Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari today launched All India Radio's Free News SMS service at a function in New Delhi. He also launched a web portal on Bharat Nirman Campaign.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Tewari said, All India Radio has an extremely diverse Correspondent base which is able to gather news stories from the extremely remote corners of the country and bring them to mainstream in real time. He expressed hope that the data base of SMS subscribers will go up from the current two lakh to five lakh by the end of this month.

AIR Correspondent reports, under the free SMS service, registered listeners will be provided news headlines free of cost on their mobile phones. For registering, a listener has to subscribe to the service by typing AIRNWS, Space, then his or her name, on the mobile and send the SMS to 08082080820 or give a missed call to the same number.