Should India knock half-an-hour off its Standard Time, or may be add? Perhaps we should think about it.
Unlike most of the countries which are ahead or behind GMT by one whole hour (and its multiples), India is ahead of GMT by 5 1/2 hours. (IST is calculated from Allahabad which is at 82.5E logitude). Thus india is 3 1/2 hours behind Beijing or Singapore, 4 1/2 hours ahead of Paris, 10 1/2, 11 1/2 or 12 1/2 ahead of US or Canada.
In fact, the date and time settings in Microsoft Windows lists only six other locations having either half-hour or quarter-hour differences — Newfoundland (-3:30), Tehran (+3:30), Kabul (+4:30), Kathmandu (+5:45), Adelaide (+9:30) and Darwin (+9:30).
Look at the implications. A vistor from Beijing coming to Bombay, will have to press his cell phone buttons 33 times to adjust to local time, whereas if he visits the nearby Lahore, he needs to press 30 times less. Or, an American fixing an conference call has to put in that extra effort to include the half-hour to calculate the local time. (Adding or subtracting whole numbers can be done intuitively, adding fractions complicates the procedure).
Does it matter at all? It’s not possible to say for sure, but little things have mattered a lot in the past. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Tipping Point, subtitled ‘How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference’ mentions a number of instances where small changes led to significant results. For example, removing graffitis from the cars and cracking down on people who leaped over turnstiles without paying have led to huge reduction in crime rate in New York. In another case, adding a picture of a map in a brouchre increased the response rate significantly. Scientists, in fact, have been talking about non-linear effects for even longer.
Knocking off the half an hour from IST might not lead to any big difference. But it would make calculating world time and adjusting electronic watches a little easier. With one-to-one interactions between Indians and the rest of the world having become more common than ever, the collective convinience might be significant.
In fact, the concept of standard time itself was an outcome of a technological development. It came as a response to changes brought about by railways, which was as revolutionary when it was introduced as information and communication technology is today. Railway routes in US and Canda passed through places that differed by several hours in local time, leading to confusion in schedules, and subsequently resulting in coordinated universal time.
But there will be a big problem if we do that. Even presently, sun rises and sets too early for those in the east, and too late for those in the west. Two time lines – +5 hours and +6 hours – cut India. Mumbai and a good part of Western India are between +4 to +5 hours timeline (as the whole of Pakistan does). Most of North-east and the whole of Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie between +6 hours and +7 hours timelines.
Adding or subtracting half an hour will make this worse. The soultion of course is having two time zones, but then it would only add to the confusion. Having a universal time has its advantages – it sidesteps confusion arising from having to tackle different times. It has also emotional underpinnings, with a IST uniting people across the country.
