Who founded the National Orchestra of India (Vadya Vrinda) at All India Radio?

Explanation

While working as the music director of All India Radio (AIR) in Delhi from 1949 to 1956, Pandit Ravi Shankar founded the Vadya Vrinda, the National Orchestra of India. It brought together musicians playing Indian instruments to perform music composed and arranged for an orchestra.

Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920-2012) was born in Varanasi. As a young man, he toured Europe and America with the dance troupe of his elder brother, the dancer Uday Shankar. In 1938, he gave up dancing and went to Maihar to learn the sitar from Ustad Allauddin Khan, the founder of the Maihar gharana, under whom he trained for several years. He became the most famous sitar player in the world and did more than anyone else to make Indian classical music known in the West. He taught the sitar to George Harrison of the Beatles and worked with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the composer Philip Glass. He performed at the Monterey Pop Festival (1967) and Woodstock (1969), and he organised the Concert for Bangladesh (1971) with George Harrison. He composed the music for Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, beginning with "Pather Panchali" (1955), and he set Muhammad Iqbal's "Saare Jahan Se Achha" to its popular tune. He received the Bharat Ratna in 1999 and won several Grammy Awards. His daughters, Anoushka Shankar and the singer Norah Jones, are also musicians.

All India Radio, also known as Akashvani, became an important patron of classical music after independence, broadcasting concerts and employing many musicians.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Vishnu Digambar Paluskar founded the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya (1901) and composed the tune of "Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram".
• ✗Ustad Ali Akbar Khan was a sarod maestro and son of Allauddin Khan.
• ✗Ustad Bismillah Khan was the great shehnai maestro of Varanasi.