Voice of Russia has quietly entered into partnership with local Indian FM stations & since last couple of months being heard on Fever FM stations at Delhi, Kolkata & Mumbai on 104 MHz & on High FM 92.7 MHz at Siliguri. Voice of Russia is broadcasting a two hour infotainment program titled "With love from Russia" between 0000-0200 hours IST (1830-2030 UTC) on all above FM channels. Program is hosted by an Indian RJ & plays an interesting mix of Indian & Russian songs.The talk portion is mainly related to music, culture & lifestyle about Russia. The program is in Hindi at Delhi, Kolkata,Mumbai & in Hindi/Bengali at Siliguri although it seems programme is produced at each individual stations as Delhi & Kolkata programs were hosted by dfferent RJ's.
Voice of Russian held an interactive session with Indian FM listeners at Delhi on 6th March 2010 in which Irina Maksimenko, head of South Asian Dept, Voice of Russia & Sumit Sengupta from Voice of Russia Bengali Section who's also co-ordinating FM partnerships in India briefed listeners about Voice of Russia's plans in India & sought listeners views on the programming.
Regarding shortwave, some of the shortwave listeners did submit a petiton to re-instate Bengali service on shortwave (which is on internet only) to Irina Maksimenko, Head of South Asian Dept, Voice of Russia during Voice of Russia listeners confernce at New Delhi during Dec 2009 & did get a positive response from her.
During the recent visit of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in response to a Voice of Russia listener from Kolkata during his internet conference promised to expand the radio broadcasts.
Here's an audio clip from the VOR program on Fever FM 104 MHz :
http://sites.google.com/site/alokeshgupta2/wlfr_id_fever104.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1
Related news :
Russia to expand radio broadcasting to India - Putin
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/03/12/5238860.html
(Alokesh Gupta)
