"The scholarships will be given in partnership with the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA). It will act as an encouragement, not only for IGNOU, but for those who wish to learn the arts and crafts of community radio broadcasts," said Pillai.

Pillai was addressing a two-day conference on community radio from September 29 to 30, which was inaugurated by O.P. Kejariwal, information commissioner, Central Information Commission.

Pillai emphasised that it was the first conference on community radio organised by an academic institution in India to bring together community radio practitioners, communication experts and academicians of the field on one platform.

Pillai informed, "Community radio is not only about participatory broadcast, but it is a new form of information dissemination at the grass root level. It follows India's age-old tradition of oral learning and combines the use of tradition with technology by using the FM transmission mode. In fact in many ways community radio is what an open university aspires to achieve -- teach without the confines of classroom and without the discipline of time bound structure."