India to send last telegram | Hacker News Reader

India to send last telegram

m.csmonitor.com

88 pointsbane36 comments

The Victorian Internet is an interesting and fairly quick read. Check it out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet

Hmm... it's an interesting point/perspective (I haven't read the book, just the wiki), but isn't that like saying that the log under something heavy to transport is more significant than the wheel?

Maybe you could argue that you couldn't have had the internet without the telegraph but I isn't that the case with every single piece of technology? This leads us to "standing in the shoulders of giants" etc.

So my point is, what is the point of making this point, since even if his point is valid/true, they are in different orders of magnitude of how they affected the world.

Note that I don't want to dismiss the whole argument without even reading the book, I'm just wondering...

The main argument is that the qualitative difference was in communication at the speed of human transportation (by horse, rail and sea, not yet by air) versus at the speed of light. For the first time in human history, events around the world could be known effectively instantaneously. Everything after that was an increase in the quantity of information.

Speed of electricity, not light :) But that's a good way to put it the way you do, it might be more fair to the authors point.

The telegraph just as disruptive in it's time as the Internet was in the 1990s. Before the telegraph, messages took days, if not weeks to reach cross-country. Every telco since then, (Including the Internet) has been an extension or abstraction of it. Awesome article.

Is this really the world's last telegram? I think many countries still retain telegram services (many of them are operated by private companies now, but Japan is a major exception).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram#Worldwide_status_of_t...

Yup, this one is not the last. Telkom (parastatal in South Africa) still operates a telegram service.

http://www.telkom.co.za/general/pricelist/international_tele...

Even Canada operates a telegram service, although it is mainly used for novelty use these days.

I've heard that Mexico also uses telegram in places where telephone infrastructure is still lacking due either to government decay or drug cartels.

It's most definitely not. Of course telegraphs day's as a mainstream communication are long gone, but many countries including mine (Uruguay) still use telegraph for legal and billing procedures.

The original article also mentions the legal force of a telegram, in India it is accepted as a 'petition'.

I'm just wondering if an e-mail printed and signed at receipt by a notary or something similar could be taken as a substitute?

Yes. I guess this is (was) the main use of telegram in today's time in India. It serves as a perfect legally acceptable proof that you sent a letter to someone and that they received. Normal letters/posts wouldn't have that value I guess ... May be registered post does.

The title is ambiguous: it doesn't say it was the _world's_ last telegram, it just say says "last telegram". You could also read it as "_India's_ last telegram".

The title is ambiguous, but the body unambiguously and incorrectly states: "The world's last telegram message will be sent somewhere in India on July 14."

How well do telegrams compare to, say, overnight courier services like FedEx, or even the telephone? What is their main use in this day and age?

There are many villages in India which don't have decent courier services. I think phone should have reached most of them by now though, hopefully. I won't be surprised if there are villages without phone.

Is the point about the legal status of sending a telegram to a court made in the original article valid?

Then how would a telegram get there?

The post office gets the telegram, and the postman delivers

They're, if I recall correctly, a $X0 million [edit to add: crikey, checked stats: $500 million a year at the telephone company alone] a year business in Japan. The overwhelmingly most common use is sending a message similar to "We regret that we were unable to attend your wedding. Best wishes to the bride and groom on their unending journey together." That will run you about $20. For an extra $30, you can send the telegram with (e.g.) two dolls of Micky and Minnie Mouse dressed in bridal attire holding a scroll case for the telegram, so that it can be held on the gift table until the bride and groom have the opportunity to read it.

Of course it's inefficient. That's precisely the point.

Same in Sweden, it's only really used for sending wedding greetings.

The reason is that telegrams are seen as the most formal mode of communication, because once upon a time it was faster delivered and more expensive than a hand-written letter. Although there now exists many modes of communications that are way, way, faster, it retains the traditional formality, and is therefore used in traditionally formal settings, such as weddings.

In Croatia it's still customary to send condolence telegrams.

"Of course it's inefficient. That's precisely the point."

Sounds like that tech will be replaced by word processing a note using 50 different fonts and colors, printing it out, and then scanning/faxing it.

Meanwhile in Argentina, to quit a job you are legally obliged to send a telegram, and people still send them to congratulate newlyweds on their weddings.

I think they mean "India's last telegram"

>India to send last telegram

Will we live to see "Oregon to send last Instagram"?

How are telegrams sent these days? By email or a phone call between post offices?

That's fascinating that a telegram to a court claiming an illegal detention is taken as a "writ petition" (for habeas corpus, presumably). I can see now why this system's loss would push someone to hunger strike in protest -- seems like a super cheap way to access the courts.

My experience has only been in the US, where court filing fees are pretty high and can run hundreds of dollars unless you can jump through quite a few hoops to prove you're poor enough to get those fees waived (ideally a lawyer working pro bono would do it for you). The filing fees are a combination of user fees to the government + fees paid to private vendors who set up the sites you upload the PDFs to for filing.

I find the legal stuff mentioned in the article of interest - that a telegram is taken seriously by the judiciary - as if it were given in person.

This is potentially huge.

I suppose there is room for a service that notarizes (something like that, no offense meant to notaries!) messages before sending them in an otherwise very casual fashion, as well as records receipt in a somewhat official way could take it's place. There is still probably room for such a thing/

I wonder if the line can be repurposed into a high speed data line. DSL seems to handle noise and crappy wiring well.

"the telegram has lost too much ground to smartphones"

The title is misleading and pompous and of course that's not true but I guess that's how "The Christian Science Monitor" rolls.

I can't believe the oxymoronic 'Christian Science' Monitor website is being linked to for anything other than ridicule.

The CSM is actually a very highly respected news source. It regularly wins Pulitzer prizes. See this encyclopedia britannica entry: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/115192/The-Christi...

I can't see any Pulitzer prizes in the last decade. All I can see is 'articles' like this http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2013/0616/School... promulgating religion in schools, and quizes entitled "Are you smarter than an atheist".

the oxymoronic 'Christian Science' Monitor website

I'm afraid that's an ignorant and knee-jerk reaction. The name is a legacy thing that is kept around for historical reasons, much like "Young Men's Christian Association" or "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People" or, for that matter, "Kentucky Fried Chicken". The publication itself has been highly regarded for many years and made a pretty bold move a few years ago to focus on the web.

Did you not see my further comment? It seems to me that far from being an historical throwback, they still have a strong religous bias. Can you imagine something like the NYT or BBC News running a poll entitled "Are you more intelligent than a Christian"? I can't, because it would be offensive.

To me, that undermines such a site terribly, and I don't think it's fair to accuse me of being ignorant simply because you disagree with my opinion.

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