INDIA'S SPAM WAR

AS UNSOLICITED CALLS AND MESSAGES INUNDATE CELLPHONES, NEW TECH SOLUTIONS AND REGULATIONS AIM TO COUNTER THIS INVASIVE DIGITAL EPIDEMIC. BUT IT'S STILL A LONG HAUL

- AVISHEK G. DASTIDAR

Every day, Nabamita Bhattacharya steels herself for the daily assault on her phone. The first call comes at around 10.30 aman automated voice offering a credit card with lifetime free benefits. By noon, her phone is flooded with promotional messages offering health insurance, real estate deals, astrology services and instant loans-'1 CR BUSINESS LOAN IN MINS. No DOCUMENTS! CALL...' For the 39-year-old Kolkata-based businesswoman, these interruptions are more than a minor nuisance. They disrupt her work, intrude on her personal time and take a toll on her mental peace. Yet, as a business owner, she cannot afford to ignore unknown numbers, leaving her at the mercy of this relentless barrage. "Once, I was in the middle of a client meeting when calls kept popping up," she recalls. "One number looked familiar, so I excused myself to answer it, only to hear a woman asking me if I needed to service my water filter. I was mortified."

Sounds familiar? Spam calls and messages have become a daily annoyance for millions of Indians. Once seen as an unavoidable aspect of a hyper-connected world, spam today has escalated into a serious issue-enough for the government and private telecom companies to contemplate urgent action.