President Mukherjee launches "Akashvani Maitree" Channel at Raj Bhawan, Kolkata

President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday launched the "Akashvani Maitree" Channel at a function organised at Raj Bhawan here.

The channel is a unique venture of All India Radio and is aimed at strengthening ties between India and Bangladesh.

The salient features of Akashvani Maitree are as follows:

. Channel's uniqueness lies in sharing of content between Bangladesh Betar and Akashvani Maitree

. It will be a common platform for participatory content creation

. The aim of the channel would be to strengthen cultural, economic, political & emotional bonding between the two neighbours

. This service is launched from a State-of-the-art Super Power Transmitter of 1000kw, installed at Chinsurah, West Bengal

. Frequency of the channel is 594 kHz / 505 Meter

. Duration of the channel will be 16 hours per day.

. Time of the broadcast is divided into two phases per day:

. First transmission: 6 a m to 2:30 p m

. Second transmission: 3:30 p m to 11 p m

At the launch, President Mukherjee said, 'Akashvani Maitree can be an important channel of communication between India and Bangladesh.'

Akashvani Maitree is proposed to produce and broadcast programmes as reality shows, music and quiz competitions, discussions where participants from both the countries can take part.

The channel will cover whole of Bangladesh and most of South East Asia. All India Radio has also come up with a multimedia website in Bangla airworldservice.org/bangla . It is easily accessible through live streaming, text and video and caters to Bengali Diaspora world over besides listeners in Bangladesh.