Why in news?

India has introduced the SACHET Cell Broadcast system, an indigenous emergency messaging service designed to deliver instant alerts to citizens during crises such as natural disasters, wars, or other emergencies.

As part of testing, the government sent a nationwide notification with a siren sound, clarifying that no action was required as it was only a test message.

The initiative aims to strengthen India’s disaster response framework by ensuring timely alerts, thereby enhancing public safety and building a more resilient communication ecosystem.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• SACHET: India’s Integrated Emergency Alert System
• Cell Broadcast Technology: A Powerful Tool for Emergency Alerts
• How Cell Broadcast Technology Works?
• Cell Broadcast vs SMS: Key Differences

SACHET: India’s Integrated Emergency Alert System

• SACHET (meaning “alert”) is an Integrated Alert System designed to deliver disaster and emergency warnings directly to mobile users in geo-targeted areas via SMS.
• Institutional Framework
  • Launched by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT)
  • Developed in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)
  • Aims to strengthen real-time disaster communication across India
• Purpose and Scope
  • Provides timely alerts during:
    • Natural disasters (cyclones, earthquakes, floods)
    • Man-made emergencies (gas leaks, chemical hazards, wars)
  • Ensures rapid dissemination of critical information to citizens
• How the System Works?
  • Uses cellular network towers to broadcast alerts
  • Works as a one-way communication system
  • Does not require internet connectivity
  • Can deliver messages to billions of users within seconds (if connected to network)
  • Alerts can be nationwide or location-specific
• Coverage and Reach
  • Operational across all 36 States and Union Territories
  • Has delivered over 134 billion SMS alerts
  • Supports communication in 19 Indian languages
• Test Use in India
  • Around 11:40 AM on May 2, 2026, smartphones across India emitted a loud alert sound with vibrations and a pop-up message titled “extremely severe alert”, as part of a nationwide test of the cell broadcast system.
  • Similar systems are already used in countries like Japan for tsunami and disaster warnings.
  • India’s recent test marks one of the largest-scale implementations of this technology.
• Significance
  • Enhances disaster preparedness and response
    • Under the UN’s “Early Warnings for All” initiative, which International Telecommunication Union (ITU) helps implement, cell broadcast is seen as a key tool to ensure people receive timely, accurate alerts.
  • Improves last-mile connectivity of emergency alerts
  • Builds a more resilient and responsive public communication system in India

Cell Broadcast Technology: A Powerful Tool for Emergency Alerts

• Cell Broadcast is a communication method that enables authorities to send short messages simultaneously to multiple mobile phones within a specific geographic area.
• It can target either a large population or a limited set of users in a hazard-affected zone, ensuring precise and efficient dissemination of alerts.
• A major advantage of cell broadcast technology is its ability to bypass network congestion, allowing messages to be delivered instantly even during peak traffic conditions.
• It does not rely on internet connectivity and can be customised based on user preferences such as language, making it highly effective for mass communication.
• Origin and Global Adoption
  • Developed in the early 1990s by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute and first demonstrated in Paris in 1997, the technology has since been adopted globally.
  • Today, it is used by over 30 countries as a best practice for issuing timely warnings during natural disasters.

How Cell Broadcast Technology Works?

• Cell broadcast operates through the routine communication between mobile network towers and phones within their coverage area.
• These towers continuously transmit network-related information to connected devices, which usually remains invisible to users.
• Authorities utilise this existing one-way communication system to send emergency alerts.
• Instead of relying on individual messaging, the system enables a single alert to be transmitted from a cell tower to all connected devices simultaneously.
• By broadcasting one message to multiple users at once, cell broadcast ensures instant, wide-scale delivery without network congestion, making it highly effective for real-time alerts during disasters and emergencies.

Cell Broadcast vs SMS: Key Differences

• So far, India relied on an SMS-based disaster alert system operational across all 36 States and Union Territories.
  • Over 134 billion sms alerts have been sent in 19+ Indian languages, ensuring broad reach.
• Now it has developed cell broadcast technology as a more advanced alert mechanism.
  • It is not clear when the full rollout of this technology will take place.
• Cell Broadcast (CB) is a one-to-many system, allowing a single message to reach millions of devices simultaneously, whereas SMS operates on a one-to-one basis, sending messages individually to each recipient.
• CB sends alerts through specific cell towers, targeting users within a geographic area.
  • Unlike SMS, it does not require phone numbers, enabling precise, location-specific messaging without tracking individuals.
• Cell Broadcast is more privacy-friendly, as it does not rely on user data. It can also reach visitors and foreign users in the area, often delivering messages in multiple languages.
• CB alerts are highly conspicuous, featuring loud sounds and pop-ups, making them difficult to ignore. In contrast, SMS messages can be missed or overlooked more easily.

Why in news?

Vantara, a 3,500-acre wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, owned by Anant Ambani (son of Reliance chairman), has offered to relocate and care for 80 hippos that were otherwise set to be euthanised.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Origin of Colombia’s Hippo Population
• Why Colombia Decided to Cull Hippos?
• Ecological Impact: Why Colombia’s Hippos Need Control
• Challenges in Relocating Hippos
• Can Vantara Accommodate 80 Hippos
• CITES and Concerns Over Wildlife Transfers to India

Origin of Colombia’s Hippo Population

• Colombia’s hippos trace back to four animals—three females and one male—imported in 1981 by Pablo Escobar for his private zoo at Hacienda Nápoles.
• After his death in 1993, the estate was abandoned, allowing the hippos to escape into the Magdalena River basin, where they reproduced rapidly, growing their population.

Why Colombia Decided to Cull Hippos?

• Colombia declared Hippopotamus amphibius an invasive species in 2022 after rapid population growth became a major ecological concern.
• Earlier efforts like sterilisation, launched in 2021, proved costly, labour-intensive, and largely ineffective, especially since dominant males mate with multiple females.
• Scientific research further highlighted the urgency, showing that the rising population and high management costs left only a limited window for control.
• Experts concluded that even with relocation efforts, some level of culling would be unavoidable.

Ecological Impact: Why Colombia’s Hippos Need Control?

• Peer-reviewed research highlights that Colombia’s hippos are significantly altering local ecosystems.
• A 2020 study found that hippo-inhabited lakes showed disrupted ecosystem metabolism, increased nutrient loading from waste, and a shift in aquatic life, with phytoplankton increasingly dominated by harmful cyanobacteria.
• These changes indicate serious ecological imbalance, underscoring the need for population control.

Challenges in Relocating Hippos

• Moving hippos is extremely difficult due to biological, logistical, and financial constraints.
• Tranquilising them is risky because of their thick skin and proximity to water, where sedated animals can easily drown.
• Studies have shown high mortality during capture, often due to capture myopathy—a stress-induced condition.
• Additionally, their massive size (up to 3,000 kg) makes transport complex and costly, with expenses running into tens of thousands of dollars per animal.
• Also, peer-reviewed consensus is that no single intervention — sterilisation, translocation, or culling — is sufficient on its own, and that the window for combined intervention is narrowing each year.

Can Vantara Accommodate 80 Hippos

• Vantara’s Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, spread over about 650 acres, has sufficient space to house 80 hippos, as the minimum enclosure requirement would take only around 18 acres.
• However, practical challenges remain.
  • Hippos live in social groups led by dominant males, so the animals would need to be divided into multiple separate enclosures rather than housed together.
  • Additionally, Jamnagar’s hotter and drier climate would require continuous freshwater management to replicate their natural habitat, making long-term care more complex.

CITES and Concerns Over Wildlife Transfers to India

• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) reviewed India’s handling of wildlife imports after inspecting Vantara and found gaps in due diligence while issuing permits for endangered species.
• It initially recommended halting further import permits until procedures improved and animal origins were verified.
• However, this recommendation was later reversed after countries like the US, Japan, Brazil, and India argued that the move was premature.