If you tune into All India Radio (AIR) regularly, you may want to go for its free SMS service which was kicked off by the Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Manish Tewari, just recently. Apart from this, Tewari also announced the launch of the Bharat Nirman website.
You can use your mobile phone and subscribe to receive AIR headlines over SMS by texting ‘AIRNEWS’ followed by a space and ‘(your) name’ to 08082080820. You will be sent a confirmation message saying ‘Thank you for subscribing to our services,’ once the request has been acknowledged.
Normal SMS charges will be applied to the text you send. There’s also a simpler way of doing this. You can give a missed call to the number we’ve mentioned above and you will get an automated SMS granting you subscription to the same. As of now, 2 lakh people have already signed up for the service.
Coming to the Bharat Nirman portal, it’s more of an electoral publicity stunt more than anything else. It is expected to include social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Built with an eye on the 2014 elections, the site delivers stats on how much the government has achieved in terms of developing rural infrastructure. It is divided into 6 sub-sections which provide information on water supply, electricity, irrigation, housing, road and telecommunications and IT projects.
We’ve already subscribed to the free SMS service but have yet to receive any news highlights. As reported previously, AIR will beam 3 to 4 alerts to users’ phone at least three times a day. There was talk of incorporating ads in these messages. But since it may be difficult to understand the target audience hidden behind the anonymity of their handsets, we can’t see many companies considering this a viable advertisement opportunity.