Living up to its noble ideals of “Bahujan Hitaya, Bahujan Sukhaya”, the News Services Division (NSD) of AIR strives to provide news and views to every dweller in this vast country in varied terrains, 24X7, in all major languages and dialects, while adhering to highest professional ethics and standards in Radio Broadcasting.

The News Services Division is headed by a Director General (News), who is one of the senior most officers of the Indian Information Service. He is assisted by a team of Additional Directors General (News), Directors (News) and Joint Directors (News), Deputy Directors (News), Asstt. Directors (News), News Editors and Reporters etc. The different operational wings of NSD at headquarters in Delhi include: General News Room, Hindi News Room, Reporting Unit, Talks and Current Affairs Unit, Newsreel Unit, Indian Language Units, Reference and PP&D Unit, IT & Website unit and Administrative Wing. The Regional News Units in various States are headed by an officer of the rank of Director or Deputy Director/Assistant Director and assisted by News Editors, Reporters and Newsreaders-cum-Translators.

The history of news broadcasting in India is much older than that of All India Radio. The first news bulletin in the country went on the air from the Bombay Station on July 23, 1927 under a private company, the Indian Broadcasting Company. A month later on August 26, 1927 another bulletin in Bengali was started from the Calcutta Station. Until 1935, two bulletins, one each in English and Hindustani were broadcast from Bombay and a bulletin in Bengali was broadcast from Calcutta. The Indian Broadcasting Company went into liquidation in March, 1930 following which broadcasting came under the direct control of the Government of India. The service was designated as the Indian State Broadcasting Service. It was renamed All India Radio on June 8, 1936.

The real breakthrough in news broadcasting came after January 1936 when the first news bulletin from the Delhi Station went on the air on January 19, 1936 coinciding with the starting of its transmission. Besides, news bulletins in English and Hindustani, talks on current affairs were also started from the Station in both the languages.

The Central News Organization was set up on August 1, 1937. Mr. Charles Barnes took charge as the first News Editor in September and he later became the first Director of News. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 gave an impetus to the development of the Organization. The Monitoring Service was set up in 1939 to monitor foreign broadcasts. In 1943, the External Broadcast Unit was set up under the Director of News. By 1945, the Central News Organization was handling news bulletins in different Indian languages as well as in the External Services. After Independence, news broadcasts of AIR grew both in quantity and quality. More emphasis was laid on national and regional news bulletins.

The bulk of AIR news comes from its own Correspondents spread all over the country. It has regular Correspondents in India and abroad at Colombo, Dhaka, Dubai and Kathmandu. Apart from this, AIR has over 550 Part-time Correspondents based at nearly all district headquarters.

• 607 bulletins daily in 92 languages/dialects
• Foreign language bulletins in Arabic, Baluchi, Burmese, Dari, French, Indonesia, Persian, Pashtu, Swahili, Tibetan, Chinese etc.
• Over 60 hours of total daily broadcast of news bulletins and current affairs programs
• Special bulletins/programmes during elections, budgets, sessions of parliament/state legislatures
• Radio Plus: News on Website, News on Social Media - Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube & Instagram

Regional news bulletins were introduced in the early fifties. The first such news bulletins were broadcasted in April, 1953 from Lucknow and Nagpur Stations. In 1954-55, Regional News Units were set up at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. This went on steadily and at present there are 46 Regional News Units functioning in different parts of the country. 478 news bulletins in 77 regional languages/dialects including English and Hindi are being broadcast from RNUs for a duration of nearly 38 hours. These include 255 headlines bulletins on FM and other frequencies.

News Bulletins:

Programmes:

NEWS BASED PROGRAMMES

During February 1936, talks on current topics were introduced for the first time in English. In September that year, talks on current topics in Hindustani were added. Later ‘Topics for Today’ and ‘Focus’ on matters of current interests were introduced on 26th October, 1962. In 1967, the programmes ''Topic for Today'' and ''Focus'' were renamed as ''Spotlight and ''Current Affairs''.

News based programmes broadcast from NSD HQ.