India: 70 years of AIR External Services

Jose Jacob, VU2JOS Internet Services

The External Services Division of All India Radio, India’s cultural 
ambassador to the world will be 70 years old on this October 1, 2009. 
The External broadcasts were started on October 1, 1939 by the then 
British Government to counter the propaganda of the Nazis directed 
at the Afghan people. The first broadcasts were in Pushto beamed to 
Afghanistan and the then North West Frontier Province. Soon 
broadcasts were started in Dari,Persian, Arabic, English, Burmese, 
Japanese, Chinese, Malay, French etc.

The External Services today broadcast in the 27 languages (16 
foreign and 11 Indian languages) with a total program out put of 
about 70.25 hrs. per day. The foreign languages are: Arabic, Baluchi, 
Burmese, Chinese, Dari, English, French, Indonesian, Nepali, Persian, 
Pushtu, Russian, Sinhala, Swahili, Thai and Tibetan. The Indian 
languages are: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, 
Saraiki, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. The maximum duration is 
the Urdu Service to Pakistan round the clock on DTH and on Short Wave 
/ Medium Wave for 12.15 hrs while English broadcasts to various parts 
of the world are there for 8.15 hrs. During the Haj season, there 
are special broadcasts in Urdu beamed to Saudi Arabia. The External
Services of AIR is even broadcast to Europe in the new broadcasting 
mode DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale).

These transmissions are broadcast by the High Power Transmitters 
located at Aligarh, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Gorakhpur, Guwahati,
Mumbai and Panaji on Short Waves and from Jalandhar, Kolkata and 
Tuticorin on Medium Waves. Some of these transmitters are of 1000 kW 
and 500 kW power. Programs are beamed to different areas of the 
world except to the Americas. In each language service a composite 
program is presented consisting of news bulletin, commentary, press 
review, talks on matters of general and cultural interest, 
occasional feature programmes and documentaries, Indian music as 
well as music of the area concerned. Most of the programs originate 
in the New Broadcasting House located in Delhi with a few originating 
at Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Mumbai, 
Thiruvanthapuram and Tuticorin.

The External Services Division of AIR has been a vital link 
between India and rest of the world, especially with those 
countries where there are Indian emigrants and people of Indian 
origin. It projects the Indian point of view on matters of 
national and international importance and demonstrates our way 
of life through its various programs. It must be mentioned here 
that the broadcasts to China in Chinese and Tibetan are jammed
by the Chinese authorities.

With the other choices in the media scene like Internet and TV, 
the number of listeners for Short Wave broadcasting has drastically 
dropped. That along with high cost of running broadcasts and also 
due changes in political equations has prompted many countries to 
cut short or even completely abandon their External broadcasts. 
However it is business as usual for All India Radio’s External 
Services for the time being.