Location was never so important earlier, on September 2, helicopter carrying the Chief Minister of our federal state Andhra Pradesh:, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy popularly known as YSR went missing in the jungles of Nallamala in inclement weather conditions. YSR was a dynamic and popular leader, adored by his followers and feared by his opponents. He has received a fresh popular mandate just 3 months ago to rule Andhra Pradesh for next 5 years. As usual, initial response to this emergency was lethargic; however State & Central Governments launched unprecedented search and rescue operations, which was never seen before, where everything at the Indian State’s disposal was pressed into service. Magnitude of this search operation can be gauged by the fact that more than 5000 armed reserve police personal along with several police and paramilitary personal were engaged on foot search, military helicopters, latest all weather combat aircraft Sukhoi with thermal imaging capabilities and even the secretive all weather night capability reconnaissance radar imaging satellite RISAT-2 was looking for the missing leader. Tragedy is that he along with his staff were found dead one of the remote hills of Nallamala at what could be seen as an avoidable accident.Reports say that none of these technologies could be of much use, owing to the special terrain and climatic conditions prevailing at the location. Location was possible to arrive because of the SMS message delivered to one of the working mobiles carried by the deceased, it is said that mobile Cell Of Orgin (COO) technologies were used to zero down the last known position to 5 KM radius, were search efforts were concentrated and subsequently the crash site was found.
YSR official residence is in around 400 meters from my residence, I was used to traffic restrictions when his cavalcade zips through, I remember several glimpses of him reading a news paper in his travel, he made his final journey, and through the route he generally takes, i.e. passing through Rajbhawan road where our office is located. It was there to say goodbye..
Incidentally, we are working on Mobile Operating System/Mobile Device/Mobile Operator agnostic location based service, beta to be launched during this festive season. The service, we believe would find mass adoption. More of this in month or so…
