India, May 18 -- 2 May 2026, Saturday, was like any other day in India. Counting of votes for the recent state elections was still couple of days away but the newsrooms were abuzz with analysis of exit polls. A few minutes before the noontime, millions of mobile phones began shaking, er, vibrating and buzzing vigorously, almost simultaneously.

According to some unofficial estimates, this "Extremely Severe Alert" message had reached hundreds of millions mobiles, including those on silent mode even as most people had missed the advance intimation about the test scheduled that day for the indigenously developed Cell Broadcast Alert System, designed for disaster management by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the National Disast...