The cooperation between All India Radio and Radio Voice of Vietnam is three-decades-old. I had the opportunity of commencing the cooperation between the two organizations. In 1984, as head of the News Services Division of All India Radio, I had gone to Hanoi on the request of Asian Institute of Broadcast Development (AIBD), to train personnel of the Radio Voice of Vietnam in the preparation of news bulletins.
Earlier that year, I had the opportunity of participating in a seminar organized by the AIBD in Manila. After I spoke at the seminar, the head of the AIBD, Mr.Balakrishnan, told me that he would be sending a request to the Government of India to send me to Hanoi to train personnel of the Radio Voice of Vietnam in the preparation of news bulletins.
When I suggested to him that he could ask BBC or CNN who were more active in the region to help, he said it was unlikely that a Communist country like Vietnam would accept their help, while they would gladly accept assistance from India.
Soon after my return to India, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting received a request from AIBD to send me to Vietnam for conducting a training course for news personnel of the Radio Voice of Vietnam. The request was readily agreed to, and I was sent to Ho Chi Minh City on two weeks deputation.
The journey to Ho Chi Minh city by the air to Vietnam was via Bangkok. I was surprised to see the flight packed full like a Delhi Transport Corporation bus. There were standing passengers, who were returning to their country after service in Communist countries of Eastern Europe. The airport in Hanoi was located in a wartime hutment, familiar to us in north east India in places like Jorhat.
The journey from the airport to Ho Chi Minh city was through fields similar to those in rural India. Ho Chi Minh city itself consisted of buildings built during the French colonial period. The city itself consisted of narrow roads, full of people cycling to their offices.
I was told that I had to conduct classes and teach how to prepare news bulletins to sixteen officials of the Radio Voice of Vietnam. I was told that the participants had ten to twenty years experience in preparing bulletins.
The opening session was attended by Le Quy, Vice President of the State Committee for Vietnam Radio and Television, who had the status of a minister.
The inauguration over, I requested the participants to tell me about themselves and how they prepared the bulletins. Soon, I realized, that each bulletin was like preparation of a story and the news came right at the end of the story. They had no knowledge how a news report had to be prepared.
They were also not aware also of the difference between a printed news story and the spoken word conveying the news.
Again a bulletin of the Radio Voice of Vietnam was open ended and could last from twenty minutes to nearly half-an-hour.
In consultation with Le Quy, I decided to train the participants in preparing a news story. I told them about the concept of an inverted pyramid in preparing news story and drilled into them that hard news came in the first sentence, and the details-i.e. the how and why of an event happened in the following sentences.
The participants were excited and keen to learn. I nominated some to be the audience to react to the bulletins.
Within a week the participants became conversant in preparing news stories and in compiling bulletins. I then trained them in preparing current affairs programmes The classes were held for hours and I learned to enjoy 'green tea', which was consumed by us continuously during working hours.
During my two-week stay in Ho Chi Minh city I made many friends in Radio Voice of Vietnam, including the interpreters who used to help me and took me around to various places such as the Ho Chi Minh memorial and the war museum, which displayed the equipment used by their army during the conflict with American troops, and later the Chinese Army. Looking at the armament abandoned by the American forces, one wondered how a small nation could fight a mighty super power.
At the farewell function, I conveyed to Le Quy that it would be useful to depute some news personnel to All India Radio.
He agreed. My only regret was that when the newspersons arrived in Delhi, I had already been transferred to the Press Information Bureau as the Principal Information Officer.
Mr. I. Ramamohan Rao can be reached on his e-mail: raoramamohan@hotmail.
