Meena is collecting memories for a school project on mass media. Her grandmother recalls a year in the mid-1970s when people of her area gathered every day around a single community set kept in a common hall. For about four hours daily, they watched programmes on health care, hygiene, schooling and better ways of working, beamed directly to community viewers. She adds that very few families around her then owned even a radio, and none could dream of having such a set at home.
The programmes recalled by Meena's grandmother were part of which of the following?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Satellite Instructional Television Experiment
Option (1) Experimental television programming for rural development — Incorrect. Experimental television for rural development began as early as 1959. The grandmother's memory is of the mid-1970s, when a later satellite project beamed programmes straight to community sets.
Option (2) Entertainment-education soap opera Hum Log — Incorrect. Hum Log was a soap opera of 1984-85 that mixed lessons into entertainment. It came almost ten years later and was watched as a drama in homes.
Option (3) Doordarshan's mix of farmers' and children's programmes — Incorrect. Doordarshan stations in cities had their own mix of news, children's, women's, farmers' and entertainment programmes. These were city stations serving city viewers.
Option (4) Satellite Instructional Television Experiment — Correct. The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) ran from August 1975 to July 1976. It beamed instructional programmes directly to community viewers in villages, on 2,400 sets for four hours daily, as the grandmother recalls.
NCERT (2026-27): “Television |