600 Million Without Electricity in India

[mirth]

I'm sure many of you have heard about this by now. Half of India is without electricity after the power grids in the north and east tanked.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/world/asia/power-outages-hit-600-million-in-india.html?hp

[Centurion40]

I'd hate to imagine life in India without air conditioning.

I wonder if the call centers have back-up generators?

[DoctorQuest]

I work for an Indian company (not by choice) and I'm surprised we have not heard more about it.

Yes, you would think the major companies would have backup electrical infrastructure.

[LongBlade]

I wonder if the call centers have back-up generators?

Ha! That's funny.

More seriously - I'm not sure what is happening over there, but it sounds like most of the country blacked out. That can't be good.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

This never would have happened under the Raj, what what!

*dons pith helmet and monocle, wanders off in a gin-soaked funk*

[LongBlade]

This never would have happened under the Raj, what what!

*dons pith helmet and monocle, wanders off in a gin-soaked funk*

Well, I will be curious to discover exactly how India managed to wipe out its entire power grid. Specifically, I'm curious to know whether it was self-inflicted or if they had some help (a la some kind of hacking/cyber attack). My gut tells me that it was probably self-inflicted, but I'd like to know for sure.

[Jarhead0331]

I thought more than half of India already was without electricity...you learn something new every day.

[Centurion40]

Yeah but half of the other half is now without electricity.

[mirth]

I thought more than half of India already was without electricity...you learn something new every day.

You're not far off. From the NY Times article-

An estimated 300 million Indians have no routine access to electricity.

Ponder this too -

The power failure spread across 22 of the country's 28 states, an area whose population is nearly 700 million, almost 10 percent of the world's population.

[Centurion40]

Whoa!

[Centurion40]

You know, my home internet and e-mail went down for a little while last night, and we've been having some network problems at work today... I wonder if it's connected?

[mirth]

You know, my home internet and e-mail went down for a little while last night, and we've been having some network problems at work today... I wonder if it's connected?

I hope not. We need you posting pics to the Lingerie Channel!

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

This never would have happened under the Raj, what what!

*dons pith helmet and monocle, wanders off in a gin-soaked funk*

Well, I will be curious to discover exactly how India managed to wipe out its entire power grid. Specifically, I'm curious to know whether it was self-inflicted or if they had some help (a la some kind of hacking/cyber attack). My gut tells me that it was probably self-inflicted, but I'd like to know for sure.

Initial reports on our ever so wonderful Indian channel are blaming it on local corruption.  Each state on the power grid was allotted a percentage of power and nearly all were drawing more than their max limit. 

[mirth]

Sounds like a real CF. People not willing to actually do their jobs.

Surendra Rao, who was the chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission in 2001, when the nation's last major blackout occurred, said that a fairly sophisticated system of circuit breakers should have prevented the failures on Monday and Tuesday. But, he said, the people manning the circuit breakers are bureaucrats beholden to state government officials, who are loath to have the power in their locality shut off — the usual prescription when power surges threaten the national grid.

[Gusington]

Damn JH beat me to it. Who knew that half off the subcontinent was electrified to begin with? he NYTimes article posted above also went on to mention that brown outs and scattered outages are pretty routine across India and that most Indians were pretty 'meh' about the whole thing.