From 1st September Voice of Tibet starts two new short wave radio transmissions broadcasting into India. The 30 minutes long programs contains unbiased news and information in Tibetan language only. The timings will be 7:30 to 8 pm and 9 to 9:30 pm Indian time. Frequency will be 17.550 mHz, which is (low) on meter band 16.
“Since these two broadcasts targets the Tibetan exile community in India only, we hope and expect that the Chinese authorities will not attempt to interfere on these transmissions,” says Oystein Alme at VOT administrative office in Norway. “Our transmissions into Tibet and China has faced severe jamming attempts by Chinese stations for many years now, thus badly affecting the availability of VOTs short wave transmissions also in India. That is why we want to provide a separate service to the exile community in India.”
The Chinese authorities has for many years interfered on all foreign short wave broadcasts providing unbiased information into Tibet and China. VOT, VOA and RFA Tibetan and Chinese services are facing the same, along with several others. “Control over the media and access to information is tighter in China and Tibet than anywhere else in the world, but it will mark a new turn if they also start blocking transmissions aimed at listeners in India only,” says Oystein Alme. “Maybe I am too optimistic, but I can not see China going so far at this stage. With the Olympics in Beijing 2008 and their attemps to improve their international image, I can hardly see them wanting to further harm their international profile.
“We will follow the transmissions closely, and hope that many listeners in India will tune to 17.550 mHz at 7:30 and 9 pm (Indian time) in the evenings. It would also be of great interest and importance to us if the listeners could write us about the signal in their area.
We also hope they will write us feedback on the contents and profile of the programs. Such feedback can be sent by e-mail to: lungtrin@yahoo.com
VOTs programs are also available in mp3 format on the internet at: www.vot.org.
Contact persons:
Mr. Karma Yeshi, VOT Editor-in-Chief:
voteditor@gov.tibet.net
tel: +91 1892 2 26471 / 22384 – mobile: +91 94 1804 3890
For English language media also Mr. Oystein Alme, VOT adm. director, can be contacted:
voti@online.no – tel: +47 22111209 – mobile: +47 99378097
