All India Radio


All India Radio, also known as Akashvani, is India's state-owned public radio broadcaster. Founded in 1936, it operates under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and is one of the two divisions of Prasar Bharati. Headquartered at the Akashvani Bhavan in New Delhi, it houses the Drama Section, FM Section, and National Service. It also serves as the home of the Indian television station Doordarshan Kendra.
All India Radio is one the largest radio network in the world in terms of the number of languages broadcast, the socioeconomic diversity it serves, and the scale of its broadcasting organisation. AIR's domestic service includes 420 stations nationwide, covering nearly 92% of India's geographic area and 99.19% of its population, with programming available in 23 languages and 179 dialects.

History

Akashvani

When the Indian State Broadcasting Service was renamed to All India Radio, Rabindranath Tagore rechristened it Akashvani, the voice that comes over from the skies, in a poem penned for the inauguration of Kolkata's shortwave service.
The term Akashvani was also used in the context of radio by M. V. Gopalaswami in 1936 when he established India's first private radio station at his residence, "Vittal Vihar," located about 200 yards from the current All India Radio station in Mysore. In 1956, Akashvani was adopted as All India Radio's on-air name. With its literal meaning in Sanskrit as "voice from the sky," the name was considered highly fitting for a broadcaster. The suggestion to use Akashvani was given to Gopalaswami by the Telugu/Kannada scholar Rallapalli Ananta Krishna Sharma, who was working as a Telugu pandit in Mysore Maharaja College and later went onto tune Annamacharya's kritis as well.

During the British Raj

Broadcasting commenced in June 1923 during the British Raj with programmes by the Bombay Presidency Radio Club and other radio clubs. According to an agreement on 23 July 1927, the private Indian Broadcasting Company Ltd was authorised to operate two radio stations: the Mumbai station, which began on 23 July 1927, and the Kolkata station, which followed suit on 26 August 1927. The organisation went into liquidation on 1 March 1930. The government took over broadcasting facilities and launched the Indian State Broadcasting Service on 1 April 1930, initially on an experimental basis for two years. It became a permanent service in May 1932 and was later renamed All India Radio on 8 June 1936. The building was contracted by Sir Sobha Singh.
On 1 October 1939, the External Service began with a broadcast in Pashto. It was intended to counter radio propaganda from Germany directed at Afghanistan, Iran, and Arab nations. The Dhaka station in Eastern India, in what is now Bangladesh, opened in 1939. This station catered to and nurtured the pioneers of Bengali intellectuals. The foremost among them, Natyaguru Nurul Momen, became the trailblazer of the talk show in 1939. He wrote and directed the first modern radio play, "Rupantar " for this station in 1942. This play was later published in 1943 Pooja Edition of Anandabazar Patrika.
In December 1940, the Standing Finance Committee sanctioned a sum of Rupees 9,30,000 for the establishment of a new headquarters of the All India Radio in Delhi. The new “Broadcasting House” of AIR at Parliament Street in New Delhi was inaugurated in February 1943. In 1956, All India Radio was officially renamed Akashvani, and its headquarters were renamed Akashvani Bhawan.

After Independence

When India became independent in 1947, the All India Radio network consisted of only six stations: Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Lucknow, and Tiruchirappalli. The three radio stations in Lahore, Peshawar, and Dhaka remained in what eventually became Pakistan after the partition. At that time, there were approximately 250,000 radio sets in India.
In August 1947, All India Radio hired its first female newsreader, Saeeda Bano, who read the news in Urdu.
On 3 October 1957, the Vividh Bharati service was launched by All India Radio to compete with Radio Ceylon. The total capital invested by the All India Radio so far on the experimental Television service inaugurated on 5 September 1959 is about Rs. 2.14 lakhs, eight commercial licenses and four domestic licenses for television receiver sets have so far been issued by the Posts and Telegraphs Department. Television broadcasting commenced in Delhi in 1959 under the aegis of AIR, but was split off from the radio network as Doordarshan on 1 April 1976. FM broadcasting began on 23 July 1977 in Chennai, and expanded during the 1990s.
Deccan Radio, the first radio station in the princely Hyderabad State, went live on 3 February 1935. It was launched by Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, boasting of a transmitting power of 200 Watts. On 1 April 1950, after Operation Polo, Deccan Radio was taken over by the Indian Government, and in 1956, it was merged with All India Radio. Thereafter, it has been known as AIR-Hyderabad.

Domestic services

AIR offers a variety of services in multiple languages, each catering to different regions across India.

Vividh Bharati

, launched in 1957, is one of the most well-known services of All India Radio. Its name roughly translates to "Diverse Indian" and is also referred to as the Commercial Broadcasting Service. Commercially, it is the most accessible AIR network, particularly popular in Mumbai and other large cities. Vividh Bharati offers a wide range of programs, including news, film music, short plays, music, and comedy. It operates on various mediumwave and FM frequencies in each city.
Some programmes broadcast on Vividh Bharati are:
  • Hawa-mahal: Radio drama based on novels and plays
  • Santogen ki mehfil: Comedy
  • Aaj ke fankar: Description of life and works of a film artist
  • Chhayageet: Songs of announcer's choice with impeccable scripting

    Central Sales Unit

The Central Sales Unit, located in Mumbai, handles the commercial affairs of AIR.

Other services

The headquarters of the Regional Deputy Directors General are located in Delhi and Chandigarh, Lucknow and Bhopal, Guwahati, Kolkata, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and Chennai and Bangalore. All frequencies are in kHz, unless otherwise specified. Most of the channels are also available online.
CityFrequencyCityFrequencyCityFrequency
Agra1530Ajmer603Allahabad1026
Almora999Barmer1458Bikaner1395
Chairhara 1485Delhi A819Delhi B666
Delhi C 1368Delhi D 1017Delhi 1215
Diskit1602Faizabad1485Gorakhpur909
Jaipur A1476Jalandhar A873Jalandhar B702
Jammu A990Jodhpur A531Kalpa 1584
Kargil A684Kargil B1584Khalsi1485
Kota1413Kupwara1350Leh1053
Lucknow A747Lucknow C1278Mathura1584
Najibabad954Naushera1089Nyoma1485
Padam1584Pauri1602Pithoragarh1602
Rampur891RohtakFM 103.5 MHzShimla774
Budgam1116Budgam A1224Srinagar C918
Tiesuru1602Udaipur1125Uttarkashi1602
Varanasi A1242Sawai MadhopurFM 101.5 MHzRaebareliFM 102.8 MHz

CityFrequencyCityFrequency
Agartala1269Guwahati A729
Shillong864 kHz, 4970 kHz, 7315 kHz, FM 100.1 MHz, FM 103.6 MHz Imphal882

*Prior to Saturday, the 2nd of October, 2010, it is formerly known as Akashvani FM Rainbow Shillong, which relays to Akashvani FM Rainbow Delhi. Since that date, it became a full fledged radio station and it broadcasts its own programmes.
CityFrequencyCityFrequency
Bhagalpur1458, 1206Chinsurah 594 & 1134
Cuttack A972Darbhanga1296
Jamshedpur1584Gitanjali 657
Sanchayita 1008Kolkata C 1323 kHz Medium Wave as well as 101.8 MHZ FM
Patna A621Ranchi A549
Muzaffarpur AFM 100.1 MHzMuzaffarpur BFM 106.4 MHz
Kolkata FM 107.0 MHzKolkata FM 100.2 MHz
Kurseong1440 kHz as well as FM 102.3 MHZ Siliguri711 kHz
Santiniketan FM 103.1 MHz Murshidabad FM 102.2 MHz

CityFrequencyCityFrequency
Ahmedabad A846Aurangabad1521
Bhopal A1593ChhindwaraFM 102.2 MHz
Chhatarpur675Gwalior1386
Indore A648Jabalpur A801
Mumbai A1044Mumbai B 558
Mumbai C 1188Nagpur A585
Nagpur B 1566Panaji A1287
Panaji B 828Pune A792
Rajkot A810Ratnagiri1143
Solapur1602Sangli1251
Parbhani AFM 102.0 MHzJabalpur Vividh Bharati102.9
MysoreFM 100.6 MHzJalgaon963