ISRO has nothing to do with Radio Garden, a portal that enables one to listen to several radio stations live - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
April 5, 2021
A post claiming that ISRO has developed a portal to listen to live radio of any country from anywhere is being shared across social media platforms. The viral post which shared the link radio garden portal reads ‘Now you can listen to world wide radio even without ear phone!!!! This is from @isro (ISRO) when you click the link, you can see the globe rotating. There are green dot on which you simply touch you can start listening to live radio from that place’. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: ISRO has developed a portal (Radio Garden) to listen to live radio of any country from anywhere.
Fact: Radio Garden is an outcome of Transnational Radio Encounters (TRE), a research project on the influence of radio on transnational forms of culture and identity by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. It was designed and developed by Studio Puckey and Moniker in 2016. Multiple news agencies have also reported the same. While it is true that Radio Garden enables one to listen to several radio stations live from various countries,  ISRO has nothing to do with this. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
As per the information available on the Radio Garden portal, it is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was designed and developed by Studio Puckey and Moniker in 2016 as an exhibition project commissioned by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in the context of the research project Transnational Radio Encounters. While it is true that Radio Garden enables to listen to several radio stations live from various countries, ISRO has nothing to do with this.
Taking a cue from the portal, a search on Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision yielded more information related to Radio Garden. As per this information, Radio Garden is an interactive website, which is one of the outcomes of Transnational Radio Encounters (TRE), a research project on the influence of radio on transnational forms of culture and identity. Further, it is stated that Transnational Radio Encounters (TRE) project is financially supported by the HERA Joint Research programme. Also, ISRO did not find any mention in this information.
Further Google search with relevant keywords yielded us many news articles which reported about Radio Garden. According to an article by The Guardian, Radio Garden was an initiative launched in 2016 by Jonathan Puckey and was originally commissioned as a temporary project by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision as part of research looking at how radio has fostered ‘transnational encounters’.
Another article by NPR reported Jonathan Puckey stating that Radio Garden is funded with public money from the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision. Also, there are no news articles or other information attributing Radio Garden to ISRO.
Further, when the same news went viral back in 2017, The New Indian Express has reported that Radio Garden enables to listen to several radio stations live from various countries but ISRO has nothing to do with it.
To sum it up, ISRO has nothing to do with Radio Garden, a portal which enables to listen to several radio stations live from anywhere.