Spin the globe, grab a radio station

Click on a 3D globe, and instantly get connected to a radio station from any corner of the world. A whopping 10,000 stations worldwide have signed up for Radio Garden, a unique mobile and web-based platform now making waves online. Out there on this platform are hundreds of Indian radio channels, 30 from Bengaluru alone.

Launched in December 2016 by Transnational Radio Encounters project in Germany, and the Amsterdam-based Moniker and Studio Puckey, Radio Garden is like a Google Earth for radio. All that you do is download the Radio Garden app and wait for the 3D globe to come alive. In just a few seconds, hundreds of live radio streams will start sprouting as green dots on that globe.

Every green dot is a radio feed. Zoom and click on those dots to activate a live radio stream. In seconds you could switch from Ugandan rock to Japanese pop to peppy Caribbean beats. To go deeper, opt for the historical content, jingles, recorded interviews and more, all neatly decked up to click and load.

Besides the ease of use, the amazing range of radio stations is what bowls you over. Lined up among the 30 Bengaluru stations are those dedicated to Dr Rajkumar hits, songs from Rajinikanth films, Kannada, English and Hindi classics, instrumental and more, live and streaming 24/7.

Tilt the globe, head to Thiruvananthapuram for a station entirely dedicated to K J Yesudas hits. Or zoom straight into Mumbai to choose from 36 stations. Take your pick from Asha Bhosle Radio, Kishore Kumar Radio or the one belting out non-stop R D Burman hits.

The project had a big idea: Connecting cultures. The radio portal articulates that objective clearly: “By bringing distant voices close, radio connects people and places. Radio Garden allows listeners to explore processes of broadcasting and hearing identities across the entire globe.”

The clickable 'History' section lets you tune into clips that echo radio's decades-old attempt to cross borders, engage in conversations across linguistic and geographical barriers. The 'Jingles' section gives you a world-wide crash course in station identification.

Users across the world have dubbed this project a true global connectivity initiative. Many have taken to social media to share their joy at discovering new languages and new tunes they would otherwise never hear. For many, it was like going back to their childhood, trawling through stations on their parents' radio, stumbling upon gems.