No more calls from banks

Some of us have slammed the phone on them. Some of us have tried chatting up the voice on the other side. Most of us have been polite to them despite the annoyance. Comrades, now we get a chance to get back to them and put a stop to the pesky telemarketers from calling us at the most unwarranted of times. Moreover, the Supreme Court of our country has facilitated this.

What you need to do is register yourself at a toll-free number, which will be provided by your service provider, and get your number on ‘the list’. The register will open on August 2, and the guidelines come into force from September 5. This was promised by the government to the Supreme Court on 27 July, 2007.

Any telemarketer found making unsolicited calls to mobile phone users after September 5 would be severely penalised, the government said before a Bench comprising Justices A K Mathur and Dalveer Bhandari.

However, neither the government nor the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) clarified whether mobile users would be spared the incessant rain of SMSs from telemarketers. The COAI, through senior advocate C A Sundaram, said the do-not-call register will be updated every month.