Silent zone

Weeks after the Commerce Ministry8217;s IT officials explained to this column that a new website would replace the existing portal of the ministry, nothing has changed. We had pointed out that the portal8217;s bulletin board had been taken off after it was flooded with spam about cheap Viagra and substitutes that buried the genuine queries. The board is yet to make a comeback, and the daily hour-long chat facility for addressing investor queries about Special Economic Zones has gone from bad to worse, with no answers on most days. Exasperated developers have now started using the chat room to bounce off queries and seek clarifications8212;from each other.