All India Radio (AIR), officially known since 1956 as Ākāshvāṇī , is the national public radio broadcaster of India and a division of Prasar Bharati. Established in 1930, it is the sister service of Prasar Bharati's Doordarshan, the national public television broadcaster. AIR has covered more than 99% of the Indian population as per the latest information given by Minister of Information and Broadcast. All India Radio is the largest radio network in the world. Its headquarters in New Delhi. Akashvani Bhavan houses the Drama Section, the FM Section and the National Service. Akashvani Bhavan hosts Doordarshan Kendra (Delhi).

On 1 October 1939, the External Service began with a broadcast in Pushtu; it was intended to counter radio propaganda from Germany directed to Afghanistan, Iran and the Arab nations. When India became independent in 1947, the AIR network had only six stations (in Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Lucknow, and Tiruchirappalli); three radio stations at Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi fell in the share of Pakistan. The total number of radio sets at that time was about 275,000 in India. On 3 October 1957, the Vividh Bharati Service was launched, to compete with Radio Ceylon. Television broadcasting began in Delhi in 1959 as part of AIR, but was split off from the radio network as Doordarshan on 1 April 1976. FM broadcasting began on 23 July 1977 in Chennai, and was expanded during the 1990s.