Nirmala Sitharaman lauds AIR initiative of 'Bonding over radio' amid COVID-19 lockdown

Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman lauded the “brilliant initiative” by All India Radio of broadcasting “captivating stories” by the celebrated author, Ruskin Bond from May 1. The listeners, who are confined to their homes due to nationwide lockdown until May 17, can now listen to the “master storyteller weaves magic on AIR” twice a day, at 10:10pm and 7:10am.

People are also provided with the option of listening to the show, ‘Bonding over the Radio’ to the stories on its application as well as the live stream and Sitharaman has encouraged both youngsters and adults to engage in the show.

According to reports, the show would run for at least 15 days and will incorporate the stories that are exclusively selected for AIR by the award-winning essayist and novelist. The extracts would have a wide variety, ranging from autobiographies to ghost, romance to fantasy, tales of boarding schools, animals, and families. For the show, Bond would not be travelling anywhere, instead, it would be recorded over the phone while the novelist remains at his Mussorie cottage practising social distancing. 

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Bond live streams poetry and book reading

Earlier this month, Ruskin Bond along with Srijato Bandyopadhyay, live-streamed their work from varying genres for a large number of book-lovers who are unable to go outdoors for book reading sessions, poetry shows among other art events amid the COVID-19 lockdown. After poet-lyricist Srijato Bandyopadhyay recited a short poem in Bengali on that page during the live session, Bond read out one of his poems on the same slot with his home as background.

Ruskin Bond is an eminent modern Indian writer of British descent who has authored several inspirational children's books. He was also awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award to honour his incredible work of literature.

 He read the poem as, “It is a small poem penned not so long back,” Bond said and kept reading the poem which has phrases like “light the fire”, “bend to touch the flower”, “bend to touch a child”.

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