India's LGBT community will now have a round-the-clock radio station dedicated to them. Q Radio, which went on the airwaves in September, claims to be India's first radio station which caters to the country's lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. The station operates from Bangalore in the southern state of Karnataka.
The brains behind the station is Anil Srivatsa, the CEO and co-founder of Radiowalla.in, an online radio portal for "niche audiences worldwide."
Srivatsa told PTI:
"LGBT is a large special interest group left out of main stream media and social representation and this is a natural fit to our vision. The LGBT need media representation and a common ground to gather their thoughts and spread them from one place."
He said the content would focus on "life in India from an LGBT perspective where non-LGBT participants can also interact wearing the same shades of the rainbow."
Here are some of the pertinent LGBT topics Q Radio discusses on the air.
They also have fun on their segments.
Srivatsa said the idea struck him when he discussed "homosexual experiences" on his late-night show Between The Sheets, which made him a "gay icon" in Delhi.
Although homosexuality was decriminalized by Delhi's High Court in 2009, the country's two million gays face a strong social stigma and a lack of basic rights.
A 2012 Hindustan Times survey found that 76% of Indians between 18 to 25 said that homosexuality was not an acceptable sexual preference.
