Kolkata :

All India Radio, Kolkata has been awarded as the most ‘effective’ regional news unit in India.

This decision was recently conveyed to the regional head of the Kolkata AIR unit by News Services Division, a unit of AIR in Delhi. AIR Guwahati has also been given the award along with its Kolkata counterpart. According to a AIR Kolkata spokesperson, the award was prestigious for the city regional unit as Kolkata unit of AIR has bagged such an award among 44 regional news unit in past five decades.

The award was given to the AIR Kolkata for broadcasting as many as 13 news bulletins everyday in regional language. Of these, 13 bulletins, 12 are in Bengali language and one in Santhali. This Santhali news has been popular not only with areas such as Bankura, Purulia, Mindapore or other Santhali dominated areas in West Bengal, but in large areas of Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand. The spokesperson said that AIR Kolkata henceforth will be more careful to choose issues in airing news or news related programmes to cater the needs of the millions of listeners based in West Bengal and its neighbouring states. “The award has given us a sense of confidence and also a sense of responsibility to reach to more listeners,” the AIR (Kolkata) spokesperson said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata / Saikat Ray, TNN / August 16th, 2014