In lieu of the recent attack on North Eastern people, government of India has asked mobile service providers to impose a 5 SMS per day limit for a period of 15 days. Starting 18th August, 2012, as a user of any Indian mobile service provider you will not be able to send more than 5 SMS/MMS in a single day.
Reason For This Ban On Bulk SMS, MMS
It has been observed by investigating agencies that a good chunk of rumors with regard to creating disturbance, generating chaos, imposing fear amongst people of north east India is being done through SMS or text messages. To get a control over the situation Indian government has adopted this measure.
Announcing the ban Union Home Secretary R K Singh said, “We have banned bulk SMSes and MMSes for 15 days. We are monitoring social websites to identify those who are spreading rumors.”
When Will It End?
It is a 15 day long ban, starting 18th August, 2012. It will end on 1st September, 2012 at midnight. As you were notified by your service provider about this ban, in the same manner you should expect another notification regarding it’s lift off.
Will Banking, Railway, Other Services Be Affected?
No. The message delivery for institutions such as Financial institutes, Railways have been left out from this ban. Though there is no such mention about this exclusion but I have been receiving messages from my Bank, hence deducing this statement. Please confirm from your end.
Is This The Right Step
Yes and No. I have a mixed feeling about this. Controlling flow of SMS will be of some help since a good percentage of population has access to mobile phones. However with the growth of social media use in India, there’s also need to control online chatter. Monitoring Social media websites like twitter, facebook is required as well.
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