The e-mail system of the Indian Prime Ministers Office was crippled by a virus that devoured nearly all of its incoming mail for three months last year, according to a recent report in the Times of India .
Apparently the virus affected the PMO's Microsoft Outlook Express program, and consequently the office received almost none of the e-mail it was sent from February to April. Which, really, is the kind of thing you think someone would have noticed, because presumably the PMO usually gets a fair bit of e-mail, here in the worlds biggest democracy.
The Times says the problem was detected only in late April, at which point the PMO switched to using the free software called Squirrelmail. The problem became public knowledge when the government used a classic defence - 'But I didn't get your e-mail!' - at a hearing for a retired air force officer who had complained by e-mail to the PMO about errors in the Hindi version of a law, but received no response to his complaint.
The PMO says it has no idea just how many concerned Indian citizens or indeed heads of state it didn't hear from because of the problem, but everything's sorted now. That said, the home page
of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh now gives out a cellphone number, but no e-mail address.
