Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the year-long celebrations to commemorate 150th years of the national song — Vande Mataram — at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi on Friday and also toured an exhibition at the venue. One item that drew widespread attention, including from the Prime Minister himself, was an old gramophone. The PM is learnt to have listened to the first-ever recording of “Vande Mataram” on the vintage record player. The rare gramophone record was provided by a bureaucrat couple—1996-batch Indian Civil Accounts Service officer Akhilesh Jha, and 1997-batch IRS officer Rashmita Jha—who have been archiving gramophone records for years. Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Delhi CM Rekha Gupta, and many other senior officials also listened to the recordi

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