The first radio station of Hyderabad State in India – Deccan Radio – was discussed by a panel at the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2015, reports The New Indian Express.

Deccan Radio was launched on February 3, 1935, just 12 years after radio broadcasting was set up in the UK.

The panellists who took part in the discussion titled ‘Deccan Radio and Urdu Culture’ included leading TV and radio personality Aslam Farshori, Oudesh Rani Bawa and Manzurul Amin – who worked with the station in its initial years.

They shared accounts of the station’s inception and the influence of Urdu language on it over the 50-minute discussion.

Bawa remembered they had huge microphones that couldn’t be moved and sound-proofing was done with walls which were built using rice husk.

Farshori shared the story of how Mahboob Ali bhai brought a transmitter and five radio sets from Britain and offered one to the Nizam – the erstwhile ruler of Hyderabad – setting up a station at his home from where programmes were broadcast in Urdu.

The Nizam began an official broadcast and a station was set up in Khairatabad, which later travelled to other cities and eventually became All India Radio.