Tribal women empowerment is theme of first fellowship in memory of bhaskar bhattacharji. (Mediawatch).

The First UN Visual Media Fellowship in memory of Bhaskar Bhattacharji has been awarded to Anil Vishram Revankar, a budding documentary film-maker from Pune, India. The guidelines for the Fellowship, instituted by the United Nations Developments Programme (UNDP) in partnership with Prasar Bharathi, the Indian national radio and television entity, state that it is to honour "eminent television personality, stage actor and a dearly loved colleague in the United Nations (who) began his career as a young producer in radio and went on to become one of the most popular newsreaders" on television and "to promote on of his most cherished ideas, social change communication, to support independent media productions that are not only compelling in content and artistic presentation but can also be used as tools for progressive social change".

Bhaskar, who served the communications and advocacy divisions of UNDP and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) for nearly a decade, died in New Delhi on 1 January 2000.

The Citation for the Fellowship was presented by India's Minister for Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Arun Jaitley, who said for laws for social empowerment to be followed and accepted, the level of education in society was of paramount importance, noting that there was no better instrument than the media to promote social change education. Noting that the dictates of the market were gradually increasing on the mainstream media, the Minister said public service broadcasting was losing out in, the consistent struggle between the need to raise resources for commercial viability and to be viewer-compatible in an increasingly competitive market. But he expressed optimism about the future of social change education through the media, particularly radio. The larger bandwidth and further development in broadcast technology would only result in greater plurality of choice and consequently mean more space for social change communication, Mr. Jaitley said.

For the fellowship, Revankar, 34, will work on a film depicting women's empowerment through self-help group activities in agriculture and poultry management in the villages of Vansda in the Balsad district of Gujarat on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border (see next page). This programme, supported by UNICEF, was selected for creative conceptualization of video documentation of a gradual social change without affecting traditional customs and human values.

Revankar, who is a mechanical engineer and a qualified cinematographer from the Films and Television Institute of India (FTII), has already a string of social education films behind him. His film on reconstructive surgery in leprosy won the national award in 1989 as the best scientific film of the year.