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First Highway Advisory System (HAS)A new highway advisory system (HAS), whichprovides real-time information and advice todrivers travelling on the country’s highways waslaunched on March 10, 2016 by Ministry of RoadTransport & Highways. Started as a pilot projecton the NH-8 Delhi-Jaipur Highway, HAS is a free-to-air information distribution system that can beaccessed through radio. The real-time informationcollected by toll plazas, patrol vehicles,concessionaires and traffic officials is passed to theHAS control centre through mobile applications,telephones and CCTV. Upon receipt of all theinformation, the HAS centre processes theinformation and sends it to public broadcaster AllIndia Radio (AIR). Information and alerts getbroadcast over AIR’s Delhi, Alwar and Jaipur FMstations, which provide live traffic updates on theNH8. During the pilot project, 22 bulletins will beissued every day.

RJ who first spoke at age 25Sayomdeb Mukherjee (35) better known as RJ Den,Sayomdeb is an extremely popular RJ, hosting a dailyshow (Mon – Fri) on an FM station – 91.9 Friends FMin Kolkata. Den uses his life experience to respond tothe problems of listeners. Born with Dopaminr-Responsive Dystonia, a rare disorder, Sayomdeb hasextreme mobility problems, and was non-verbal tillage 25. In 2005, when he began to speak, he was ableto fulfil a life-long dream. He received the11th CavinKare ABILITY Mastery Awards 2013. The radioprogramme Haal Chhero Nah Bondhu (Never Give Up- Dear Friend), a morning radio show won him awards,including Radio Excellence Award, Best Bengali RadioJockey in 2014. A book by him titled Memoirs of Timewas launched at Kolkata on Jan 23, 2016.

Non-stop slokasRadio City 91.1 FM, Nagpur, conducted a non-stop Ganapati Vandana for 10 days at ZeroMile, Nagpur starting at 8.30 pm on Sept 17until 8.30 pm on Sept 27, 2015. One by one,1,576 people from the age of 3 to 90 came onstage to recite “Vakrakunda Mahakay”, most ofthem a minimum five times.

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First band of RJsFor World Music Day (June 21) RJs from Bengaluru-based FMradio station Indigo 91.9 put up a show for their fans atBangalore’s Indigo Live Music Bar on June 21, 2016. For the firsttime, RJs and the team from the radio station formed a band toperform live in front of an audience. The RJs also took turnshosting the 1-hour show as they sang popular songs from everydecade since the 60s – The Sound of Music, The Beatles, Abba,Madonna, Bryan Adams, Green Day, Black Eyed Peas, JustinBieber etc, ending with RJ Nathan and RJ Michelle performing aquirky rendition of Free Falling by Tom Petty called ‘Keep Talking’.The RJs who performed were RJ Michelle, RJ Nathan, RJ Lesterand RJ Shagufta.

First radio reality showMY FM launched the radio realityshow ‘Paiso Ka Ped’ in Jaipur. AMoney Tree was set up in themiddle of Mall Attrium. The 2-week campaign got over 1,500registrations,followed by an on-ground screening where allparticipants were met and finallyonly 100 got shortlisted. Lastly, 30candidates were selected post athorough medical examination asthe finalists to compete in thecontest. They were supposed tohold a specially fabricated treemade with coins and currencynotes. The winner was decided asto whosoever managed to holdthe tree for the longest duration.Paiso Ka Ped, the speciallyfabricated tree was installed atWorld Trade Park mall, Jaipur. Thecontest went on for 65 hoursnonstop with contestantsperfoming various tasks. Thewinner was announced on April 6,2015 - Govind Sharma won Rs 5lakh.

Most letters about a radio programmeDr Aravind Nilkanth Navare (78) of Pune, Maharashtra hasbeen writing a postcard to his son Ajit Aravind Navare in

Mumbai every day about Chintan, a programmebroadcast on All India Radio (Pune Centre)

daily at 6.40 am. The first letter waswritten on March 30, 2001. Aravind

has completed 5,200 letters to hisson as of June 20, 2016. Ajit haskept all the letters, a perusal ofwhich would be quite a good read,even today. Incidentally, this is the

13th time since 2005 that thisrecord is mentioned in Limca Book of

Records! Based on selected lettersAravind has now published book Chintan-

Manthan in Marathi.

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Spinning the charkha non-stop for 24 hrGandhi Marg, this activity was aimed toinstigate the feeling of Swades among allby getting them to spin Gandhi ji’sworld-famous Charkha. Thecommunication used on the radiourging people to participate was:Charkha chalaiye... apna naamitihaas main buniye on RadioMantra 91.9 FM. Om Puri, RajpalYadav and Gandhiji’s great-grandson Tushar Gandhi associatedwith the campaign. From Oct 2, 2015 (Gandhi Jayanthi) to Oct 3, 2015, a relay of spinning the charkawas held at Agra (at Shaheed Smarak), Karnal (at Nehru Place), Bareilly (at Clara Swain MissionHospital) and Varanasi (at IP Vijaya Mall), during which 3,600 people participated.

Non-stop coverage of yatraThe Ashadhi Waari procession of 250 km is an oldtradition of Maharashtra state, starting from Alandi(strating on June 27) and Dehu (starting on June 28)during which 10,00,000 lakh people walk for 18 daysto Pandharpur by July 14, 2016. Akashwani Pune’sStudio on Wheels followed the pilgrims the entire tripwith the two outdoor broadcast team, with recordingand editing equipment, continuously interacting withthem, and the report was broadcast every day from10.30 am to 11.00 am. The event was conceived andcoordinated by Arun Solanki PEX, Ravindra RanjhekarAE and CM Nagarkar PEX. Programme head wasRavindra Khasnis ADP and overall head of the eventwas Ashish Bhatnagar DDG(E).

Longest live oral health education programmeDr Vinod Mathew Mulamoottil of Thiruvalla, Kerala, a senior

lecturer in the Public Health Dept of PushpavaniCollege of Dental Sciences, has beenconducting Pushpavani Arogyam on RadioMacfast 90.4 FM every Wednesday from 9.00am - 10.00 am since Feb 23, 2012. The

programme includes the RJ and one of DrMathew’s students. Each 3-part episodein Malayalam ends with a phone-insession during which Dr Mathewclears doubts of the listeners. He hadcompleted 213 episodes as of June 29,2016. (Cross reference - MedicalSciences chapter)

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Most awards among amateur radiooperatorsBL Manohar Arasu (VU2UR) (b Nov 12, 1939), anamateur radio enthusiast of Bengaluru, witharound 47 years of experience, has been on the airsince 1967. He is a member of Amateur RadioSociety (ARSI). He has won many certificates forbeing No 1 in India and some for being No 1 in thecontinent. All in all, he has won 1,287 awards asof June 20, 2016, certificates and plaques included.

First music marathon onmusical instruments

To celebrate World MusicDay (on June 21) MY FM

94.3 of Dainik BhaskarGroup executed MyMusic Marathonacross 15 cities onJune 21, 2014. Thisyear the spotlight

was on musical instrumentsand classical rare instrumentplayers were invited to play

and were honoured at theevent. The event, sub-titled Mile Sur MeraTumhara, which wascovered live on air also

featured instruments likeAlgoze and Pakhawaj.

Music celebrities like PanditVishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ravindra

Upadhyay, Ali Brothers, Rapperiya Balam, violinistGulzar Hussain and Meru Nights Group wereamong those who graced the event.

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Youngest Hamoperator to get

general classlicenseDhruv Rebba(KC9ZJX) (b April2, 2004) ofNormal, Illinois,USA cleared the

higher categoryGeneral Class Ham

Radio examinationconducted on Jan 24,

2015. The FCC (FederalCommunications Commission), the regulatoryagency in the USA for amateur radiocommunication service, issued his license with thesame call sign on Feb 10, 2015.

Top SWL in CW modeTK Viswanathan (SWL VU-0020) (b March 2, 1940) of Thalassery, Kerala, a short wave listener ofamateur radio bands, has 368 Islands’ QSL card confirmations (acknowledgements of his reports) from368 countries as of June 30, 2015, all through Morse Code communications only.

First physically-challenged RJSuryan 93.5 FM (a part of Sun TVNetwork Ltd) employed Sethupathi V(b June 25, 1982) of Madurai with60% disability due to polio as theirprime-time show RJ at Madurai onJan 3, 2012. Sethupathi runs SemaRagalai and Settai Sethu – 5.00 pm to7.00 pm – and one more non-primetime (3.00 pm to 4.00 pm) show SemaComedy Sir.

Most awards won by an XYLBhavani Manohar (VU2LYX) (b Nov 21, 1969), an amateur radio enthusiast of Bengaluru, has been takingpart in international amateur radio contests in telegraphic and voice modes as a single operator as well asa second operator in multi-operator contests. She has won 24 contests as of June 30, 2015, 11 as a singleoperator and 13 as a joint operator.(In the world of amateur radio enthusiasts, YL means Young Lady and XYL means a married operator,that is – an Ex Young Lady).

Only signature track in threelanguagesThe signature track of Radio Mistyis in three languages – Hindi,Bengali and Nepali – and has beenaired every hour for the last nineyears. Radio Misty 94.3 FM airsprogrammes in five languages –Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Bhojpuriand English.

Longest duration of talks on education (regional language)Hosakere Rizvan Basha (May 18, 1968) a high school teacher of Tumkur, Karnataka has been giving talkstitled Shikshana Vani (Voice of Education) on education every day (Mon – Fri) since Jan 24, 2012 onSiddhartha Community Radio. As of April 16, 2016, he had completed 825 such educative talks in theKannada language.

First RJ to pledge to donate heart on airDil Deke Dekho was a programme aired onRadio City 91.1 FM Delhi from Feb 1-14, 2015,which was kickstarted by RJ Divya pledging todonate her heart on air. The activity wassupported by Mohan Foundation for OrganDonation. Some of the awards the initiative wonare: Gold – Best use of radio – Golden Mikes2016; Silver – Best on air promotion by a singleradio station for self – GoldenMikes 2016; Silver – Best publicservice initiative by a radiostation or a network of radiostation – Golden Mikes 2016;Silver – Best CSR initiative -ACEF 2016; Bronze – Best CSRinitiative – The New YorkFestival 2016.

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