National Book Trust, India in collaboration with Prasar Bharati’s External Services Division of All India Radio, has launched – Story Lounge – a unique storytelling festival that features celebrated children’s authors and storytellers narrating interesting stories from select children’s books published by the National Book Trust, India.
Story Lounge is broadcast daily airing one new story everyday on All India Radio Channels of AIR FM Gold, AIR LiveNews 24×7, AIR Indraprasth at 7:20 am and a repeat broadcast at 10:20 pm. The stories can also be accessed on mobile apps viz. NewsOnAir and on All India Radio Live. In addition, Story Lounge is also telecast every Saturday at the YouTube channel of World Services AIR Hindi at 11.30 am and World Services AIR English at 7.30 pm.
To ensure that the listeners do not miss any story, the stories broadcast are made available on National Book Trust, India’s website www.nbtindia.gov.in as well as on its YouTube channel YouTube/NBTIndia. In addition, the stories will also be available on all of the social media platforms of National Book Trust, India.
The stories being broadcast are in English and in Hindi, and soon stories in all regional Indian languages for the benefit of the masses will be aired across various stations of AIR. This unique initiative by both the organizations aims at enriching people across the nation with an engaging storytelling experience and to fortify the art and essence of storytelling.
National Book Trust, India publishes books in all genres, especially rich and original children’s content, with popular children’s authors penning lively and interesting stories for young readers. With books available in over 50 Indian languages (including dialects and tribal languages), the books by National Book Trust, India are reasonably-priced and reach the remotest corners of the country. All India Radio has an immense Pan India reach covering 92% of the country’s geographical area with over 99% listenership across the Indian population. About 130 regional channels of AIR are spread over 29 states and 6 UTs of the country, making it the most important medium to reach the masses.
With over 20 crore urban and rural population consuming radio-based content every month, this initiative by National Book Trust, India and Prasar Bharati aims to reach children as a unique but tested method of learning and also as a constructive and positive step towards the fight against the current difficult time that has affected young and old alike.
So let us tune in and smile our way through!
