India’s government has ordered its public broadcaster, All India Radio (AIR) to be exclusively referred to as Akashvani in all broadcasts from now on.
Akashvani, which means ‘voice from the sky’ was a name proposed by Nobel-laureate Rabindranath Tagore in a poem he had written for the inauguration of the Calcutta shortwave service in 1939. However, since 1956 both names have been used in the broadcasts.
AIR began its journey on June 8 1936, when the British government renamed the Indian Broadcasting Company. The Akashvani name was added in 1956.
In a satellite message on May 3, relayed from the policy division of the office of the director general, Akashvani, to all centres across the country, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has decided to enforce a provision of the law by which the radio vertical of Prasar Bharati will now be called only Akashvani.
On Wednesday, the English morning news bulletin broadcast at 8.15 am-carried the All India Radio name in its introduction. But by the afternoon news bulletin, broadcast at 4.05 pm, the announcer had switched to Akashvani.
Akashvani’s home service comprises 470 broadcasting centres located across the country and broadcasts in 23 languages and 179 dialects, covering 92 per cent of the country’s area and 99.19 per cent of the total population. The new announcement pattern will be followed in other languages or dialects as well.
The Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990, mentions that ‘Akashvani’ means the offices, stations and other establishments, by whatever name called, which, immediately before the appointed day, formed part of or were under the Director-General, All India Radio of the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The Prasar Bharati Act came into force on November 15, 1997.
“This was long pending and in line with the law which came into being in 1997. Our listeners have more of a connect with Akashvani and so we are ridding ourselves of colonial baggage that may have persisted,” said Gaurav Dwivedi, Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati, which is the parent organisation of Akashvani.