| NEW
DELHI: Prasar Bharati is to telecast from tomorrow a weekly programme of songs
of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore to mark his birth anniversary. Prime
minister Manmohan Singh will launch the programme at a function in the evening
tomorrow evening at which United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi
is releasing an anthology on ‘Satyagraha’ published by the Publications
Division. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee will release the first CD of the
songs of Tagore which begins with the famous ‘Ekla Chalo Re’.
Information
and broadcasting minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi told a press meet here this evening
that Prasar Bharati had already recorded ten CDs, each containing four to five
songs. These were Hindi translations made by some eminent experts, and had been
rendered by various singers including Ustad Rashid Khan, Ajoy Chakraborty, Anuradha
Poudwal and Anup Jalota. He
said Tagore had penned around 2,300 songs during his lifetime, and Prasar Bharati
will attempt over the next year to record all the songs it had commissioned. The
translations had been approved by the Prasar Bharati board. Prasar Bharati will
also record programmes on Tagore, whose 146th birth anniversary is being marked
today, in Shillong, Agartala and Kolkata and, if possible, in Bangladesh. He
also announced that the book on ‘Satyagraha’ which he claimed was the
best anthology on the subject had been prepared with help from Savita Singh of
the Gandhi Smriti. Ministry
additional secretary Pradeep Singh, Prasar Bharati CEO B S Lalli, Publications
Division director Veena Jain, and director-general (Media) Deepak Sandhu were
present at the press meet. | 
