Chicago Radio

Indian jurist and future minister B. R. Ambedkar speaking into a Chicago Radio system in 1935

Chicago Radio is an Indian manufacturer of public address systems, closely associated with the pro-independence Indian National Congress during the last decades of the British Raj. The company was established by Gianchand Chandumal Motwane in 1909 as the Eastern Electric & Trading Company. It changed its name to the Chicago Telephone Supply Company in 1919 when it moved from Sindh to Bombay. The company served as a distributor for an American company of the same name, but retained the branding when the American firm went out of business. Under Gianchand's son Nanik the company began a close association with the Congress, providing public address systems at numerous meetings and speeches. The company provided this support on a pro bono basis until the 1960s. It remains in business on a small scale, as Motwane Communication Systems Pvt. Ltd.