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India Life and Personal

When newspapers lose their mind …

The Times of India has been under a lot of fire from bloggers recently for making a “pseudo-mockery” of the Mumbai floods by posting sound-bytes from their star readers about not being able to read their favorite newspaper in the morning. The first blog post that I came across about this was at Indianwriting.

Marooned without Times of India, Mumbai edition

I do not expect this from a newspaper like The Times of India that takes pride in being the 24th largest newspaper in the world with a circulation of 1,680,000. Gimmicks like this do not set up a good precedent for the print media. I wonder why a reputed newspaper like TOI would sink down to such a depth when I doubt it is going to bolster their readership/circulation.

While I am at this, I would like to point out that the same blog ridicules TOI for touting DNA as a unique newspaper, when in fact it is nothing but a copy of other good dailies in Mumbai.

Seems like TOI needs to get their act straight.

Link: http://greatbong.blogspot.com/2005/07/courage-in-rains.html

Categories
India Life and Personal Tech and Culture

Mobile text messaging as a means of broadcasting information in times of disaster

Mobile cell phone usage is burgeoning in urban India. No matter how much we criticize the lack of disaster recovery systems in our expansive country, it is still noteworthy that inspite of record breaking rainfall and the accompanying destruction, communication services went down for a very limited time in Mumbai. People still had Internet access, as is evident from the “live” blog reports available on the Internet. Apparently, the following SMS message was sent at the behest of the Police Commissioner of Mumbai:

Due to heavy rains, water logging likely in city n suburbs. Pls donot travel unless absolutely essential. Police Commissioner, Mumbai

This made me wonder about the importance of a cellular communication network in times like this. It is much more easier and reliable to broadcast SMS messages than to sound warning alarms across the city. The pervasiveness of cellphones means that a lot more people are likely to read an SMS message than to watch the TV for breaking news.

Categories
Economy

How to conduct an error-free shuttle launch …

NASA launch