The service will offer 24-hour breaking news and sport to Orange users in the country.

Users just need to type BBC and send it as an SMS to 12323 to get the latest headlines.

Sanjeev Vohra, Vice President of Marketing for Orange, believes the service marks a convergence between television, radio and mobiles.

Information hungry

We want to provide information services to the core World Service audience in Africa, the subcontinent and Eastern Europe in ways that are attractive to them Miles Palmer, BBC World Service

"Orange users can now read the latest BBC international news right at the moment it is being aired across the world, on their cellular handsets," he said.

Miles Palmer, Head of Business Development at the BBC World Service, regards India as an important market for the BBC.

"India is an information hungry country and mobile phones offer an additional opportunity to feed people's appetites," he said.

It will form part of a wider strategy to bring the BBC World Service to key areas around the world.

"We want to provide information services to the core World Service audience in Africa, the subcontinent and Eastern Europe in ways that are attractive to them," said Mr Palmer.

So, for instance, Ukrainian listeners can hook up to World Service news by phoning in on their mobiles and listening to audio bulletins.

There are around four million mobile subscribers in India, with between one to two million on the Orange network, which is known as Hutch outside of Mumbai.

Bangalore has become the hi-tech capital of India with some large software firms setting up bases there.