Gautam Sharma on VOA Hindi Closer

Its very disappointing to read all the posts related to VOA Hindi Closer down.Heard a few editions of their Mailbag , no info related to its close down has been aired plus any e-mails etc related to it was aired. How can a few members of BBG sitting in Washington DC appointed from diverse fields outiside that organisation can decide a fate of Govt. funded organisation without going into details of listeners response etc etc of that service???

Its really seems to me very very strange!!!

As VOA-Hindi is getting tremendous response from listeners as is evident from number of listeners participating in their live calling shows etc etc .I think BBG silently taking these steps i.e.terminating language services etc etc. without any considerations to other matters.BBG has not ordered closer of VOA's Urdu,Bangla Services yet. Why??

I'm a listener of VOA Hindi trax. (on 7280 & 7430kHz now-a-days) during 1600-1700UTC for over nearly two decades.I was in first quarter of 1983 during the one of the most darkest period of Assam at nearly age of 10, I heard my first VOA Hindi Transmission. I was in Bilasipara in my maternal uncle residence.And it was from late 1989 that I began to tune into VOA Hindi Trax. from time to time. And from then to early 1997 during my passive period of radio listening, I just tuned into their transmission. And it was from early 1998 perhaps that I began to correspond with VOA Hindi.

They have improved their coverage of India from a few years with reports from India based reporters plus with their usual excellently produced feature programmes. Who knows VOA Hindi may be going of the air for forever on Sept.30 onwards...& never returns via shortwave again!!!!

I hope better sense will prevail on all!!!!!

73 & 55
Gautam Kumar Sharma
Abhayapuri, Assam, India.