B B C Hindi Service

The news that the BBC is going to discontinue its radio Hindi service has come as a rude shock to me. I have grown up listening regularly to both Hindi and Urdu service both for the authentic news- especially during the wars & conflicts and other socio-political events of global importance , where objectivity in reporting was required and also topics of general interest . I remember I had a medium sized transistor- set tucked right in my bed under the wraps, near the pillow and I would switch on to BBC Hindi service ,followed immediately by Urdu service. both in the morning and in the evening. Ratnakar Bharti, Omkar Nath Srivastav, Aley Hassan , Rajni Kaul, Kailash Budhwar, Naresh Arora ,Gautam Sachdev , Neelabh Ashk, Rama Pandey, Raj Narain Bisaria, Purshottam Lal Pahwa , Achala Sharma, Shakuntala Chandan and some others whose name I cannot recall , had become household names and so had Sara Naqvi, Mujeeb Siddiqui and Raza Ali Abidi of the Urdu service. It seemed that one Dr. Avtar Singh Marwaha had answer ready for any science related question. The dispatches sent by Mark Tully , the indianised Englishman who was Delhi correspondent of the BBC were detailed, analytical, interesting and captivating .