AIR tableau to showcase rich history in R-Day

New Delhi: For the first time, All India Radio will have a tableau at Republic Day parade at Rajpath here on Friday. The tableau will highlight the achievements of AIR during the post-Independence period.

"All India Radio has evolved over time. It has adopted a corporate culture with the recent launch of its services on Amazon's Echo smart speakers. Spreading mass awareness is the primary focus of AIR," Fayyaz Sheheryar, DG All India Radio stated.

"We had to prioritise issues and collected letters from across the nation, formed a committee, OTTs and then specific issues were sent to the government. The final approval came from the concerned ministry itself," he further added.

The tableau will have an idol of Mahatma Gandhi making his maiden and only broadcast through AIR in wake of the communal riots and frenzy following partition on November 12, 1947. It will also feature iconic musicians, especially those that were associated with All India Radio. All idols have been made in Kolkata's Kumortoli.

Rs. 20 lakh has been spent on the tableau and it will be preserved outside the heritage building of Akashvani here.

A song, 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat' was also launched on the eve of Republic Day at Akashvani Bhawan in the presence of DG Sheheryar and other Prasar Bharati officials. The lyrics have been penned by a senior broadcaster Rafiq Raj.

It features singers from all parts of the country. Six languages have been used in the song; however, the DG AIR asserted that more languages would be added. The title voice in this song is that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Other prominent singers Ustad Rashid Khan, Bombay Jaysree, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Shankar Mahadevan, Sonu Nigam, Malini Awasthi, Anwesha, Iqbal S Qureshi and two young Kashmiri singers Shahbaz Gul and Masarrat-Un-Nisa have lent their voices.

"After a resounding victory three years back the PM had asserted that the government wanted Indian expats to listen to songs and news in their vernacular languages, now the AIR has a mobile application having live streaming in 17 languages," Sheheryar said.