NGO withdraws from event after AIR 'drops Christian hymns'

New Delhi: All India Radio’s annual celebration of the Public Service Broadcasting Day on November 12 to mark the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s first and last address from the AIR studios came under a cloud this year after Jan Prasar, a civil society organization that has been collaborating with AIR on the programme since 2000, pulled out at the last-minute claiming AIR had altered the programme, dropped one of Gandhi’s favourite Christian hymns, and made it “a travesty of a solemn occasion”.

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Top AIR officials, however, rubbished Jan Prasar’s claims and told TOI that the annual function was the broadcaster’s “internal programme” and a collaborator, regardless of how long it had been associated with AIR, could not be allowed to “dictateterms”.