There is a fascinating article in the Economic Times today on the battle for setting what would eventually become Indian Standard Time. It is written in the context of two stock exchanges opening earlier starting today. And even though it is a sadly paginated article, I would encourage you to read it.

Well, I won’t be stealing any punchlines if I reveal that there was a tussle between cities in whose local time would be Indian Mean Time. The choice of Greenwich Mean Time + 5 h 30 has always seemed arbitrary and bizarre to me. I guess that was before people realized the difficulties of working with half-hour differences. In India, we have the BBC news on the half-hour, every hour. An interesting effect of this time zone is that if you hold your watch (analog please, not for those with dinky Japanese digital) upside down, it reads GMT. Go on, try it. I’ll wait for you…

Synchronizing time became important as trade developed, people travelled by train and telegraphs were being sent. Soon time was being broadcast – initially by telegraph and then by radio – remnants of which can still be heard today as Short Wave Listeners are bound to know.

I am filing this under gadgets because I mentioned watches, okay?