SWAYAM PRABHA: A PLATFORM FOR LIVE TELECAST OF LECTURES WITH 32 DTH FREE CHANNELS Narender Kumar* Abstract Academic activities are marching towards electronic media due to emergence of information and communication technology applications. Thereby, the things are being changed with jet speed in the twenty frst century as performed remotely. Delivery of contents and lectures are being done through different online platforms. This is not due to create advancements only in academic activities but it is the demand of the time as technology is at its juvenility. To cope up and satisfy the ultra modern demands of the users, the things are taking shape in non-print form. In this series in 2015, Hon’ble Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi has launched a program i.e. SWAYAM- Study webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (Bharat Program). Under this program a declaration has signed with US Department of State that United States universities have been offering online courses through this platform. To empower such type of activities, one more program has also been launched in July 2017 named SWAYAM PRABHA by the GOI. This platform is having the collection of 32 DTH Free Channels contained high quality academic contents. The present paper will try to give a brief overview of these channels. Keywords: SWAYAM, GOI, Platform, SWAYAM PRABHA, Online Courses, Channels, 32 DTH INTRODUCTION Swayam-Prabha is really a wonderful initiative of Ministry of Human Resource Development under National Mission of Education through ICT. The objective of the program is to deliver the qualitative academic contents up to last zenith of the academic society where there is no facility of proper classroom, academic institutions, and teachers due to any reason. Through technology, they can get the qualitative educational contents even can participate in rapidly changing world and give their contribution also for upliftment of the National in general and their vicinity societies in particular. 32 DTH channels which are accessible 24×7 throughout the year are offering the contents of different disciplines which include arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture, etc. Moreover, high quality educational programmes are being telecast using GSAT- 15 Satellite. GSAT-15 is a very powerful tool to augment the bandwidth of Direct-to-Home television. The contents contributed by the IITs, UGC, NPTEL, IGNOU, NCERT, and NIOS. The INFLIBNET Centre maintains the web portal. PURPOSE TO DEVELOP THE SWAYAM-PRABHA PROGRAM The prime purpose to develop such program is to impart the qualitative education to students particularly those who could not join their courses regular basis and have been residing in remote areas where institutions and colleges are not easily accessible. This program contained 32 DTH channels which devoted to telecasting of high-quality educational programme on 24×7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite. The beauty of the program is that the students can choose the schedule to access the channels according to their convenience as new contents for at least four hours which would be repeated 5 more times in a day. It offers the academic contents from very basic to post graduate level. Even it assists the students of class 11 th & 12 th prepare the competitive examinations. Moreover, it also offers the curriculum based contents. SUBJECT COVERAGE BY THE CHANNELS The 32DTH free channels give wide coverage in fact covers almost all major disciplines like arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture, etc. All courses would be certifcation-ready in their detailed offering through SWAYAM, the platform being developed for offering MOOCs courses. REGISTRATION To access these channels, online Registration facility is also available under SWAYM-PRABHA. For the same, few * Assistant Librarian, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Library, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar, Haryana, India. Email: nkcgju2014@gmail.com