Thu 7 Jan 2021 01.30 EST
Last modified on Thu 14 Jan 2021 10.01 EST
Selvarani Mari is a fisher and seaweed collector who lives on Pamban Island of Tamil Nadu, on the southernmost tip of India.
Every day she helps her husband cast the fishing nets, maintains rafts for cultivating seaweed, and dives into the ocean to gather sargassum. But she always makes time to listen to the radio.
Mari, 33, and her friends and family all unfailingly tune into Kadal Osai on 90.4FM, India’s first local radio station for a fishing community. With guests including from older people from the villages sharing their fishing wisdom or chatting about the climate crisis, the station has become an integral part of local life, featuring gossip, jokes, old songs and news on fish prices and sea conditions. Gayathri Usman, head of Kadal Osai, fell in love with the station when she visited the area, and stayed on to run it.