SHORT NOTE ON

 

UNI – MEI South and Southeast Asia sub-regional Broadcasting workers workshop at Columbo, Srilanka  : 24 – 26 Feb  05.

 

 

Thursday 24th Feb

 

Registration was done.Opening ceremony was done by Hon. Mr Mahinda Rajapakse – Prime Minister Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka  ... Shri Jayasri Priyalal – UNI APRO coordinator in Sri Lanka honored me to light the diva along with Prime Minister.

 

After that a self introduction was made by all the participants regarding the work carried out by all in their respective field /countries. Among all the presentation Mr Raman was the best. He had carried the world map along with him and showed in front of the public in which part of India he belonged to and what are the activities carried out by him. This gesture impressed all the participants.

 

Country report and collective bargaining discussion was carried out firstly by Sri Lanka, followed by India. More time was allotted to Indians (India represents big country) by Jim Wilson. Raman and Umesh Chandra spoke on behalf of India. Actually it was decided that Raman and myself would speak, but Umesh Chandra felt since he belonged to Central side, so he would speak. So I adjusted and allowed Umesh Chandra to speak.

 

Raman highlighted on country report with addition of his few points which impressed the participants, since Raman had done lot of home work. Collective bargaining report was given by Umesh Chandra.

 

Friday 25th Feb

 

Effects of New Technology on broadcasting was given by Mr Upali  Arambewela – Director General Manager (Technical) Sri Lanka Rupavahini Co-operation gave a lecture on the given below subjects :

 

Ø      Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting (DTTB)

Ø      T.V. Broadcasting

Ø      Analogue – Continues signal

Ø      Digital – Discrete signal

Ø      Limitation for analogue

Ø      Signal degradation

Ø      Noise & Interference

Ø      Ghosting effect

Ø      Spectrum congestion

Ø      No mobile reception

Ø      Driver influencing Digitalization

Ø      Commercial advantage

Ø      Availability of low cost digital Broadcasting equipment.

Ø      Unavailability of analogue

Ø      Technical advantage :

a)      Saving on frequency spectrum

b)      Superior quality

c)      Benefit of post production

 

 Types of Digital Terrestrial broadcasting used by other countries  :

a)      DVB   – T ( Digital Video broadcasting) – Europe and most part of Swedish & U.K

b)      ATSC – T (Advanced television system) – U.S.A

c)      ISDB  -  T (Integrated servicing Digital broadcast system) – Latest mode used by     

                     Japanese

 

Attractive features:

 

a)      Mobile reception  (DVB – H)

b)      Co – Channel performance

c)      Adjacent Channel performance

d)      Multi path performance  (Ghosting)

e)      Support for closed captions

f)        Support for multi language audio

g)      Set up box ( STB)

 

The Latest technology about to come is Television receiver + Computer = Teleputer

 

There were other countries report and collective bargaining: Malaysia / Mongolia / Pakistan / Nepal / Bangladesh / Indonesia / Philippines / Thailand  /Sweden. On basis of their report, interaction was done in form of questions & answers.

 

Later on visited Sri Lanka Radio station and television station and observed that one camera man had to handle four cameras at a time, but compared to India for the same programmed, we get more hands to work on. So the credit goes to our Association for not having curtlement of staff.

 

Saturday 26th Feb

 

Dr Nandana Karunanayake , consultant of the information & Media Ministry gave a lecture of gender and stereo effects. A male & female has been given equal status, but still it is not followed. Eq. given: Ladies & Gents have same qualification, ladies were offered job as Service assistant and Gents were offered job as Technical assistant in Rupavahini Corporation. So he showed that there was no justification regarding job offered. So few ladies are found in higher post.

 

On the last day, workshop was conducted on collective bargaining. Four points were mentioned therein. There was division of two groups: Employer and Employee.

The four points were:-

a)      Demand

b)      Strategy

c)      Process

d)      Agreement

 

Among six people, one would be the main officer from the employer side and from the employee side, one would be the president.  In this way the workshop was conducted. How to deal with the problem was shown practically.

 

I am very much thankful to Shri Das Gupta, Shri Anil Kumar and Shri Milind Joshi for proposing my name. I have learnt a lot from the above workshop and henceforth, no difficulty in approaching higher boss during collective bargaining from them.

 

 

 

A J D’Souza

  

 

 

      

 

 

 

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