Published: 30th June 2021
#ThrowbackToday: Emergency? Just dial 999 was London's mantra, the first city to get this call service
In today's #TBT, we talk about the year 1937, the time when if you were in London and God forbid, were having a dire emergency, all you had to do was dial 999 and help would surely be on its way
Share Via Email
Just dial | (Pic: Wikimedia Commons)
Have an emergency? Just call 999! At least this is what was propagated on June 30, 1937 when London became the first city in the world to have an emergency phone number.
Earlier the norm was to dial zero, wait for the operator to connect you, just like they do with any other call. No priority factor was involved. But 999 changed everything. The operators were compelled to give it precedence. Why the number 999 was chosen also has an interesting take behind it.
So, imagine it's dark and you live in an era where turning the telephone dial is equivalent to dialing the number, nine was just one stop away from the dial stop itself. So the person could indeed make haste and save some time too.
Plastic, you are banned
Over 4.6 lakh tonnes every year — that's how much plastic waste Maharashtra generates which also takes it to the top of the table in the same criteria. In an attempt to curb this, on June 23, 2018, the coastal state announced a ban on plastic. Though it deferred to the booming e-commerce industry and allowed them to use plastic for another three months on June 30, it came down hard upon the rest.
Plastic bags and disposable plastic products were hit the hardest while plastic used to pack products in stores also came under the scanner. Milk, medicines, for horticulture and agriculture purposes and a few other categories, were still exempt.
