NEW DELHI: All India Radio (AIR) is launching lessons in learning Hindi through radio in its External Services for Russia within the next few weeks.

A senior official of the ESD told radioandmusicbiz.com that this follows the recent memorandum of understanding with the Russian public service broadcaster.

This comes shortly after the launch of Hindi lessons on Independence Day targeted at listeners in China and South East Asia. The official clarified that while programmes in Chinese have been broadcast for several years, it is for the first time that Hindi lessons are being broadcast for that region.

Though, the 20-minute broadcast to China and Southeast Asia is broadcast every Sunday, the official said the frequency may be increased depending on the response from listeners.

The official also said that considering the fact that short wave was becoming obsolete in many countries, the External Services had already been launched on Internet. While three channels – the General Overseas Service and the Hindi and Urdu services - were already available, AIR hopes to launch programmes in 10 other languages by the end of this year.

China Radio International is already broadcasting in over 56 world languages including Indian languages. The Hindi lessons in AIR’s Chinese language service commenced on Independence Day.

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