A treasure trove in All India Radio's sound archives

"A rich treasure trove that not many know of, and even fewer have access to. Here, the air is thick with echoes from the past."

The All India Radio (AIR) sound archives is the largest library of music recordings in India, and also contains a large collection of spoken word recordings including interviews ranging from Pearl S Buck to George Harrison, speeches by Subhash Chandra Bose and public addresses by Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and many others.

“While AIR’s primary focus has always been on broadcasting, we realised some time ago, how valuable our archives were. So, since 2001, we have been digitising the archival recordings from the magnetic quarter inch spool tapes in which they were earlier stored. This has become an important aspect of our work here.” says Ujwala Srinivasan, programme executive for FM Rainbow in Mumbai, “in many ways, AIR has been a chronicler and preserver of Indian history”.

Source: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/tiptoeing-through-all-india-radios-sound...