"This study is about Community Radio Madanpokhara (CRM) in Palpa district in Western Nepal. Initiated and managed by the local residents, CRM has been on the air on frequency modulation (FM) band serving 800,000 potential listeners in the region since 2000. Triangulating in-depth interviews, observations and an audience survey as methods, this research explores the nature and extent of the local residents’ participation in the communication process. The station, operating with a wide participation from its community members, has not only been successful in providing them with an access to much needed information and entertainment but has also, in fact, proved to be an important avenue for the local population to express their opinions and views as well as exchange feelings. An audience survey, conducted in January 2004, revealed that 80.8 percentage of the local respondents listen to their community radio station for information and entertainment. Community radio in the region not only took away listeners from the state owned radio station, it also added new listeners. Thus, operation of a community radio station is not about sharing power, but it is also about creating new power. CRM has increased access to information for a larger section of rural population previously not served or underserved by the state media or the capital based-elite media. If knowledge is power and democracy is more about decentralization of power, then community radio stations in Nepal are truly championing this cause by creating many centers of power in the nation by empowering those left behind in the process and by securing their active involvement. They are encouraging the dispossessed and the marginalized in breaking the ages-old culture of silence, and CRM is leading the way in this endeavor." (Abstract)