INDIA-TELECOMS-TELEGRAM

In this photograph taken on July 12, 2013, an Indian employee holds telegram applications at the Central Telegraph Office in Kolkata. Thousands of Indians crammed into telegram offices to send souvenir messages to friends and family in a last-minute rush before the service shuts down. July 14, 2013, is the last day that messages will be accepted by the 162-year-old service, the last major commercial telegram operation. In the days before mobile phones and the Internet, the telegram network was the main form of long-distance communication, with 20 million messages dispatched from India during the subcontinent's bloody partition in 1947. AFP PHOTO/ Dibyangshu SARKAR (Photo credit should read DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images)