Switch off phones: Petition

An online petition and Facebook group has been asking subscribers of Tata Indicomm, Reliance and Airtel networks to switch off their mobile phones, landlines and broadband connections for a day, on January 30.

Filmmaker Ranjan Kamath, who circulated the mail — and the hundreds who signed the petition — are “angry” that respected men of Indian industry like Ratan Tata, Anil Ambani and Sunil Mittal, have openly endorsed Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as a future Prime Minister.

“It came as a shock to many people,” says Kamath, speaking to DNA from Bangalore.

“We had to do something.” Kamath, who has been shooting a film about Gandhi, says he was inspired to pick a simple but effective strategy. The date he chooses is also Gandhi’s death anniversary.

“A significant drop in traffic will force them to sit up and take notice,” says the filmmaker.

That might be hard to achieve. Tata Indicomm has about 30-40 million subscribers; Reliance has 63.5million and Airtel about 84 million - a cumulative of about 18 crore subscribers. “To make a pinch on the bottomline, we will need a few hundred million phones to shut off, and that’s somewhat unrealistic,” says Kamath.

Spokespersons for the companies, however, refused to comment on this.