Bulk SMS Ban in India (to end today)
Written on Thursday, September 30, 2010
I'm sure many of you have already heard about the ongoing bulk SMS ban in India. For those of you that haven't, next paragraph contains the key facts.
Background
To oversimplify it, the issue which triggered the ban on Bulk SMS and rallies, is about ownership of a piece of land. And though this might seem like a trivial reason at first, it's not. It turns out the piece of land in question hides a whole religious, ongoing, dispute between Muslims and Hindus in India. BusinessWeek reports:
Muslims claim the site based on the existence of the mosque since 1528, while Hindu groups argued the Babri Masjid was built on the site of an earlier temple.
At a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, the High Court in Uttar Pradesh state had been expected to award the disputed land in the town of Ayodhya, site of the 16th-century Babri Masjid and where Hindus believe their god Ram was born, to representatives of one of the religious communities.
It had been a while since the Indian government had used such drastic measures (there was a print ban in 1978 during a national emergency), but there is a lot of concern around this case, and the consequenses it might have. The demolishment of the muslim mosque that had been built on the site in 1992, led to approximately 2000 people being killed. In addition, there seems to be a lot of concern from the Prime Minister himself, as well as most political analysts:
“Any violence will speak of instability and people don’t like to invest in countries like that,” said Prem Shankar Jha, an independent political analyst based in New Delhi before the top court’s judgment. Serious trouble will create a climate for investors that “we cannot afford,” he said.
The BJP now says it still wants to build consensus before constructing a temple to Ram at the site in Ayodhya.“The way the country handles this -- the aftermath -- will have a profound impact on the evolution of our country,” Prime Minister Singh told a meeting of editors at this official residence this month, the Hindu newspaper reported, referring to India’s most contentious and intractable religious dispute.
India’s gross domestic product has grown nearly six times since 1991, when Singh, then finance minister, introduced free- market measures that cut red tape, removed state-enforced capacity caps on steel and cement makers, and allowed overseas companies including Ford Motor Co. to set up operations.
About the Bulk SMS Ban
So, with this background in mind, the government chose to ban bulk SMS as a medium that could be used by ill-thinkers to provoke mass panic.
I am certainly not for red-tape, nor do I encourage such bans. I believe people should be free to express themselves. Still, on the other side, when you have to make decisions that can result in thousands of people being killed, I understand that it justifies some extreme measures.
I'm just not sure how far banning Bulk SMS goes in preventing this. There are so many technological ways to overcome the specific ban they have placed, (ok, granted, they come with a higher cost) and most of you reading this, and come from a mobile marketing background, know what I mean.
I can only send my sympathies to the mobile marketing professionals that have been affected by this. It must be pretty hard suddenly not being able to address your share of the 1.2bn Indian population... Hang in there guys... Notably, the ban started as a 72-hour ban last week , but has since been extended, affecting other mobile services in the wake of it, such as mobile and internet banking. The government did ask network ops to exempt such traffic, but this, quite understandably, was not feasible as such traffic is usually sold in bulk to sms aggregators abroad.
The ban is set to end today, but we'll just have to wait and see... It has been extended twice in the past.
To close on a positive note, however, not everyone was upset by this ban. Greeting card outlets found a new source of income - albeit a temporary one.
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sms marketing,
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crand
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