to the brim with sensible and easy to use one touch functions.

The Hughes executive receiver, with digital video recorder Powered by TiVo puts instant replay in slow motion in your hand, as one of its functions as well as so many more. DirecTV gives free installation in up to four rooms in a home or business and will even supply all the receivers required to connect up to four separate TVs to satellite and all at no extra charge at all.

There is still more yet, because also in this promotional package DirecTV is going to throw in a free digital camera just for good measure. After you do the math, you will see that you come out way ahead on this deal and who doesn’t love to watch great TV programming.

This is a gift that a whole family can share in also. So the next time you are thinking of going out gift shopping for a friend or loved one, why not let the people at DirecTV give you a helping hand, so that you can be sure that they will love your gift when you give it to them.

1 7

Towards EDUSAT II

Bhupendra Singh Bhatia

Abstract

EDUSAT was launched in September 2004. Given a life span of about seven years,

it would be available till 2011. In case the services need to be continued, a

replacement of the satellite would be necessary. Given the requirement of a lead

time of about two years for designing assembling and launching a spacecraft, the

preparations should start latest by 2009 accordingly. It is therefore, it has been

envisaged to the type and replacement required for EDUSAT including the associated

changes involved according to the experience.

This paper is an attempt to briefly review the evolution of satellite based education

system in the country and the achievements of EDUSAT. It examines the

experiences with the present space and ground configurations and discusses the

possible changes for improvement and continuity of services. The need for

establishing structures for meeting the operational and managerial requirements is

also discussed.

Background

The use of satellites for Education has a long and rich history in India started in early

1970’s when the country had neither satellite building nor satellite launching capability. It

was the unique feature of satellites to quickly and simultaneously reach all remote parts

of the country that attracted the founder of the Space Program, Dr Vikram Sarabhai to

develop plans for use of satellites to support education and information dissemination

for National Development.

As a first step, to gain experience in this field, the ATS-6 satellite was obtained from USA

for one year and the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) was conducted

in 1975-76. Under this experiment, programs for school children were transmitted in the

morning, teachers training were conducted during vacations, and information oriented

programs were transmitted every evening to about 2400 villages spread over 24 districts

in six states of the country. It was this experiment that led to the establishment of

Open Access to Textual and Multimedia Content :Bridging the Digital Divide, January 29-30, 2009 © INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad and CEC, New Delhi1 8

CIET-SIET studios for production and transmission of school oriented programs. It led

to the initiation of the country-wide classroom of the UGC with CEC as the nodal agency

and EMRCs and AVRCs in several universities, which have now grown into the Vyas

Channel supported by the CEC and various EMMRCs. It was also instrumental in the

initiation of the IGNOU transmissions which have grown into Gyandarshan I broadcast

channel. All these networks became operational on the INSAT series of satellites, which

were initially made in the country and launched by using foreign launch pad, but now

satellites are made and launched indigenously.

All above networks were “Broadcast” networks. This mode of information dissemination

had its limitations like high wastage, no interaction, and non-availability of suitable time

etc.. To overcome these limitations, it was proposed to try out channels independent of

the broadcast networks. The cost of satellite based interactive terminals was prohibitive

(during late 80s) but the expansion of Telephone networks came as a boon and the

“One way video and Two way audio” Teleconferencing networks were tried out for

education and training. From 1992 to 1995, several trials and demonstrations of the

network were held. The efficacy of such networks to train large number of field workers

in Agriculture, forestry, Health, Education etc.. was demonstrated and several states

like Karnataka, Gujarat, Orissa and MP established such networks for use on an

operational basis. IGNOU, Open school land NCERT too organized trials and IGNOU

established an operational network which evolved into Gyandarshan II interactive channel.

It was with this background that when ISRO successfully operationalised the PSLV, at

that time EDUSAT was conceptualized to meet the communications requirements of the

Education sector.

The author was Director DECU and project Director Edusat Utilisation in ISRO. The

views expressed are author’s personal views and do not represent any organization.

EDUSAT

In conceptualizing the design of EDUSAT inputs were taken from educational institutions

and experts. As school education is in the regional languages, it was considered desirable

to have regional beams, which would give higher power. To meet the requirements of1 9

the national institutes, national beams were incorporated. Accordingly Edusat had five

regional beams in the Ku Band (North, South, West, East, and North-East.) and two

national beams, one in the Ku Band and another in the Ext. C Band. By the time Edusat

was launched the costs of interactive terminals (V-Sats) had reduced substantially. It

was therefore decided that all interactive networks would be two way video V-Sat based

networks. The transmissions would be IP based that would enable use of minimal

bandwidth for larger number of users.

EDUSAT was capable of providing several services besides broadcasting and interactive

networks. It could provide access to Internet; enable creation of large centralized

databases of learning and teaching materials. It would enable night - time loading of

teaching materials as well as a variety of audio based services. All possibilities were

presented to heads of all educational institutes and HRD. The spacecraft was fabricated

and launched in October 2004. It has a design life of six years and should need a

replacement by end of 2010. Given the fact that the design, fabrication and launch of a

satellite takes about two years now (Jan 2009) is probably the right time to review the

experiences and achievements of EDUSAT I and provide inputs for conceptualizing the

EDUSAT II system.

Asymmetric Internet

Through TVRO

Night time Loading

at Receiving end

Voice Chat on

Internet

Technological

Possibilities

Technological Possibilities Technological Possibilities

Radio Broadcast

Webcam as

Return Link

Telephone as

Return Link

Talkback Channel

as Return Link

Internet as

Return Link

Online Education

through Internet

TV Broadcast

Video Conferencing

Effective Multimedia Delivery to be Planned2 0

EDUSAT Achievements and Observations

The task of setting up user networks was primarily facilitated, spearheaded, implemented

and controlled by ISRO. Several efforts were made to actively involve MHRD and the

user agencies by holding several national and regional workshops. It was proposed that

an independent agency should be set up by MHRD to facilitate and manage EDUSAT

utilization. However this did not happen and ISRO had to take the lead to facilitate

EDUSAT utilization. ISRO provided seed funding for the user networks and with substantial

efforts set up a number of user networks as indicated in the Table given below. (These

figures may be slightly old but would be accurate enough to cover this study.)

Edusat could have brought both quantitative and qualitative revolution in education. The

quantitative expansion appears to have been achieved in being able to reach out to

large numbers, thanks to the efforts of ISRO.

However, the qualitative revolution, which should have come introducing new services

and better quality teaching with learning materials, has not been quite visible.

EDUSAT Users

National Beam

Name Of Agency Number of Terminals

Ku – Band Coverage

IGNOU 188

NCERT / CIET 90

CEC / UGC 62 (SITs) + 59 ROTs = 121

AICTE 102

VIGYAN PRASAR (DST) 48

SIDHI NETWORK (RGPEEE) 1084 (ROTs)

Ext. C-Band Coverage

IDSP 220

INDO US – PROJECT 40

Rehabilitation Council of India 240 (ROTs)2 1

Edusat Status of Regional Beam Networks

Ku – Band Regional Beams Status

Sr. No. Name Of The State Satellite Interactive Receive Only

Terminals (Sits) Terminals

(Rots)

1 Jammu & Kashmir 95 —-

2 Punjab (Mohali) 290 —-

3 GNDU (Punjab) 05 —-

4 Haryana 509 9837

5 Rajasthan (Ext. C – Band) 82 300

6 Gujarat 30 10564

7 Tripura 50 —-

8 Nagaland 38 —-

9 Mizoram 28 —-

10 Meghalaya 50 —-

11 Jharkhand 11 —-

12 West Bengal 126 340

13 Karnataka 42 2130

14 Tamil Nadu 485 —-

15 Kerala 88 900

16 Lakshadweep 13 21

17 M.P. Bhoj Open University 38 —-

18 M.P. Education (Rsk) 65 —-

19 RGTU Bhopal 60 —-2 2

20 M. P. Forest Dept. 52 —-

21 Orissa 30 80

22 Delhi 22 —-

23 Chhattisgarh 43 —-

24 Arunachal Pradesh 06 —-

25 Andhra Pradesh

(Under Insat – 3b With 5 Networks) —- 2100

26 Maharashtra 40 —-

Summary

Name Of The Beam No. Of The Operational Networks

National Beam 09

Regional Beams 38

No. of Terminals Installed and Commissioned

National Beam 750 Sits + 1383 Rots

Regional Beams 2298 Sits + 26272 Rots

Total 3048 Sits + 27655 Rots

The EDUSAT networks have been primarily used for Broadcasting Educational Programs

(as was done in SITE) or for live interactive classes (as was done in TDCC). The extent

of usage has varied from network to network. Some states have been very active while

in other states there have been delays. For Example in the state of UP, Edusat activity

has not even taken off while in states like Haryana and Gujarat large networks have

been established and effectively utilized.

Observations

It was realized at a very early stage that several large states like MP, Maharashtra,

Rajasthan etc. were not fully covered by any single regional beam. These states2 3

had to be provided bandwidth on the national beam. This lead to spare capacity on

some regional beams and over loading of the national beam.

The configuration was such that each user was required to invest substantially in

a hub. (This was provided by ISRO)

The connectivity between national and regional beams was not possible. If a

state network wanted to use / redistribute the signal of a national beam it was not

possible.

The primary mode of use has been either broadcasting or conduct of live interactive

classes. Very little, if any, use was made in the off line mode.

Internet connectivity was not made available either due to fear of over-load or

viruses.

The absence of off line usage lead to the satellite being almost unused during off

office hours. The usage for educational purpose between 6.00pm and 9.00am has

been very minimal.

Centralized data bases of teaching / learning materials could have been created

for on going use. This has not happened; even existing data bases and data banks

have not been connected. Further, the library data is also not connected to Edusat.

EDUSAT could have led to greater interaction amongst Faculty of same discipline.

A more intensive activation of the Gateway could have helped.

Organisations like Doordarshan and Telecommunications could easily integrate

satellites into their operational use because of strong in-house engineering capability.

MHRD failed to do so. Unfortunately, the organizational involvement of MHRD has

been rather minimal to that extent and couldn’t conceptualize to make EDUSAT an

integral part of the MHRD Educational Technology Infrastructure of the country.

EDUSAT II

Some suggestions that flow out of the EDUSAT experiences are as follows:

Have only national beams on EDUSAT. The concept of regional beams has not

been given any special advantage rather created limitations. Using one transponder2 4

of Ext C Band for providing continuity of service, while all others in the Ku Band will

facilitate reception of any program by any terminal eliminating the need of separate

hubs.

The user agencies should be permitted to use service provider for setting up

ground networks asking to use Hub of the service provider. This would reduce the

investment required by the user avoiding to install their own hub and enable a larger

number of service providers to set up ground networks speeding the creation of

larger no of networks.

Attempt should be made to combine all broadcast channels together into a

single DTH bouquet for making system efficient and cost effective. The receive

terminal should be a simple, inexpensive DTH receiver and should be able to receive

any of the channels.

Special effort needs to be made to reach out to remote areas. The availability of

ground based networks has improved substantially in the urban and semi-urban

areas; therefore, the need of EDUSAT for urban areas will be seriously questioned.

When the bandwidth available on ground networks is much higher, further, the planning

commission is interested to provide broadband experience to students of professional

institutes.

Internet should be made available to users on Edusat. This could greatly enhance

the utilization during non office hours and would be of great value to the users.

Library services should be provided to remote colleges through Edusat and it is

suggested to provide all e-journals on Edusat networks.

It would be appropriate if organization like INFLIBNET is involved with Edusat

gateway.

MHRD should create a pool of central agencies for Edusat utilization where CEC,

IGNOU, CIET, CBSC, AICTE should be represented on this central pool. INFLIBNET

should be given responsibility of creating and managing data bases as it is already

involved in this activity. This agency should plan and facilitate Edusat utilization and

be responsible for routine operations.2 5

Conclusion

Edusat I, was launched in Oct 2004, has led to the expansion of networks and their use

for broadcasting and interactive live classes. These networks must be used to bring in

educational innovations, provide better learning resources to enrich the teaching learning

process at remote villages. It is essential that MHRD and all other educational agencies

to come forward to create structured mechanisms for effective use of Edusat II in due

period of time, where CEC and INFLIBNET under UGC can play a lead role.

About Author

Mr. Bhupendra Singh Bhatia, Consultant, Commonwealth of Learning-CEMCA New

Delhi: Working on a project for Quality Assurance and Multimedia Learning Materials.

Advisor, Bhaskaracharya Institute of Space Application and Geo Informatics, Govt. of

Gujarat, Gandhinagar. President AV-CODE- An association of professionals in Development

Communication.

Essay on Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE)

PAYAL KAMAT

ESSAY

The one year long Satellite instructional television experiment (SITE) which commenced on 1st August 1975 and concluded on 31st July 1976, marked the beginning of a series of innovative and constructive educational television programmes for national development and for educating the Indian masses living in remote rural areas.

The SITE educational programmes were also aimed at making the children sensitive to, and learn, community living and improve their basic concepts and skills in the areas of numeracy, language and Science.

The programmes were directed at creating a positive attitude to formal education and making education interesting, creative, purposive and stimulating. The educational programmes were so designed as to familiarise children with facts and matters normally beyond their observation and experience.

The Satellite for this experiment, ATS-6 was provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of USA and the ground segment was prepared by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) working in collaboration with All India Radio/ Doordarshan.

The educational and developmental programmes were beamed up to the satellite from earth stations set up in Ahmedabad and Delhi and were broadcast towards India using the high power transmitter and the large antenna aboard ATS-6. These programmes were received in about 2400 villages in six different states of India.

One of the purposes of the experiment was to provide a system test of direct broadcast technology in relation to a large developing country.

It also aimed at demonstrating that a developing country like India could fabricate, manufacture and maintain the required earth stations, rebroadcast transmitters and community receiving sets in far off villages with adequate efficiency and reliability.

The experiment was also considered as a learning experience to design, produce and telecast relevant educational and developmental programmes to widely spread areas

with different problems and languages using, on a time sharing mode, a single broadcast channel.

One and a half hours of broadcast in the morning was denoted to school children while 2.5 hours in the evening were meant for general audiences in the villages. The evening programmes included half an hour of common programmes in Hindi which originated in Delhi.

The evaluation of the experiment provided a great deal of information and insight into how things worked and what can be done in the areas of technology, management, programme making and programme support to turn this new broadcasting innovation into a powerful aid to education and development for hitherto neglected rural areas.

The Experiment:

SITE covered 2330 villages spanning in 20 districts of six states (clusters) namely Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan.

Instructional TV programmes for adult viewers were telecast in the evening for about two and a half an hour's which included half-hour national Hindi programmes in Hindi, Kannada, Oriya and Telugu.

a) The study explored:

i) The extent to which a climate for development was created by SITE.

ii) The extent to which SITE accelerated the process of development.

iii) The extent to which the attitudinal and behavioural changes took place as a result of SITE.

b) Results of the experiment were:

1. As a System test of satellite broadcast technology in a country like India, the experiment was singular success. The research and development capability generated during setting up of this experiment was an invaluable spin-off.

2. It was more effective than all other media in attracting the female audience.

3. The continuous feedback through everyday interviews showed that the audience favoured instructional programmes as compared to socio- cultural programmes.

4. A large longitudinal survey showed large gains in information, awareness and knowledge in areas such as health and hygiene, political consciousness, overall modernity, and family planning.

It was also found that the gains were greater for under privileged sections of the rural society such as females and illiterates. The gains increased with the degree of television viewing.

5. In the area of agriculture, large number of innovations triggered by the television programmes. Farmers adopted only those new practices which did not demand additional expense on infrastructure.

6. A survey of children showed positive gains in the area of language development and in the attitude of seeking knowledge and information from sources other than conventional classroom teaching.

They learnt new stories and songs and activities such as making of models and toys became popular in most of the schools.

7. In both attitudinal, as well as, in behavioural information, the overall modernity increased as a result of TV viewing. It was higher among female frequent viewers as compared to male frequent viewers.

Essay on television

Introduction:

Television was first invented by J. L. Baird of Scotland in the year 1944. Television is a kind of wireless machine on which we can see distant objects by means of its radio action. The T.V. machines can be operated either by battery or by electricity.

How the T.V. works:

Television works with the help of electronics. We buy T.V. receivers that receive the figures and the sound from a T.V. centre. The main feature of a T.V. centre is its tower. The figures beamed on the T.V. receivers may be still or in action. These figures may be plain or coloured.

Television in India:

The first regular T.V. broadcasting started in Delhi in the year 1965. The T.V. station in Bombay was installed in the year 1972. The T.V. tower in the Bombay T.V. station is the tallest and the self-supporting. T.V. tower in our country. It is three hundred meters high. Later, T.V. stations were founded in Amritsar, Srinagar and Calcutta. From 9th August 1975, Calcutta became a T.V. City. The Indians are now manufacturing T.V. receivers. In Orissa, Government enterprise at Bhubaneswar is making T.V. sets.

On the last August 1975, the TV programmes were beamed to two thousand and five hundred villages in six states of India through Satellite Instructional Television Experiments. These six states are Adhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnatak, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan. These villages were provided with 2000 special T.V. sets to receive programmes directly from the artificial earth satellite stationed over the Indian Ocean by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States of America. These special T.V. sets were designed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) at Ahmedabad.

In Orissa, on the 1st August 1975 the then Chief Minister Mrs. Nandini Satapathi Inaugurated the Satellite Instructional programme in the village Ankarntipur in the district of Dhenkanal. That serves the selected villages of Dhenkanal, Sambalpur, Balangir, Kalahandi, Sundargarh and Keonjhar districts.

Usefulness:

The usefulness of TV certainly much more than radio. TV is the best medium for mass education about public health, sanitation, improved cultivation, indigenous industries, small savings, family planning and personal hygiene. It is the best medium for mass-education in literacy and preliminary science. It is also the best medium for teaching higher science and geography to the students in colleges and universities. It is also the best medium for audio-visual entertainment through songs and play broadcast through it. It is also the best medium to bring us home the tragedies of war, the worth of nature and the development works going on at home and abroad.

Conclusion:

The Government of India is trying to provide and popularize T.V. facilities all over India. People should co-operate with the television brings wealth of sight to the television-viewers and a wealth of sound too.

SAT E L L I T E T E L EVI S ION IN INDIA :

T ECHNOLOGY FOR WHOM, JOURNEY FROM WHERE ?

D e s a i M K

S a t e l l i t e t e l e v i s i o n c a n b e d e f i n e d a s t e l e v i s i o n b ro a d c a s t i n g u s i n g s a t e l l i t e

t e c h n o l o g y . T e l e v i s i o n c a m e t o I n d i a i n 1 9 5 9 a n d s at e l l i t e t e l e v i s i o n i n f o r m

o f S a t e l l i t e I n s t r u c t i o n a l T e l e v i s i o n E x p e r im e n t i n 1 9 7 5 . A f t e r 1 9 8 2 w h e n

I n d i a n N a t i o n a l S a t e l l i t e ( IN S A T ) w a s l a u n c h e d t h e re c a m e a s h a r p r i s e i n

n u m b e r o f t r a n s mi t t e r s , b e g a n c o l o u r t e l e v i s i o n a n d t e l e c a s t o f A s i a d g a m e s

i n c r e a s e d p r i v a t e i n v e s t m e n t i n t e l e v i s i o n s e t s . I n e a r l y n i n e t i e s n e w f a c e o f

s a t e l l i t e t e l e v i s i o n e n t e r ed I n d i a n h o u s e h o l d s i n t h e n a m e o f C a b l e &

S a t e l l i t e t e l e v i s i o n ( C & S T V ) a n d t r a n s n a t i o n a l c o n t e n t e n t e r e d I n d i a n

h o u s e h o l d s . T o d a y o n e t h i r d o f I n d i a n t e l e v i s i o n h o u s e h o l d s h a v e a c c e s s t o

C & S T V .

B e g i n n i n g o f S a t e l l i t e T e l ev i s i o n i n I n d i a w as m a r k e d b y w o r ld f i r s t t e c h n o -

s o c i a l e x p e r i m e n t S I T E - S a t e l l i t e I n s t r u c t i o n a l T e l ev i s i o n E x p e r i m e n t - f o r

e d u c a t i o n & d e v e l o p m e n t p u r p o s e s . T h a t f o l l o w e d n u m b e r o f o t h e r

e x p e r i m e n t s l i k e S I T E C o n t i n u i t y , S ch o o l T e l e v i s i o n , U G C C o u n t r y W i d e

C l a s s R o o m , J h a b u a D e v e l o p m e n t C o mmu n i c a t i o n P r o j e c t , I n d i r a G a n d h i

N a t i o n a l O p e n U n i v e r s i t y t r a n s m i s s i o n a nd l a t e l y c h a n n e l s l i k e T r a i n i n g a n d

D e v e l o p m e n t C o mm u n i c a t io n C h a n n e l a n d G y a n D a r sh a n f o r e d u ca t i o n a l a n d

s o c i a l d e v e l o p m e n t p u r p o s e s .

T e c h n o l o g i e s p e r s e p r o v i d e t h e s c o p e o f d e m o c r a t i z a t i o n a t t h e s a m e t i m e

c r e a t e s i s s u e s r e l a t e d t o c o n t r o l a n d a c c e s s f o r o t h e r s w ho d o n o t o w n i t . T h e

p a p e r e x a m i n e s t h e n o t i o n o f ‘ s a t e l l i t e t e l e v i s i o n ’ a s d e m o c r a t i z i n g f o r c e a n d

c o n c e p t o f c o mm u n i t y t e l ev i s i o n s e t s a s o n e i m p o rt a n t c o m p o n e n t o f a l l

d e v e l o p m e n t c o mm u n i c a t i o n e x p e r i m e n ts i n I n d i a . T h e p a p e r e x a m i n e s

v a r i o u s p r o j e c t s a n d h o w t h e t e c h n o l o g y ‘ r e a c h e d ’ ‘ t h e p o o r e s t o f p o o r ’ a n d

t h e d i v i d e s o f ‘ r i c h - p o o r ’ , ‘ m e n - w o me n ’ ‘ u r b a n - r u r a l ’ w e r e s o m e w h e r e

b r o u g h t i n t o m a i n t e x t . A t t h e s a m e t i m e i t r e p o r t s t h a t s a t e l l i t e t e l e v i s i o n i n

I n d i a h a s c o m e a l o n g w ay s i n c e 1 9 7 5 - S I T E d a y s b u t o n e t h i n g i s c o m m o n o v e r t h e y e a r s t h a t i t i n v a r i a b l y h as r e m a i n e d w i t h p e o p l e w h o ‘ h a d ’ a n d

‘ h a v e ’ o t h e r t e c h n o l o g i e s .

l l

Citation: International Conference on Communication for

Development in the Information Age: Extending the Benefits of

Technology for All. 07-09 January 2003 Eds. Basavaprabhu Jirli

Editor in Chief, Diapk De, K. Ghadei and Kendadmath, G.C.,

Department of Extension Education, Institute of Agricultural

Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, (India).

Global Communication Research Association

Centre for International Communication, MaCquarie University, Sydney, Australia

GCRA – Varanasi Conference

Prof. Naren Chitty Prof. Dipak De

President - GCRA Organizing Secretary

[email protected] [email protected]

Prof. Basyouni Hamada Dr. Basavaprabhu Jirli

Secretary General - GCRA Editor in Chief

[email protected] [email protected]

SP-4217 Beyond the Ionosphere

 Chapter 16

 No Free Launch: Designing the Indian National Satellite 1

 by Raman Srinivasan

[215] The Indian National Satellite (INSAT) was the most advanced nonmilitary satellite ever launched anywhere. The satellite was and continues to be promoted by the Indian Space Research Organization as its

flagship satellite and as being distinctly Indian in character. While most satellites fulfill a single, well-defined mission, INSAT was a multipurpose geostationary satellite. Its peculiar design arose partly from very unusual design constraints placed on it by India's insistence that the satellite carry at least four different payloads.

The most significant of the payloads on INSAT was a package that could receive television programs from selected stations in New Delhi and Ahmedabad and retransmit them to relay stations in Amritsar, Bombay, Madras, Gauhati, and Calcutta. Its importance arose from its special ability to transmit educational television programs directly to specially designed television sets owned communally by thousands of remote Indian villages. Many Indian leaders hoped that a significant fraction of India's somnolent villages thus would be awakened.

The second package was designed to provide telephone, facsimile, data, telegraph, video text, and other communications services among metropolitan areas. The third was a remote-sensing package built to survey the nation's resources and thus help in its development planning. The last payload was an ingenious meteorological system that not only transmitted pictures of cloud cover, but also collected weather information from several thousand unmanned data collection points on the ground; it served to trigger selected disaster-warning sirens in isolated coastal villages under the imminent threat of cyclones.

Thus, INSAT had the communications capacity of an Intelsat IV (the state of the art in communications satellites when INSAT was designed), a meteorological payload effectively equivalent to the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-A (then the most advanced of weather satellites), and a direct-broadcast television system akin to the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS)-6 (once again, the frontier of technology), all wrapped into one compact package. INSAT was a crowded Indian bus shot into space.

[216] INSAT Historiography: Questions, Sources, and Strategies

The history of INSAT was shaped by India's desire to "gatecrash" the glamorous world of modernism. When India gained independence in 1947, the moral authority of Gandhian nonviolence and the grandiose global vision of Nehru produced a heady euphoria. India not only wanted to join the party of the moderns, but insisted on wearing nothing but a loincloth, like Gandhi.

Nowhere were these contradictory aims more apparent than in India's approach to its space program.

India made it clear, privately and through self-righteous declarations in international forums, that its plans for space technology were driven by "real needs" on land. Indians argued that technology in space was practically worthless without a vast array of other technological systems on the ground. INSAT sought to demonstrate the practical benefits of advanced technologies to the poorer nations. Its ground systems were designed to show that space technology was a technology appropriate for underdeveloped societies.2

INSAT could be equally renowned for the many meanings loaded into it. At one level, INSAT embodied the tensions and aspirations associated with decolonization. At another level, it illustrated the use of technology as an instrument of foreign policy. From the point of view of a third world country, it was also an example of using technology for economic development, social and cultural change, nation-state building, and the formation of a nonaligned bloc of third world nations politically equidistant from both the Soviet Union and the United States.

The past is a perishable resource, particularly so in the hot and humid climes of India. There are no depositories of documents, such as NASA's archives, for the Indian space program. The custodian of the satellite, the Indian Department of Space is a somewhat secretive quasi-governmental institution. In a society still largely oral rather than textual, crucial decisions are far less likely to be committed to paper than they are in the West. The culture of autonomy in these institutions encourages minimal documentation of decisions. Also, as is the case of good Hindus, the Department of Space cremates its dead files--and fairly regularly, too. Furthermore, that peculiar literary genre of the British Raj, annotations in official files, has declined, as has other institutions of the Raj in postcolonial India. Thus, researching INSAT poses many problems.

The sources for INSAT's history are scattered. This chapter relies extensively on field work, interviews, and archives in the West. Access to information was achieved in India using the data obtained in the West, such as limited access to the Indian Department of Space records.3

From Atomic Energy to Space Research

The Indian nuclear and space programs, although originally the private vision of a few scientists, quickly crystallized as high-priority programs of the new

Indian state. A parliament, largely ignorant of science but lusting after advanced technology, approved the programs. An impoverished mass of mostly agrarian taxpayers funded the nuclear and space programs. These programs became planned efforts to appropriate alien technologies, [217] paths to rapid industrialization, ways of catching up with the West, and symbols of a resurgent India.

Just as it is necessary to know Mahatma Gandhi to appreciate the history of independent India, an awareness of Homi J. Bhabha is crucial to the story of INSAT. By creating new institutions for the adaptation of advanced technologies, Bhabha laid the foundations of INSAT. His approach to high technology continued to shape the Indian space and nuclear programs for nearly four decades. To know and appreciate the life and work of Homi Bhabha is to understand not only INSAT, but also other high-technology enterprises of the Indian state.

Born to an influential Bombay Parsi family in 1909, the young Bhabha attended a private school established primarily for European children. He pursued a career in physics, starting with undergraduate and doctoral studies at Cambridge under the famed physicist Paul Dirac, as well as at the Cavendish Laboratory. He quickly earned a reputation as a brilliant theoretical physicist, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1939.4

On a short holiday when World War II erupted, Bhabha accepted a specially created readership in cosmic ray physics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, which was founded by his relatives, the Tata family. Bhabha decided to concentrate on the difficult task of creating new institutions embodying a new culture of science befitting modern India. The Tata Trusts, controlled by his close relatives, aided Bhabha in this task. In 1945, a generous and timely grant enabled him to create the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at Bombay. There, amidst beautiful paintings and landscaped gardens, Bhabha planned how to shape the future of India.

A member of the Bombay Parsi elite by birth, Bhabha came into frequent contact with the leaders of the nationalist movement, such as Nehru and Gandhi. The independence movement received financial contributions from the merchant-princes of the Parsi community, and nationalist leaders were often their house guests. These informal contacts with the statesmen of India became important in helping the young Homi Bhabha direct India's high-technology ventures.

Just after independence, Bhabha quickly obtained formal approval to create the Atomic Energy Commission. Under its umbrella, he organized a vast empire of research. Convinced that even a backward country such as India could catch up with the West in an emerging field such as atomic energy,

precisely because of the field's nascent character, Bhabha effectively welded Gandhian nonviolence and the rhetoric of the "peaceful uses of atomic energy" to Nehru's inspiring, if occasionally irritating, philosophy of political nonalignment.5

Although India began with atomic energy programs, it quickly diversified into space research. Propelling this move were both Indian and foreign influences. Bhabha's extensive travels in the West and his own interest in the physics of the upper atmosphere alerted him to the growing significance of space technology. He gradually expanded the [218] domain of his Department of Atomic Energy to encompass the upper atmosphere and thus, eventually, space. The Indian National Committee for Outer Space Research (INCOSPAR) was constituted in early 1962 under the umbrella of the Department of Atomic Energy. As a result, all space-related research was embedded in the technocratic Department of Atomic Energy until 1972, when an independent Department of Space was formed.

With the death of Homi Bhabha in an airplane accident, a new generation ascended to the throne. The generational transition, although nonviolent, produced discontinuities. In the area of large-scale science, Vikram Sarabhai succeeded Bhabha. Similar to Homi Bhabha, whom he had assisted in space research, Sarabhai was born into an elite family with a pronounced interest in social reform, the arts, and letters. His father, Ambalal Sarabhai, was one of the leading citizens of Ahmedabad, approximately 300 hundred miles north of Bombay. Ahmedabad, proudly proclaimed "the Manchester of India," had become a major textile center by the early twentieth century, thanks to the enterprise of a group of intricately connected Gujarati Jain families. Close ties grew between the Sarabhai family and national leaders. The Sarabhai family, described by a Rockefeller Foundation officer as the "Medicis of Ahmedabad," played a crucial role in postcolonial India.6

Vikram Sarabhai and his sisters, children of a wealthy Gujarati merchant, were educated at home by a carefully selected group of Indian and foreign educators inspired by Maria Montessori. As a child, Sarabhai met national leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, as family guests in the Sarabhai mansions.7 At age seventeen, Sarabhai enrolled at St. John's College in Cambridge in 1936 and completed his natural science tripos in 1939. The onset of World War II forced him to return to India, where he continued to study physics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. There, the young Vikram Sarabhai found the opportunity to work closely with C.V. Raman and Homi Bhabha. After the end of the war, Sarabhai returned to Cambridge to finish his doctoral dissertation. On his return in 1947 to an independent India, Sarabhai, like Bhabha, persuaded charitable trusts controlled by his family and friends to endow a research institution near home in Ahmedabad, the Physical Research

Laboratory. Barely twenty-eight years old, Sarabhai had embarked on an intense mission as a creator and cultivator of institutions.

Building Coalitions

Despite the frustrations and disillusionment of India during the 1960s, the early years of the Indian space program were euphoric. Vikram Sarabhai, a playful, Krishna-like successor to the solemn and remote Bhabha, ushered in a decade of naive technological enthusiasm in India with the formation of INCOSPAR in 1962. Sarabhai's personality definitely generated excitement with the space program. Only someone endowed with at least some of the attributes of Krishna could have built India's space program in such a traumatic decade.

Like Krishna, Sarabhai played several roles in his efforts to nurture the frail space program in its early years. He was a roving diplomat, teacher, strategist, friend, counselor, leader, and system-builder. Within India, his unusual combination of scientific eminence, [219] aristocratic background, and disarming simplicity created a loving loyalty, often amounting to devotion, among those who knew him. Sarabhai's first attempts at technological evangelism within the Indian bureaucracy resulted in the Arvi Earth Station, the creation of which knit together a strong network of allies for the space program and set the pattern for the way in which INSAT would be constituted.8

The Arvi terminal, now a prominent landmark on the Pune-Nasik Road, stands as a testament to India's first success in space technology. Sarabhai had to persuade the rather conservative engineering bureaucracy entrenched in the Ministry of Communications to let him build satellite telecommunications terminals. The Overseas Communications Service had made plans to be connected to the international telephone network provided by Intelsat III, and it needed a ground station in India.

Because no one in India had built a ground terminal before, RCA was retained as a consultant and subcontractor for the electronics. The design of the antenna itself was based on the drawings of a similar antenna built by the U.S. firm Blaw Knox, but the engineering construction was done with the help of a Tata company, TELCO. The Arvi station was ready by October 1969, ahead of schedule. Sarabhai's ability to snatch the Arvi project from RCA resulted in saving India the equivalent of about $800,000 (in 1969 dollars) in foreign exchange and created a powerful profile for the space program

within the bureaucracy. More importantly, it redefined the rules of the game. The space program acquired operational autonomy from the bureaucracy.

The sheer force of Sarabhai's personality subdued open dissent, and his reputation enabled him to slice through the bureaucratic jungle. Assured of loyal support at all levels, from the prime minister to the peon, Sarabhai, as did Bhabha, set out to secure cooperation from the spacefaring powers. He first turned to the United States. Unfortunately, NASA's pragmatic director of international programs, Arnold W. Frutkin, had heard it all before. Frutkin previously had been inoculated by none other than Homi Bhabha himself. Thus, Sarabhai's efforts to gain U.S. assistance met with polite but firm refusals.9

There was, however, one important exception. During the early 1960s, NASA was planning a series of advanced technology satellites known by the acronym ATS. Leonard Jaffe, NASA's director of communications, informed Frutkin of the need to field-test an ATS project, which involved the direct broadcast of television to receivers from a satellite. At the time, this technology was untested. The commercial and political advantages of a satellite system that could beam programs directly to television sets attracted NASA policy-makers.10

Frutkin and Jaffe examined a world atlas for a suitable site for the ATS experiment. The three countries that were large enough and close enough to the equator for testing a direct-broadcast satellite were Brazil, China, and India. Brazil proved uninteresting; the population was concentrated in a few cities, and conventional television broadcast technology was clearly a better solution. The People's Republic of China was out of the picture for political reasons. Therefore, India was the logical choice. It was densely populated, yet only Delhi had a television transmitter (a small one) left behind by a Dutch electronics company after a trade show.

[220] Frutkin and Jaffe calculated that it would be expensive to have a conventional television system covering the entire country; a satellite would provide a cheaper alternative. Apart from being free of technological encumbrances, India possessed other advantages. Politically, it was an ideal location to demonstrate the peaceful uses of U.S. space technology and to beat the Soviets in technological diplomacy. The potential for propaganda was immense; Frutkin vowed to exploit it to the fullest. His earlier experience with Bhabha had taught him to negotiate with India.11

The U.S. State Department, however, was not enthusiastic about India, having been frustrated many times in its crude attempts to win India over to the "free world." An embarrassing controversy over placing Voice of America transmitters in India remained fresh in its memory.12 Having been turned down recently, the State Department was not about to ask India if it would

let a U.S. satellite beam television programs directly into remote villages. The request had to come from India. Therefore, to spare the State Department further embarrassment, Frutkin arranged to have Sarabhai approach NASA. Sarabhai agreed gleefully.

He requested the use of an ATS satellite for a year to conduct a satellite instructional television experiment in India's villages. He saw a great opportunity to convince India of the need to invest heavily in space technology, a unique chance to learn the ground segment of a satellite system from the Americans, the possibility of baptizing a whole generation of Indian scientists and engineers, and a systems management lesson for an INSAT satellite. The Indian Department of Atomic Energy and NASA signed an agreement for the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in 1966.

The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment

SITE,13 a massive experiment in social engineering designed jointly by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), is a fantastic tale of technological cooperation between unfriendly democracies. Indian engineers placed television sets in 5,000 remote villages spread in six clusters across the subcontinent. Half of the televisions were further modified to receive programs directly from the ATS satellite, and each of which was equipped with a large, distinctive dish antenna that dominated the village landscape. ISRO technocrats, spurred by social engineering ambitions, devised a highly sophisticated computer program that chose villages specifically for their backwardness. Most villages were not electrified, and many could not be connected to the electric network within a year. Therefore, space technologists reengineered the television sets to adapt them to the rigors of rural life. Many were powered by solar energy and batteries. NASA wanted to test some new solar cells and encouraged the use of such television sets.14

For a year, from 1 August 1975 to 31 July 1976, hundreds and sometimes thousands of villagers gathered daily in front of each of these 5,000 television sets--placed outside like a processional deity of a temple--to watch educational television, which showed them....

[221]

Figure 29. A technician with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) stands next to a working model of the solid-state television set, designed

with NASA assistance, for use in SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment). The picture epitomizes the contrast between Indian traditional rural culture and the high-technology domain of satellite communications, as well as Indian technocratic hopes of using SITE to satisfy the country's social

engineering ambitions. (Courtesy of NASA)

....how to lead better lives and grow more food. During the day, the village school children watched science experiments on television. Not all the viewers were villagers. Often, engineers and bureaucrats watched. The American embassy in New Delhi had a SITE television set. In Sri Lanka, Arthur C. Clarke, the Jules Verne of satellite communications, was given a set to watch SITE from his home. Every major newspaper in the world wrote about SITE.

After a year, NASA parked the satellite in a new orbit away from India. Clarke pleaded forcefully with NASA to continue this revolutionary experiment beyond the stipulated one-year period. Many leftist journalists voiced the disappointment of villagers. Delegations of villagers trekked several miles to meet government officials. Hundreds of postcards petitioned the government to continue the program. Several of the anthropologists stationed in villages to study the effects of SITE stayed longer to conduct post-SITE evaluations, then returned home to write lengthy reports.15

SITE was, thanks to Vikram Sarabhai's foresight, a joint effort of All India Radio and Doordarshan (Indian Television), the Ministry of Telecommunications, the education and agriculture ministries, and ISRO. ISRO, of course, had the final responsibility for the project's execution. Although ISRO engineers were reasonably confident of being ready with the technologies for handling the ATS-6 ground segment, they necessarily had to

delegate the task of producing programming to the Ministry of Telecommunications and, within it, to All India Radio and later Doordarshan.

All India Radio was an inertial bureaucracy totally unequipped to imagine the possibility of producing six hours of educational television every day for a year in four different languages. According to the agreement between the Department of Atomic Energy [222] and NASA, the Indians had agreed to feed the satellite six hours of television programming for 365 days. To be fair to All India Radio, one must remember that the voracious appetite of ATS-6 amounted to almost twice the annual harvest of the extraordinarily active Indian commercial film industry. At least in the eyes of its Indian managers, SITE quickly transmogrified itself from a boon to a devilish nightmare of a bargain to be fulfilled by them.16 As late as January 1975, less than six months before SITE was to go on air, only enough satellite fodder for one month was on hand.17

SITE provided a perfect opportunity for Indian engineers to acquire a wide variety of valuable technological knowledge--the sort of technological learning that occurs on any project. What marked SITE as an exceptional technological enterprise (and of importance to INSAT) was the way in which SITE affected those Indian engineers who went to the United States to help NASA prepare for SITE. The ISRO liaison in the United States between 1969 and 1973, Pramod Kale, had been recruited by Sarabhai to work in the Indian space program. Kale and other ISRO engineers working at NASA learned to design an advanced operational satellite, and Kale eventually became the project manager of INSAT.18

The phenomenal success of SITE in penetrating remote regions of rural India impressed everyone. It gave the Indian space program a level of state support that was otherwise unimaginable. SITE provided ISRO valuable technical expertise in building and managing the elaborate ground systems needed to utilize any satellite. It also enhanced the credibility of ISRO in the Indian scientific community and in the international space community. Indian scientists and engineers were more willing to work for ISRO. The recruitment of young professionals from elite engineering institutions increased for the first time after Sarabhai's death. SITE opened critical paths in the rapidly emerging European space programs. ISRO was accepted as an equal partner in several critical cooperative programs managed by the European, French, and German space programs. The collaborations with European space agencies brought ISRO decisive technologies and much needed experience. The experience and confidence gained abroad fed into the design of INSAT. It also enabled India to practice its own technological diplomacy--one based on nonalignment.19

More important than all the technical expertise gained from SITE was the education that ISRO received from the Indian villages it had set out to

instruct. SITE planted the seeds of social responsibility into the minds of India's elite space engineers. It etched India's social contexts into ISRO space technology. Exposure to the complex problems of India's villages tempered technocratic grandiosity. Although rural television promised revolutionary social changes, it also revealed the limitations of technological fixes.20

Unraveling INSAT

Homi Bhabha had begun scouting for a satellite for India as early as 1965. He was unwilling to purchase a ready-made satellite, because Indians would not learn anything about making satellites. Instead, he sought technical assistance in building a satellite and met several times with Arnold Frutkin to discuss U.S. assistance. Frutkin, however, saw no [223] practical benefits for NASA from teaching Indians to build satellites. Vikram Sarabhai encountered even greater obstacles--not only more resistance to technology transfer, but also systematic pressures from the United States and its allies, especially Britain, aimed at discouraging India's space program. Hesitantly, Sarabhai initiated planning for an Indian national satellite, to be called INSAT, in 1967.

Systematic thinking about INSAT began in mid-1968. A seventeen-member committee of engineers and scientists based at the Space Science and Technology Center in Thumba conducted a preliminary feasibility study. Ironically, their preliminary report did not consider the development of the payload or satellite. They had concluded that the first satellite had to be built in collaboration with other countries. They had not anticipated Western resistance to the transfer of space technology.21 Thus, the first step in India's satellite program concentrated on the ground systems. This orientation continues to characterize the Indian space program today. The preliminary 1968 feasibility study explicitly focused on two tasks that the Indians could see themselves doing: (1) designing orbital parameters and ground stations and (2) developing those technologies for which no foreign assistance was available, such as propellants and rocket guidance.22

India's initial emphasis, then, was to be on the launch vehicle rather than the satellite. By 1968, negotiations with NASA to borrow the ATS-6 had generated considerable optimism about U.S. technological assistance. Several American aerospace firms, such as General Electric and Hughes Aerospace, had shown a keen desire to collaborate with India in building its first operational Indian satellite. However, these early efforts to build a launcher were unusually optimistic.

Sarabhai, as did Bhabha, found the United Nations an effective forum to argue for technological assistance. An international sounding rocket program conducted in India brought basic rocket technology from the United States, France, and the Soviet Union. However, scaling up to rockets capable of launching operational satellites was a daunting task. Sarabhai and his colleagues recognized the nature of the challenge: India would have to obtain launch services, at least initially, from either the United States or the Soviet Union and planned its satellites accordingly.

In 1970, Vikram Sarabhai announced plans for an Indian National Satellite (INSAT) at the Bombay National Electronics Conference. Attending the conference was an impressive collection of academics, industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats, researchers, scientists, and engineers, as well as a substantial crew of Indian journalists.23 It was a perfect place to manufacture consensus for a national satellite. Sarabhai's presentation of the INSAT plans thrilled the crowd. Dissenting questioners were co-opted by well-informed "Sarabhai boys." Sarabhai's INSAT was primarily a direct-broadcast satellite meant to educate Indian villagers through television. To secure a wide range of support, Sarabhai indicated the possibility of including a number of special payloads to satisfy special clients. He also drew attention to the proposed SITE plan, which at the time was being worked out by a joint committee of Indian and U.S. engineers.

However, there was not much demand for telecommunications from the Postal and Telegraphs Department or for remote sensing from the Ministry of Defense. Weather information was not highly sought after either. Unlike most of the participants at the conference, the representatives of government bureaucracies were not excited by [224] Sarabhai's technological evangelism. It seemed, though, that they realized they could not pose any significant opposition publicly. The primary function of Sarabhai's INSAT was rural education through direct-broadcast television, making it explicitly a permanent replacement for SITE. If in the process INSAT could serve other needs, that was so much for the better.

Shortly after unveiling his INSAT plans, Vikram Sarabhai died, in December 1971. His death caused serious concern about the future of INSAT. Unlike SITE, which had NASA for a godfather, INSAT had no powerful patrons outside the Indian space program. Even more troubling was that no obvious successors to Sarabhai came forth from the Indian scientific community. At the same time, the U.S. Congress delayed the ATS program through budget cuts, giving time for India to revamp its space program. ISRO engineers committed to INSAT took pains to disconnect the fates of INSAT and SITE, which had been tied together implicitly, in the hope of ensuring INSAT's survival.

Toward the end of January 1972, the Indian government offered the leadership of the space program to Satish Dhawan. Dhawan had worked for Hindusthan Aeronautics Limited, India's state-owned aerospace industry, and he was familiar with Soviet aerospace technology. In appointing Dhawan, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced the creation of two important new organizations. One was the Department of Space. Dhawan convinced Gandhi to headquarter the Department of Space away from New Delhi, in Bangalore. The Department of Space was to be overseen by the other new institution, the Space Commission. At the same time, the space laboratories in Sarabhai's home town were consolidated into the Space Applications Center under the direction of Yash Pal of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Also, the space laboratories in and around Trivandrum were consolidated as the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center. Brahm Prakash, recently retired from the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, was persuaded to direct its activities.24

Dhawan's leadership marked a significant change in the Indian space program. India could not withdraw from SITE without seriously jeopardizing its relations with NASA and the United States. Dhawan recognized that it had to make SITE a success. On the other hand, plans for INSAT could be shelved, especially because its advocates had separated it from SITE, and there were pressures from the Planning Commission to discard INSAT. The Ministry of Finance and the Planning Commission saw no cash flows in the original educational television version of INSAT. Fortunately, the fight over INSAT resulted in a compromise. No decision was made one way or the other. The government waited until SITE was completed to evaluate proposals for INSAT, even though it meant an expensive hiatus in the social revolution catalyzed by SITE.

Dhawan pushed hard to make SITE succeed. He saw the future of INSAT, if not ISRO, at stake. When SITE was hailed loudly as an unprecedented success by the Western media, thanks to NASA's self-interest, INSAT revived. Between 1970 and 1977, the Ministry of Telecommunications awakened to the necessity of satellite technologies. The Prime Minister's Office had also become aware of the potential revolutionary capabilities of direct-broadcast satellite television. ISRO personnel, fired by Sarabhai's vision, succeeded in creating a small, independent rural television station based in Pij, Gujrat. Nonetheless, the Prime Minister's Office began to see the spread of satellite television of the SITE variety to be socially disruptive. It wanted nothing more than a gradual social revolution.25

[225] Much had changed by the time the INSAT concept revived in 1977. Dhawan, while well respected, did not command the influence that Sarabhai had. Back-of-the-envelope calculations, on net revenues generated by rural education through satellite television, did not hold any weight without Sarabhai. The Planning Commission, in collaboration with the Prime

Minister's Office, sought to ground INSAT's direct-broadcast capability. Also, the Ministry of Finance made it clear that INSAT had to be a fully operational and revenue-generating satellite for it to receive funding. This implied that INSAT had to be a collaborative venture involving the Department of Space (directly under the purview of the prime minister), the gargantuan Postal and Telegraphs Department under the Ministry of Communications, the Meteorological Department of the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, and Doordarshan and All India Radio of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Suddenly, INSAT had five clients, but they were all ossified bureaucracies dating from the British Raj into which had transmigrated a thoroughly Indian soul. They had little commitment to Sarabhai's vision of INSAT as an educational tool. Paradoxically, All India Radio and Doordarshan were anxious not to be saddled with the direct-broadcast segment. They feared the chore of feeding the demon satellite. The government revealed no intention of freeing broadcasting from its total control. In addition, maintaining several hundred thousand village television sets, as called for in the INSAT plans, was a logistical nightmare for any government bureaucracy. Thus, the market for INSAT changed radically between 1970 and l977.

Many idealistic ISRO engineers, fresh from the experience of SITE, realized that the original INSAT might be hijacked. They refused to consider any INSAT design that did not include a direct-broadcast television payload. To placate them, the INSAT design committee, now a real working group with engineers from the Ministry of Telecommuni-cations, agreed to install a television transmitter comparable to the one used in SITE. However, the Planning Commission refused to sanction money for ground equipment, such as television sets and antennas. Such a compromise served only to save face. The activists in ISRO wanted to be prepared for an opportunity to renew SITE. On the dark side, this decision to include a SITE capability imposed tough design constraints on INSAT. For instance, it increased the power needed to keep the satellite alive.

Why did Indian space technologists prefer not to design several single-purpose satellites? Each such satellite would have been fairly simple and built with proven, off-the-shelf technology. Building several satellites also would have spurred the serial production of an Indian space platform. The official answer to this obvious question is the economics of satellite launching. Because Indian rockets were incapable of launching a satellite into geostationary orbit, India had to purchase foreign launch services. "There are no free launches," NASA told Dhawan. The Soviets did not launch geostationary satellites; their launch pads were too far north to achieve an equatorial orbit. The European Space Agency offered free launches, but only on experimental rockets. INSAT could not be risked on experimental rockets. Rough calculations showed that the launch costs of a multipurpose satellite would be lower than the cost of launching three or four smaller spacecraft.

The technological patrimony of SITE especially influenced INSAT. The success of SITE, in a sense, blinded INSAT designers. The activist culture of the Indian space program did not permit leisure introspection. The shortage of skilled personnel ensured minimal dissent on technological alternatives. The United States--and Canada to some extent--lured away a significant number of elite Indian engineers and scientists, stunting the growth of a healthy scientific community.

Moreover, ISRO progressively lost the ability to define the satellite. When Sarabhai succeeded Bhabha, he continued to follow his mentor's strategy without responding to changes in the geopolitical context. India did not command the same moral authority it had even in the early 1950s. Also, Sarabhai was not fully aware of the motivations [226] prompting NASA and the United States on SITE. He could not foresee that SITE committed the Indian space program to an expensive detour that would ultimately freeze unwieldy features, such as a television transmitter, into the second generation of INSAT satellites. After Sarabhai's death, the Indian space program had to compromise more to keep its allies. Dhawan had even less room to negotiate than Sarabhai. In the meantime, the space organization had grown into a large bureaucracy. In real terms, budgets did not grow at a healthy rate. Dhawan sought to balance carefully the diverse needs of his various allies, while preserving a demanding coalition.

Not all of the payloads on INSAT had powerful patrons fighting for them. The Meteorological Department was not really interested in the satellite. Its clients were small farmers who did not know how to lobby for their share of technology. Yet, the designers of INSAT added the meteorological subsystems. In doing so, they made the satellite even more difficult technologically. To predict weather, INSAT designers placed a camera on the satellite. Thus, the satellite could send pictures of cloud movements that could be used to predict weather patterns. The camera required that the satellite be ten times more stable in space than it needed to be for the other missions. This added another dimension to INSAT's technological complexity. Why was the weather subsystem not left out? Who would have complained that INSAT did not predict the weather? A few people on the INSAT design committee experienced a deeply felt responsibility to the Indian farmer and stood their ground in design committee deliberations. India's efforts to get INSAT built required it to harness several payloads, to yoke several interests, and even to create new constituencies. INSAT became a crowded Indian bus.

Conclusion

Indians do not enjoy concluding stories. For complex epics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, conclusions are often beginnings. In 1947, an independent Indian state came into being. Barely two years after independence, food shortages forced the government of India to beg from the West. The United States, especially under the Johnson administration, cynically sought to use India's food crisis to further its own Cold War agenda. The uneasiness between the two countries is evident in the history of India's nuclear and space programs, especially when they are seen in the light of decolonization.

The history of INSAT is also a case study in the emergence of a nation-state in South Asia. Nascent science and technology institutions learned to deal, trade, and negotiate with the West under the leadership of Bhabha and Sarabhai, both of whom came from merchant-industrialist families. Doing business with the rest of the world, a skill not in great demand during centuries of foreign oppression, was what INSAT taught some Indians.

The rise of a professional, middle-class leadership in the Indian space and nuclear programs may be read as an indicator of the growing integration of the Indian nation-state into the family of nations. The politics of accommodation vividly illustrated by INSAT is at some level a comforting sign. The politics of foreign aid and the geopolitics of INSAT show India that nothing comes free.

END NOTES

1. Senior retired Indian officials who have read this text have advised the author that it contains materials "of a sensitive nature." Confidential sources may be found in two of the author's papers, "INSAT: The Politics of Appropriating High Technology" and "SITE: Traditionalizing Space Technology," typescript manuscripts, seminar papers in the author's possession. Unless indicated otherwise, this chapter is extracted from those two papers. Moreover, extensive interviews with Indian space program personnel form the basis of some of the assertions made here. The author wishes to thank his advisors, Raja Rao, his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, and the officials of the Indian space program for helping with both the research and the writing.

2. Vikram A. Sarabhai, Science Policy and National Development (Delhi: Macmillan Company of India, 1974).

3. The author would like to thank an anonymous worker in the Indian Space Research Organization for granting limited access to the records of the Department of Space. This person, of all the people the author met in India, understood history.

4. The only scholarly work on Homi Jehangir Bhabha is a comparative study of Bhabha and Meghnad Saha. Robert S. Anderson, Building Scientific Institutions in India: Saha and Bhabha (Montreal: Centre for Developing-Area Studies, McGill University, 1975). The section on Bhabha also draws on: R.P. Kulkarni and V. Sarma, Homi Bhabha: Father of Nuclear Science in India (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1969); P.R. Pisharoty, C. V. Raman (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1982); George Greenstein, "A Gentleman of the Old School: Homi Bhabha and the Development of Science in India," American Scholar 61 (Summer 1992): 409-19; Shiv Visvanathan, Organising for Science: The Making of an Industrial Research Laboratory (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985); G. Venkatraman, Journey into Light: Life and Science of C. V. Raman (Bangalore, India: Indian Academy of Sciences in cooperation with Indian National Science Academy, distributed by Oxford University Press, 1988); as well as Homi Jehangir Bhabha, Science and the Problems of Development (Bombay: Atomic Energy Establishment of Bombay, 1966); the "Bhabha Report," the popular name for India (Republic) Electronics Committee, Electronics in India Report (Bombay: India Government Press, February 1966).

5. For a history of India-U.S. relations after World War II, a surprisingly neglected research area, see H.W. Brands, The Specter of Neutralism: The United States and the Emergence of the Third World, 1947-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989).

6. Erik Erikson, Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Non-Violence (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 298. For background on Ahmedabad, see Kenneth L. Gillion, Ahmedabad: A Study in Indian Urban History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968).

7. The section on Vikram Sarabhai is drawn from Chotubhai Bhatt, "Vikram Sarabhai," Electronics India 2 (January 1972): 35; Padmanabh Joshi, "Vikram Sarabhai: A Study in Innovative Leadership and Institution-Building," Ph.D. diss., Gujrat University at Ahmedabad, 1985.

8. Kamla Chowdhry, "Vikram Sarabhai: Institution Builder," Physics News 3(1) (1972): 17; Kshitish Divalia, "Dr. Vikram Sarabhai: An Enterprising Industrialist," Physics News 3(1) (1972): 19; M. Sarabhai, This Alone is True (London: Meridian Books, 1952).

9. Arnold Frutkin, interview, Washington, DC, 4 January 1989, NASA History Office, Washington, DC; Satish Dhawan, interview with author, Bangalore, India, 5 January 1990.

10. Arnold Frutkin, interview, Washington, DC, 5 January 1989, NASA History Office; Leonard Jaffe, personal communication; James Wood, Satellite Communications and DBS Systems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Michael E. Kinsley, Outer Space and Inner Sanctums (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976).

11. R.S. Jakhu and R. Singal, "Satellite Technology and Education," Annals of Air and Space Law 6 (1981): 400-425.

12. The United States wanted a Voice of America transmitter on Indian soil to counter communist propaganda in South and Southeast Asia. See James Tyson, U.S. International Broadcasting and National Security (New York: Ramapo Press, 1983).

13. An experiment akin to SITE was conducted using radio technology from the mid-1940s and into the 1950s. However, SITE did not seem to have utilized the historical experience of either the educational radio experiments or a similar rural television experiment conducted in Europe during the early 1950s.

14. Arbind Sinha, Media and Rural Development (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1985).

15. Arthur C. Clarke, Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography: The Writings of Arthur C. Clarke (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1984).

16. On All India Radio, see K.S. Mullick, Tangled Tapes: The Inside Story of Indian Broadcasting (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1974).

17. Arnold W. Frutkin to Yash Pal, letter, 30 January 1975, NASA History Office.

18. M.S. Sridhar, "A Study of Indian Space Technologists," Journal of Library and Information Science 7(2) (1982): 146-58.

19. G.A. Van Reeth and V.A. Hood, "Review of ISRO/ESA Cooperation," conference paper, Rome, 1983; Vijay Gupta, ed., India and Non-alignment (New Delhi: New Literature, 1983); H.W. Brands, The Specter of Neutralism.

20. Vikram Sarabhai, Science Policy and National Development (Delhi: Macmillan Company of India, 1974); Vikram Sarabhai, Management for Development (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1974).

21. Anonymous, Preliminary Feasibility Study Report (Satellite Project) (Bombay: India Government Press, 1968), p. 8.

22. Sreehari Rao and S.K. Sinha, "Orbit Determination for ISRO Satellite Missions," Advances in Space Research 5(2) (1985):147-153; Murray Stedman, Exporting Arms: The Federal Arms Exports Administration 1935-1945 (New York: Kings Crown Press, 1947).

23. Government of India, Proceedings of the National Electronics Conference on Electronics (Bombay: India Government Press, 1972).

24. K.A.V. Pandalai, "Aerospace Personalities: Prof. Satish Dhawan," Aeronautical Society of India Newsletter 3(8) (August 1986): 2-12; Satish Dhawan, Prospects for a Space Industry in India (Bangalore, India: Patiala Technical Education Trust, 1983).

25. Satish Dhawan, interview with author, Bangalore, India, 4 January 1990.

Use of Television for Communication of Information

The electronic media- more so radio and also television are considered a potential vehicle for disseminating agricultural technology information. The Indian had it beginning in 1959. With the objective for assessing the value of different education TV programmers suitable for group viewing in rural and urban communities. Television was first demonstrated in India in 1965 at an industrial exhibition. At the conclusion of the exhibition a part of the apparatus was few programmers designed for community viewing such as “responsibility of citizenships which include traffic and road sense, danger to community health etc.

After the success of this experiment, it was decided to extend the scope of the community viewing experiment to school or educational television, which was launched in Oct, 23, 1961 in Delhi schools. From April 1965, television general service was increased to one hour, four days a week. But from August 15, that year it becomes a daily transmission krishi Darshan Programme for better farming precautions was introduced from January 26. 1967. The rural service primarily meant to familiarize the rural viewers with the technical and scientific know how about farming, weather forecasts. The countries second television center came up at Bombay on October 2, 1972. It was quickly followed by Shringar, Amritsar both 1973 Calcutta, Madras and Luck now ( all three in 1975 ) but from August 1, 1975 Doordarshan undertook an historic and a unique steps in its march forward.

The satellite instructional television experiment. Popularly known as SITE, the country’s most exciting and ambitious project was started by Doordarshan. In the beginning. Doordarshan formed a part of all India Radio outfit. But on April 1, 1976, Doordarshan was made an independent department of the ministry of information and Broadcasting. Unit 1982 television in India has not gone colour. From August 15, 1982 colour was introduced. Between 1980 and 1984 several new high power transmitters and low power transmitter’s

area and are assessable to the Annual Report of information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Doordarshan now has several channels. DD1 is the National channel available all over the country on certain fix hours. Dd2 and DD3 are also available. There are regional channels for putting out programmers in the 13 regional languages. Krishi Darshan is the oldest well established and the best known program for the rural area and farmers. The foresight and the pioneering sprit of the visionary space scientist Dr. Vikram Sarabhia and the initiative of DR. M.S. Swaminathan.

The basic objective of the program is to familiarize the rural audience with the latest technical and scientific know how about the farming practices, rural development programs, to acquaint the viewers with the importance of health, family planning, sanitation, etc.