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Hearing the AIR Signature Tune brings back floods of memories for those having lived in India. The melody was on repeat for several minutes prior to the beginning of AIR's broadcast day.

"Akashvani", literally "voice from the sky".

Madurai Thirumalai Nambi Seshagopalan was born on 5 September 1948 in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. He first learnt under his mother, and later under Ramanathapuram C. S. Sankarasivan.

Dhananjay Daithankar is a doctor of Ayurvedic medicine from Pune. He had an early fascination with the Santoor. But since the instrument was not easily available, he initially constructed his own. He learnt from Ratanlal Tikoo, and since 1981 from Shivkumar Sharma.

Nithyasree Mahadevan (born 25 August 1973) in Thiruvaiyaru, Tamil Nadu, was born to Lalitha Sivakumar and Iswaran Sivakumar. Her paternal grandmother is D. K. Pattammal, and her grand-uncle is D. K. Jayaraman, (prominent Carnatic vocalists). Her maternal grandfather was the mridangam maestro, Palghat Mani Iyer.

Trippunithura Narayanaiyer Krishnan (6 October 1928 – 2 November 2020) was born in Tripunithura, Kerala. He learnt music from his father A. Narayana.

The Wadali Brothers (Puranchand Wadali & Pyarelal Wadali) are Sufi singers and musicians from Guru Ki Wadali in the Amritsar District in Punjab, India. Puranchand studied music from Bade Ghulam Ali Khan of the Patiala Gharana. Pyarelal was trained by his elder brother. The Wadali Brothers sing in the gurbani, kafi, ghazal and bhajan genres of music.

Shyamal G. Bhave (1941-2020). was a devotional singer from Bengaluru, Karnataka. She was one of the early practitioners of the Hindustani style of music in that city.

Netai Bose was born in 1928, and was a disciple of Mushtaq Ali Khan of the Seniya gharana (aka Maihar gharana). The "alap" portion of the performance is constructed along the lines of a dhrupad alap. That austere style has mostly died out with the advent of more popular style of Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan. Netai Bose died in 2019. As far as I can discover, this is his only commercially available recording.

Sudha Ragunathan (born 30 April 1956 in Chennai) is an Indian Carnatic vocalist, singer and composer. She studied for 13 years under Dr. M.L. Vasanthakumari.

N. Ravikiran was was born on 12 Feb 1967 in Mysore. A child prodigy, he is credited for rescuing the chitravina (aka gottuvadyam) from total obscurity.

Son of sarangi maestro Shakoor Khan, Mashkoor Ali Khan represents the Kirana gharana, and has been a resident teacher at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy of Calcutta for over 20 years.

"ITC" is formerly known as Indian Tobacco Company. ITC has a diversified presence across industries such as consumer goods, hotels, software, packaging, paperboards, specialty papers and agribusiness.

Kankana Banerjee (born 19 April 1946) is an Indian Classical singer who trained under the tutelage of Amir Khan in Lucknow (Indore gharana).

Damal Krishnaswamy Jayaraman (popularly known as DKJ) (1928-1991), was the younger brother of D. K. Pattammal. After learning music from his sister, he furthered his musical skills under many known masters in the field, including Muthiah Bhagavathar and Papanasam Sivan.

Iqbal Bano was born 1928 in Delhi. With supportive parents, she studied music under Sabri Khan and Chaand Khan of the Delhi gharana. In 1952, at age 24, she migrated to Pakistan and married into a family in Multan. With a supportive husband, she became a star in Pakistan, specializing in semi-classical forms: thumri, dadra, and ghazal. She died 21 April 2009 in Lahore.

Mehdi Hassan (1927-2012) was one of the most influential Pakistani ghazal singers. He started training in classical music at the age of eight, and completed his musical training with his father Azeem Khan and uncle Ismail Khan who were both traditional Dhrupad singers.