Social Need-ia! Internet's finest hour

For the Indian government, social media and Internet have been like the urumi or flexible sword of kalaripayattu or Kerala martial arts fame: a double edged weapon:  to be exploited by the likes of Prime Minister Modi for cutting a direct path to the electorate, even while exercising extreme caution to ensure that it doesn't wound itself in the process. This ambivalence will likely vanish after the exemplary manner in which Cyberia stepped in to fill the breach in official outreaches to the lakhs of hapless citizens at the mercy of the flood waters in Chennai and places south last week.

With other means of communication rendered unreliable or non-existent, social media users elsewhere in the country harnessed FaceBook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other tools to create a vital lifeline to the stranded citizens. Tweets for help were sorted and resent by thousands of volunteers to any one nearby who could reach the affected. Google's crisis response page, South India Flooding provided a useful rallying point, with a dynamic, crowd sourced map of flooded streets and roads still open. Also useful was a listing complete with mobile phone numbers and twitter handles, of " People and Places offering shelter" sourced from ChennaiRains.org.

FaceBook activated its Safety Check tool, Chennai Flooding: "Quickly find and connect with friends in the area. Mark them safe if you know they're OK."

Another clearinghouse was TogetherChennai, whose stark graphic was peppered with icons which said Needs boat, Needs food, Needs rope, Needs medical help, or just SOS, which they tried to match with another map of people ready and able to help.

In Bangalore, the metro nearest to Chennai, an organisation, BangaloreForChennai, invited the public to fund mobile powerbanks -- packed thousands of them and took them by road to deliver in the flooded city.

Practo, the health portal compiled a verified list of doctors and hospitals in each affected area, with gateways through its FaceBook and Twitter pages.

Mobile Taxi aggregators Ola and Uber made all rides in Chennai free and also moved relief supplies. Ola mobilised a fleet of boats where taxis could not go.

Food app Zomato launched a ‘Meal for Flood relief’ initiative promising to provide one meal free for every one ordered. Some 55,000 meals were booked by people in other parts of India, and over a lakh of meals were delivered.

Mobile payments gateway Paytm provided free recharges of Rs 30 for Chennai residents and almost all telecom players announced schemes where they provided free talktime for local and STD calls.

The message was clear: Indians as individuals and corporates are pitching in at Tamil Nadu's hour of need and putting to use the Internet-driven tools and technologies that have empowered them in recent years.

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