New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s radio address Mann Ki Baat, which is set to complete 100 episodes Sunday, has largely focussed on issues of sanitation, health, wellness, water conservation and sustainable development, according to a report by IIT Rohtak’s Institute for Competitiveness, released at an event Friday by CEOs of Prasar Bharti and MyGov. Prasar Bharati chief executive officer Gaurav Dwivedi said that about 23 crore people tune into every episode of the show.
Timed around the completion of the 100th episode of the radio programme, the report studies the transcripts of all 99 editions of the show from 2014 to 2023.
“Report by IIM Rohtak says over 23 crore people religiously tuned into every episode of Mann Ki Baat, about 40 crore people have listened to several episodes and want to listen to all, due to various reasons they are not able to. There are at least 100 crore people out of our population of 142 crores who have at least once heard an episode,” said Gaurav Dwivedi, CEO of Prasar Bharati.
The objective of the report is “to perform a quantitative and qualitative textual analysis of 99 transcripts of the Mann Ki Baat episodes published from 2014-2023 using text-mining tools namely WordStat,” as well as “to identify the most prominently discussed thematic areas in the Mann Ki Baat program”. The report is the result of an extensive study of 99 transcripts of Mann Ki Baat published from 2014-2023 using Natural Language Processing tools.
“The Mann Ki Baat program has fostered a sense of community and purpose and played a pivotal role in fostering civic responsibility for the development of the country. The report analysis is an effective way to understand and improve governance and civic engagement in the country, ” said Dr. Mark Esposito, Professor at Harvard University.
Akash Tripathi, CEO of MyGov, praised the radio show for its revival of radio. “Mann ki Baat has not only revived the old and seemingly outdated radio but also it has come as a breath of fresh air in this clutter of OTT, social media and infotainment. In its journey of 99 episodes I can say that Mann Ki Baat has definitely come as a fountainhead of mass movements,” he said.
The report is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. CEO Mark Sulzman, who joined the event online, said that the themes of Mann ki Baat run in tandem with the sectors the foundation focuses on –– health and Wellness, Nutrition, Sanitation, Financial Inclusion and economic empowerment. “What we find is that these days behavioural change, communication, and shifts in social norms are the biggest barriers to the adoption of the solution that enables progress,” he said.
At the event speakers stressed that Mann Ki Baat discussed ‘non-political issues’ and that the PM speaks only about development. They also discussed stories around Mann Ki Baat. One of the speakers mentioned the names originally suggested for Mann Ki Baat were PM ke sath Rubaroo, Varta Modiji ke sath, and it was PM Modi who came up with the name. The first episode aired on 3 October, 2014.
Also read: Clean India to New India—Modi’s Mann Ki Baat weren’t just messages. They became movements