The All India Radio (AIR) Director General has directed all the departments concerned to ensure that the public broadcaster is referred to as “Akashvani” in accordance with the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990, which came into force on November 15, 1997.
Section 2(a) of the Act says that “Akashvani” means all the offices, stations and other establishments which are or were under the Director-General All India Radio of the Information & Broadcasting Ministry.
“The statutory provision which has replaced the name of AIR to the ‘Akashvani’ may be brought to the notice of all so that names and titles get in tune with the provisions of the Prasar Bharati Act...,” said the order.
According to the Prasar Bharati website, broadcasting in India started about 13 years before the AIR came into existence. “In June 1923, the Radio Club of Bombay made the first ever broadcast in the country, which was followed by the setting up of the Calcutta Radio Club about five months later. The Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) was instituted on July 23, 1927, but faced liquidation in just about three years.
In April 1930, the Indian Broadcasting Service, under the Department of Industries and Labour, started functioning on an experimental basis. In September 1935, a private radio station named Akashvani Mysore was set up.
“On June 8, 1936, the Indian State Broadcasting Service became All India Radio. The Central News Organisation came into existence in August, 1937. In the same year, AIR came under the Department of Communications and four years later came under the Department of Information and Broadcasting...In 1956, the name Akashvani was adopted for the national broadcaster...,” said the website.
