India, June 7 -- As the vivid imagery of people walking about with a transistor radio glued to an ear, congregating around a corner kiosk or shop, listening to cricket commentary, fades from memory to the point where transistor radios themselves have become novelty items, surviving mostly in car audio systems, Vikrant Pande and Neelesh Kulkarni's book, 'Akashvani : A Century of Stories from All India Radio', serves both as a much needed short history of the state broadcaster as well as a memoriam of sorts to a mode of entertainment and information that was once as ubiquitous as the smartphone is today and as much a staple of Indian life as the steam engine.

The radio itself owes its existence to Indian polymath, Jagadish Chandra Bose, wh...