CHENNAI: As the clock turned 9 on Wednesday night, street lights went off and lights were switched off in homes as many parts of Chennai opted to go dark for nine minutes. The objective: to shed more light on the effects of global warming. Corporate houses such as Infosys, too, switched off lights in their buildings, food courts and pathways during the period.

In the morning, M Suman, a Class VII school student embarked on a nine-hour, non-stop drumming performance. On Tuesday, students of Velammal Vidyalaya released 99 pigeons at the Marina. The voluntary switch-off and the series of events in Chennai were all part of the 99999 lights out campaign' spearheaded by Exnora International, aimed at adopting measures to mitigate the effects of global warming.

On Wednesday, Vignesh, a student of A M M Matriculation School, stood outside Ripon Building to watch the lights being switched off. V Kaveri, a college student SMSed her friends, reminding them to turn off lights for nine minutes. Director Vasanth, actor-politician S Ve Shekar, CPI leader R Nallakannu, managing director of Indian Bank, M S Sundarajan, and hockey and football players extended their support.

The campaign, initiated in August 2008 by Exnora, attracted wider participation this year, with Chennai Corporation joining in. Effective Thursday, the local body has banned the use of high-energy incandescent bulbs in buildings in the 10 zonal and 155 ward offices. "Offices which show a reduction in consumption of energy will be suitably rewarded," said Rajesh Lakhoni, commissioner, Chennai Corporation. The civic agency distributed free saplings to all visitors to the building during the outage. Ninety-nine people spoke on the effects of global warming.

"We will take up a similar initiative next year, on October 10, the 1010101010 lights out campaign," said M B Nirmal, founder, Exnora International.