festival. Tarana began broadcasting on 15 June 1996 at 5.00pm, to showcase popular Hindi songs from the 1950s to now, including
Bollywood music, popular tracks and new remixes. This includes live music and local music tracks. Other programmes include local news and sports bulletins, interviews, and discussions on local contributors covering issues affecting local migrant communities. With a broad range of programming blocks, the station has tried to reach a range of age groups, social backgrounds and other segments of the audience. Journalist and media commentator Thakur Ranjit Singh, the former publisher of
Fiji Daily Post, has been critical of Radio Tarana's extensive use of Hindi. In 2012, he wrote Tarana had used and promoted a high quality of traditional Hindi, maintaining language decorum, sensitivity and proper usage. He suggested rival network
Apna had used
pidgin, slang and
Fiji Hindi, and had compromised the language with "linguistic engineering". However, Singh claimed Tarana was not translating words into New Zealand English or explaining words in ways young and second generation listeners could understand. He argued this excluded listeners who had limited exposure to the Hindi language, including school children whose friends and peers were mostly
Pākehā. He suggest this could undermine Tarana's efforts to promote the Hindi language.
Religious complaints Radio Tarana has been the subject of
Broadcasting Standards Authority complaints relating to its coverage of religious issues. The first related to a series about religious procedures following the death of a Muslim person. A Muslim priest argued the dates and times of making supplications did not need to be fixed, and a Muslim commentator they did. The host argued the priest was right, and was accused of being unfair and derogatory to the Muslim commentator. Radio Tarana disputed the claim, accusing the commentator of being derogatory towards the priest, and said the programme was no longer on air. The broadcaster was unable to provide tapes of the programme, and the authority found it could not determine the case. It asked Tarana to keep recordings of future programmes. Another complaint related to
Zinadgi Forever, a Christian radio programme produced by Navjaveen Ministries International and broadcast on Radio Tarana. The programme's host had discussed his conversion from Hinduism to Christianity on air, saying after he received a Bible he "never walked in darkness again" and "never walked in untruth again". He was accused of discriminating against and denigrating the Hindu religion and breaching responsible programme standards in 2009. However, the authority ruled the host was entitled to discuss his personal views and experiences with Christianity, and the programme did not encourage denigration or discrimination against Hindu people. ==News==