More than half-a-century back, Akashwani revised timing of its main evening Hindi news-bulletin at 8.45 pm, and morning news-bulletin at 8 am just to fulfill demand of Hindi lovers to place Hindi news-bulletins just before English news-bulletin. But it will be even more in interest of Hindi lovers if Akashwani may increase manifolds listenership of its current-affairs programme Samayaki in Hindi by providing it an important time-place just after main Hindi news-bulletin of the evening. It is significant that Spotlight, similar current-affairs programme in English has always got important time-place at 9.15 pm just after finish of main English news-bulletin broadcast between 9 pm and 9.15 pm.
Important much-desired change can and should be made by placing main Hindi news-bulletin of the evening between 8 and 8.15 pm to be immediately followed by Samayaki at 8.15 pm. Since Hindi-speaking persons are comparatively considered to go to sleep early as compared to English speaking persons, such a change will be highly appreciated especially in rural areas and north-east part of the country. In present era of revival of radio, Akashwani must also change with need of time.
Other programmes presented by News Services Division of Akashwani like Today-in-Parliament and Sansad Sameeksha, Radio-Newsreel and Samachar-Darshan etc can then be revived to be between 8.30 pm and 9 pm. This time-slot can also be utilized to revive weekly News-Sameeksha on Sundays to get feedback from listeners.
Main morning news-bulletins can be at 7.45 in Hindi and 8 am in English of 10-minutes duration, each to be followed by comments from newspapers of 5-minutes duration. Evening news-bulletins in regional languages can be broadcast simultaneously from different Akashwani stations at time-slots of 7.30 pm and 7.45 pm respectively. Morning news-bulletins in regional languages can be at time-slots of 7.30 am and 8.15 am. Continuing morning news-bulletins in regional languages even after 8.30 am is not proper because people are usually in hurry to leave for work-places, and housewives being involved in kitchen-work.
SUBHASH CHANDRA AGRAWAL