Yvonne MacPherson

Yvonne MacPherson

My journalist colleagues at the BBC are being swept up in election fever here in India. To get closer to listeners and viewers, the BBC’s seven-coach Election Train is travelling 7500km in 18 days, stopping in eight cities along the way. BBC journalists from around the world are on board reporting on the general election and how it affects India and the rest of the world. I’ve joined my colleagues to meet some of the people we have reached through our work. For the next four days, I will be writing about my experiences in this series of blogs.

The BBC World Service Trust, the BBC’s international charity, has worked in India for 10 years. Connecting with our audiences is always important, so this is a good opportunity for me speak to people and partner organisations to reflect on what we have done, and what we could do in the future to use the media to improve people’s lives. Over the last 10 years, we’ve made television and radio dramas and discussion programmes to raise awareness about leprosy and HIV. To encourage women’s empowerment we’ve trained a group of women as “citizen journalists”, and through more training, strengthened reporting on issues such as HIV, the environment and disaster preparedness.

At election time, people are reflecting on how much India has changed and the challenges that lie ahead. While the term “development” has been repeated many times during this election campaign, many commentators feel that the election has been “issueless” with not enough attention paid to realities facing the bulk of the population.

The contrasts are certainly stark. India is the world’s fasting growing economy, with 24 Indian billionaires on the “Forbes” rich list this year. This is a country which has launched its own satellites and sent a spacecraft to the moon. But it is also a country where over 450 million citizens live below the global poverty line of less than $1.25 a day (42% of the population). This series of blogs will focus on some of the main development challenges in India.

My journey starts in Kolkata, where the train has pulled in to one of India’s oldest train stations, Howrah. Its twenty-three platforms handle over three hundred trains each day, serving more than a million passengers. Here I’ll meet up with a popular local band and explore how music is encouraging people to prepare themselves for the cyclones, floods and droughts that are all too common in West Bengal.

Keep checking this blog to hear more about Yvonne’s journey. You can also read and listen to reports from BBC journalists on the train on the BBC website.