AIR announces in-house Annual Awards for 2005

Kolkata, Jan 6 (UNI) The winners of Akashvani Annual (in-house) Awards 2005 were announced here today by the All India Radio(AIR) Director General Brijeshwar Singh.

Among those present were Ms Amla Shankar, noted danseuse and wife of Uday Shankar, wellknown folk and traditional singer Ramkumar Chattopadhya and renowned Sanskrit scholar Dr Gobinda Gopal Mukhopadhyay.

Mr Singh informed newpersons that Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi would give away the prizes to the awardees here tomorrow when he would also release two special albums of rare renditions and compositions of legendary musicians Dilip Kumar Roy and Hemanta Mukherjee.

Stating that AIR presently has 225 stations across the country with 91.42 per cent coverage, Mr Singh said AIR's unprecedented growth in the past 15 years makes it one of the largest network of SW, MW, FM and DTH transmission in the world.

He said AIR was now busy in preparing a commemorial album of Sachin Deb Barman and all these numbers would be made available to the connoisseurs in MP3 versions and downloadable file modes later this year.

UNI