R. Sreedher (left) at the Univ: Radiostar

If you'd like to visit what is being touted as the tiniest radio station in the world, you'll have to head for Chennai-borough Guindy where Anna University is located. On February 1, the University launched the first community radio station in the country, Anna FM 90.4. To most people who know Dr R. Sreedher, the Director of the University's Audio Visual Research Centre that doesn't come as a surprise. The man was part of the community radio revolution in India, launching Gyan Vani for All India Radio, Allahabad. Much later, in 1992, when he was serving out a stint with the Department of Science and Technology, he produced 143 episodes of a science programme for school children that was aired, every Sunday by 104 radio stations in 18 languages. Anna University hired him in April last when it wanted to launch a radio station. Sure enough, that's what he has done. Students of the university's electronics media course are thrilled. Some of them are carrying out audience research surveys in the 15 kilometre radius the station covers (that's some 70 per cent of Chennai). Others are looking forward to opportunities in programming (largely tech-speak for students, campus round-ups, and programmes targeting neighbouring communities such as fisherfolk), editing, even equipment maintenance. Anna FM 90.4 is run on a shoe-string budget, but it promises to be different from the staple 'hottest hits' FM channels crowding India's airwaves.

-Nitya Varadarajan

NEWSMAKER
Ravi Venkatesan, 41

Microsoft's Ravi Venkatesan: The wheels of the new-e

When Microsoft first approached Ravi Venkatesan, then the chairman of Cummins India about being its chairman in India, the man didn't know what to make of it. ''My first reaction was that of disbelief; I mean what do I know about software,'' he recollects. Six months later, Venkatesan, who at one point in time looked set to become a Cummins lifer-he was a star in the system and, for the record, started his association with the company when he interned at the Indian operations while still a student at IIT, Bombay-has filled a designation created specifically for him by Microsoft. ''I think it was the meeting with Bill Gates and Microsoft's top managers that clinched it for me,'' he says. Venkatesan has no experience in the software industry, but has been a constant in most headhunters' radar, especially while seeking to fill top-level vacancies, although he himself had never seemed interested. Still, it has a lure all its own and as Venkatesan puts it, ''This is (probably) the last chance I'll get to be part of one of the greatest revolutions of our time.''

-Abir Pal

From The Oxford Dictionary

In India

Used to describe anything and everything about the economy and the country as of now. Has become a favourite word of correspondents and editors. These lines can be found in any publication.

The economy is in feelgood mode.
The markets have factored in the feelgood sentiment.
The BJP is hoping that the current feelgood factor will help it in the upcoming election.

Only in India can an obscure word (wrongly used, without the hyphen at that) steal the limelight. We just hope that the word doesn't go down in history for the wrong reasons.

OBITUARY
Is The Telephone Directory Dead?

The last year that Mumbai's Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) brought out a complete telephone directory was 1999. And as G.V.R.S. Kumar, General Manager (Marketing), MTNL, puts it, "I wouldn't know if work is on to bring one out in 2004." One reason for the demise is declining demand. The second is the booming mobile telephony market: none of the mobile telcos publishes. The last is the cost involved. The telephone departments in various cities used to work around this by allying with yellow pages publishers to offer directories with yellow pages. GETIT Infomediary still does so in 10 cities including Chennai and Bangalore, but in most other places, the publishers have realised, as Mankerand Lele, General Manager, Yellow Pages, Tata Infomedia explains, that "the earlier model of yellow pages compensating for the cost of the printing the telephone directory doesn't work." Reason: poor distribution by the telephone departments concerned. Now, most yellow pages come as standalones (Tata Infomedia distributes half-a-million every year).

As for the directory...

-Dipayan Baishya

Retail Goliath
Mumbai, here we come.

Hyderabad Giant: Size, it would appear, matters

With its first (and thus far, only) giant hypermart (or hyper market as everyone insists it be called) nudging revenues of Rs 100 crore, the RPG Group, realising that it is on to a good thing, is investing in 15 more Giants over the next two years; the first of these, will open for business in Mumbai, a city the company has traditionally stayed away from citing the prohibitively high cost of real estate space, on February 21. As someone who has shopped at Giant, this correspondent can safely say that the store's USP (unique selling proposition) is its shopping area-trading area, as the Head of Hyderabad's Giant V. Jagannathan calls it. The hypermart, which opened for business on June 27, 2001, covers 45,000 square feet of space and sells 25,000 SKUs (stock keeping units) from vegetables to personal-care products to electronic goods. Hyderabad may have worked, but the company is likely to find operating a hypermart in Mumbai a different ballgame altogether.

-E. Kumar Sharma