Monday, October 6. 2008
I got curious today after reading an amusing blog post about an unsolicited SMS message someone had supposedly received from a mobile phone number registered to the current President of the Maldives Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Now, this is a time of intense political competition between the various candidates camps and an originating number on a SMS is
pretty easy to spoof, so I'm not sure if it really did originate from the said number. But that's not what really struck me...
What got my attention was the fact that there now was a publicly listed mobile phone number registered to Maumoon. I've never before seen a mobile number registered to him listed on the
Dhiraagu e-Directory and a quick search through various old snapshots of e-Directory data that I had confirmed that there indeed had been none - atleast none up until early June which was the last e-Directory snapshot I had. Anyway, I grabbed a fresh snapshot of the e-Directory and spent a little while running some interesting queries on the data.
Here is some of what I found:
Numbers listed on e-Directory:
| Mobile | 305198 |
| Landline (Male') | 24423 |
| Landline (Islands/Resorts) | 8750 |
| Phones/Customer on Avg | 2.9 |
Political parties:
| Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party | 92 |
| Maldivian Democratic Party | 11 |
| Social Liberal Party | 6 |
| Adhaalath Party | 6 |
| Islamic Democratic Party | 6 |
| Jumhooree Party | 2 |
| Peoples Party | 2 |
Registrants (Top 5):
| Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun Pvt. Ltd. | 833 |
| Maldives Police Services | 200 |
| State Electric Company Ltd. | 191 |
| Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital | 167 |
| Maldives Customs Service | 164 |
Most common names (Top 5):
| Mohamed Rasheed | 1273 |
| Ibrahim Rasheed | 1250 |
| Ahmed Rasheed | 1089 |
| Ahmed Mohamed | 1088 |
| Mohamed Ali | 1087 |
Government (Top 5):
| Maldives Police Services | 200 |
| Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital | 167 |
| Maldives Customs Service | 164 |
| Min. of Defence & National Security | 141 |
| President's Office | 139 |
Ministries (Top 5):
| Min. of Defence & National Security | 141 |
| Min. of Atolls Development | 114 |
| Min. of Health | 76 |
| Min. of Finance & Treasury | 76 |
| Min. of Environment Energy and Water | 67 |
Businesses (Top 5):
| Villa Shipping & Trading Co. Pvt. Ltd. | 163 |
| Universal Entp. Pvt. Ltd. | 156 |
| One And Only Reethirah | 149 |
| One & Only Kanuhura | 125 |
| Kurumba Village | 124 |
And finally...
Maumoon Abdul Gayoom
Note: The information presented was obtained using the entries on the Dhiraagu e-Directory (as available today).
