Taking the baby steps to the modern communication medium, Govt run national radio network All India Radio (AIR) starts free SMS service to provide AIR news headlines to mobile subscribers. This initiative comes within months after the launch of AIR Android application and Youtube Channel for its AIR news service.
The free SMS service was earlier launched as an pilot project about six months backs, providing breaking news as SMS to subscribers and it kicked into a big success with Indians who fully trust the authentic news source. Over the six month period SMS service gathered around two lakh subscribers and with public launch it definitely going to gather lots more subscribers.
During the launch Manish Tewari, Information and Broadcasting Minister said “The service was launched on a pilot scale about six months back. As it received overwhelming response, its reach is being widened. AIR is able to access information from extremely remote parts of the country and we want to ensure events taking place in northeast and others parts, get mainstreamed“
People interested in subscribing to the AIR SMS service just need to SMS AIRNEWS <space> their name to 08082080820 or simply give a missed call to 08082080820. After the successful subscription users will get latest news headlines along with public utility schemes of the government tagged to it.
“The resource generated through such public utility schemes will enable the News Services Division of AIR to bear the cost incurred towards generating such SMSes,” said an official statement. So AIR will recover the cost of sending messages by tagging each SMS with a public utility message of any Government departments.