The stream of blog posts started with a single SMS – apparently by the President of the country to every mobile user. It was initially thought a commercially paid advertisement aimed at the forthcoming Presidential Election but the operators confirmed it is a favour requested by the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. Does this violate the election laws of the country? Was that an unsolicited entry to mobile users’ personal spaces? LIRNEasia with groundviews and W3Lanka blew the whistle first now it is the turn of the mass media.
Apparently MSM in India are conspiring against new media: The news media breathlessly chronicle each of Mr. Tharoor’s supposed Twitter missteps in editorials and talk show discussions. One news channel scrolled his latest Twitter updates across its screen under the rubric “Breaking News.” Twitter enthusiasts say the news media make a fuss about it because it usurps its traditional role as intermediary and interpreter between the powerful and the masses. “By constantly associating Twitter with controversies, Indian media will successfully dissuade other politicians from joining the social networking site,” Ajit Narayana, an avid Twitter user who is organizing a conference this month on Twitter’s use in India, wrote in an e-mail message.
The Asian Journal of Public Affairs (AJPA) would like to invite you to be a part of its forthcoming issue. Contributions from postgraduate students or above can be made through scholarly papers, case studies and/or book reviews. For this edition, submissions on the topic of food security are particularly encouraged. AJPA is a peer-reviewed, academic publication concerned with public affairs issues in wider Asia – including the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and the Asia-Pacific. Spearheaded by graduate students of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and published on a biannual basis, AJPA was established to analyse and influence policymaking through an interdisciplinary lens, including but not limited to public policy, public management, international relations, international political economy, development studies and economics.
Will the shift to mobile as the primary interface to the Internet, dethrone search engines such as Google, that generate their revenues from advertising? An interesting discussion in NYT. As people increasingly rely on powerful mobile phones instead of PCs to access the Web, their surfing habits are bound to change. What’s more, online advertising could lose its role as the Web’s primary economic engine, putting Google’s leadership role into question. “The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility,” said David B.
Perhaps taking a cue from the austerity wave initiated by various government agencies and more so to benefit out of the tariff drop in telecom services, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is now looking for options and may replace the present service provider, Airtel. “Keeping in view the recent drastic change in the telecom tariff, it has been decided to explore the option of best available Plan in offer, specific to the requirements of the PMO and keeping in view the best services being offered by various companies in this sector,” says a letter from the PMO addressed to some of the service providers. The requirements of PMO include 50 GSM connections with ISD facility, 25 Blackberry connections, the numbers to be in special series, roaming including international on some of the numbers and internal building solution system. The PMO has asked service providers to provide details about their offerings by January 15, 2010. The move may also be seen as a tactic to negotiate further with the current service.
One expects the Economist to give weight to economic explanations. But not in fluff pieces written over the holiday break. According to the Economist, heavy mobile use is explained by latitude, not the ultra-low prices that are the result of the Budget Telecom Network Model. Yet these global trends hide starkly different national and regional stories. Vittorio Colao, the boss of Vodafone, which operates or partially owns networks in 31 countries, argues that the farther south you go, the more people use their phones, even past the equator: where life is less organised people need a tool, for example to rejig appointments.
At least some have first assumed it a practical joke, but Daily Mirror online confirmed President did send a New Year wish to all mobile users today. Using romanised Sinhala President wrote “Kiwu paridi obata NIDAHAS, NIVAHAL RATAK laba dunnemi. Idiri anagathaya sarwapparakarayenma Wasanawantha Wewa! SUBA NAWA WASARAK WEWA! Mahinda Rajapaksa” (As promised I delivered you an independent and free country.