social media

A Bolero in Exchange

Dattatraya Lohar, a fabricator from Devrashtre in Sangli district, Maharashtra, built a four-wheeler from scrap and two-wheeler parts. In December 2021 the industrialist Anand Mahindra wrote about it on Twitter: “This clearly doesn’t meet with any of the regulations but I will never cease to admire the ingenuity.” He added: “I’ll personally offer him a Bolero in exchange.”

After the exchange, Mahindra wrote of Lohar’s vehicle: “It will be part of our collection of cars of all types at our Research Valley & should inspire us to be resourceful.”

#SOSIYC

In April 2021, during the second wave of Covid-19, Indians appealed on social media for hospital beds, oxygen and medicines. Many tagged B.V. Srinivas, president of the Indian Youth Congress, in their appeals. “We have received more than 40000 requests and enquiries about hospital beds, oxygen, Remdesivir and plasma,” he told Outlook on April 16.

According to The Week, his network of 1,000 volunteers worked with Covid centers across the states.

Food Packets in Chennai

In December 2015, floods hit Chennai. Twitter helped with the rescue and relief work. The actor Siddharth and the radio host RJ Balaji collected food and volunteers. “We have around 2,000 odd food packets as of now and we are segregating them as we get them,” Siddharth said.

The Missed Call

In 2014 the BJP began a membership drive in which people joined by dialing a toll-free number. The call was cut, and the party called back to confirm. By April 2015 the party reported over 90 million members, Business Standard wrote. A Congress leader called the BJP the biggest “missed call” party.

The figures were disputed. In March 2015 the BJP had declared 8.8 crore members, ThePrint noted, and later it claimed 11 crore.

The Soldier’s Video

In January 2017, Tej Bahadur Yadav, a constable of the Border Security Force, posted videos on social media about the poor food served to soldiers. The Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, asked for a report.

On January 13 the Army chief, General Bipin Rawat, told army troops to use internal channels: “We want them to come directly to us rather than through social media.” He added: “Anyone irrespective of rank and service can reach out to me directly.”

In April 2017 the BSF dismissed Yadav. “He has been dismissed from service today, following provisions of BSF Act and rules,” the Deccan Herald reported.

The Skin Tone Filter

Until June 2020, users of Shaadi.com, a large Indian matrimonial site, could search for a partner by skin tone, among them “fair,” “wheatish” and “dark.”

Hetal Lakhani, a woman of Indian origin in the United States, started a petition against the filter. It gathered about 1,500 signatures in 14 hours. The site removed the filter and called it a “blind spot.”

Good Morning

In 2018, Google tried to find out why one in three smartphone users in India ran out of storage every day. The answer was “Good Morning” messages, the images that friends and relatives send each other every day. In five years, Google searches for “Good Morning images” had risen tenfold.

Google’s app Files Go, downloaded more than 10 million times, mostly in India, cleared an average of more than 1 GB per user.

Floccinaucinihilipilification

In May 2021, the Telangana politician K. T. Rama Rao joked on Twitter about the hard names of Covid medicines. Shashi Tharoor replied: “Not guilty! How can you indulge in such floccinaucinihilipilification, @KTRTRS?”

The 29-letter word means the habit of judging something to be worthless. Social media users went to their dictionaries, and many joked about how to pronounce it.

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