Harsh Goenka's playful jab on govt offices 'unaffected' by Microsoft outage

As the global Microsoft outage brought many to a standstill, RPG Group Chairman Harsh Goenka couldn't resist a light-hearted jab at government offices, which seemed largely unaffected by the disruption.

He posted a picture of a traditional government office, overflowing with stacks of files, and captioned it, "Many government offices were not affected by the Microsoft outage...". The post quickly went viral, amassing 62.8K views.

Netizens were also amused. One user said," Microsoft outage? No problem! Indian government offices have been practicing social distancing from technology for years. While the world rebooted, Indian government offices just kept calm and carried on. Maybe there’s something to be said for those dusty old files after all!"


Another user said, "Old is gold and government offices rocks."

One user also came out with SBI woes saying, "SBI for sure!!! Papers and files is still the king there….compliance is more important then doing business."

The country's largest lender on Friday said its systems are unaffected by the Microsoft global outage.

Microsoft outage

In a blog post on Saturday, Microsoft revealed that a global tech outage linked to a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike impacted nearly 8.5 million Windows devices. "We estimate that CrowdStrike's update affected about 8.5 million devices, which is less than one percent of all Windows machines," Microsoft stated.

The software update from CrowdStrike, a major player in the cybersecurity industry, led to widespread issues. The disruption caused flight cancellations, interrupted broadcasts, and left customers struggling to access essential services like healthcare and banking.

For airlines, a wide range of systems were affected, including those that calculate aircraft weight, check in customers, issue boarding passes and manage call center phone lines.

The outage quickly destabilised the airline’s operations. When flights are canceled, pilots and flight attendants may miss or arrive late to their next assigned trips. Aviation regulations also limit how many consecutive hours crews can work. As a result, airlines were forced to find and assign other pilots and attendants to take over, possibly leading to further delays.