The era of neighbourhood cyber cafe is over

As the business of cyber cafes declines, owners are either offering a range of add-on services or exploring new avenues of income generation. Youngsters say they miss the good old days of hanging out with their peers in these spaces

The year in tweets

Pat Cummins’ generous act got the biggest round of applause from Twitterati in 2021, Patriot takes a look at the top tweets and hashtags that went viral this year As the end of the year approached, Twitter India has put out some interesting data of what was trending in 2021. Their data analysts looked at the […]

Caging the blue bird: FIR against Twitter raises questions

With Twitter losing its intermediary status and being named in an FIR,  tech behemoths have a view of what is in store for them if they do not follow the government’s new guidelines  In a world where narratives are built and debates conducted on the premise of facts, be it ‘alternative facts’ or ‘twisted facts’, […]

Play fair for a checkmate 

Nikhil Kamath using unfair means during a charity match, which he incidentally won, against the five time world champion Vishwanathan Anand has created an uproar and rightly so Last week, an unprecedented incident took the chess world by storm. Vishwanathan Anand, a five time world champion and chess legend was defeated in an online chess […]

Exclusive to a fault: Clubhouse discussion rule out non-conformists 

With Clubhouse gaining popularity rapidly, features in the app that make it loved by many are becoming the same ones that enables silencing of differing opinion, and exclusion of marginalised voices Social media has for long been a difficult place when it comes to controlling content, and especially the exclusion of differing opinions. And even […]

Airtel cashes in on anti-Jio sentiment, temporary internet shutdown

The protesting farmers were approached by Airtel employees in December to get them to port from Jio As we took breaks from the unusually hot February sun at Ghazipur border – browsing Twitter – farmers protesting the new farm laws by the Modi government approached us enquiring, “You have network?” Another question we were asked […]

‘Poor connection hampers study’

I came to stay in a PG near Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium two months back. Here, they charge 17,000 for one room. When I booked the room, they said we will be provided a really good internet connection. But soon after I moved, I realised how poor the Wi-fi was. I use net for almost […]

Broadband bluff

In May this year, when I was looking for a good broadband provider, I came across many options — Airtel being the biggest. Several other private players were waiting to get another customer in their kitty. I called up Airtel’s toll-free number, and the representative told me that a sales person will contact me, and […]