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What government struggles to achieve in the real worldtransparency and collaborationit plans to do in the virtual one with the

help of social media platforms such as Face book and Twitter. It has taken a first step in this direction by trying to codify the rules of engagement for government users of social media; a measure it hopes will induce a wholehearted embrace of the new way in which society communicates with itself. n the traditional media such as TV or print, it is a monologue. But the government wants to start a dialogue with the citizens by opening a social, two-way channel. The reach of Facebook is immense but the richness of communication is not much," says Maira. "It gives you a sense of the crowd but you don't expect great nuggets of advice. For example, there are risks associated with unregulated public expression on social media sites. Referring to the Delhi Traffic Police account on Facebook, where citizens often post photographs of traffic violations, Abraham counters that these amount to a breach of privacy of the alleged violators. "Measures like blurring of licence plates could prevent crowdsourcing of criminal investigations and vigilante action," he says. What's needed are SLAs (service level agreements), which create a tracking mechanism for response to posts on social media sites as well. Not everyone is impressed by the government's attempts to crawl out of the dark ages, though. Increasing the amount of information provided to citizens and promoting a give-andtake with leaders is important, but improving how the government delivers basic services should be its top priority, says Yamini Aiyar, director of the Accountability Initiative, a think tank in New Delhi. "The downside of all of this is in many ways the problem of the bureaucracy or poor service delivery; lack of accountability and corruption cannot be resolved only through technological solutions. They are facilitators, not the answer themselves," she says. The guidelines also advise employees on using the social media ethically because there is a great possibility of misusing it as well. The guidelines aim to make possible a meaningful public participation for formulation of public policy. Seeking information, issue-based as well as generic interaction, generating awareness and educating people on national action plans and implementation of strategies must be part of the social media. While governments will face challenges in using social media, mainly in maintaining the secrecy of private and confidential information ; the positives would outweigh the negatives in the long run. Social networking would make networking and engagement with public simple and powerful, make research faster, provide mechanisms for getting rid of negative publicity and most importantly in understanding public sentiment to help form public policies. Further, these networks can be used to post job openings in government departments which otherwise are posted in newspapers and as the example of Ministry of External Affairs clearly suggests it can be used effectively in live broadcasting events such as an evacuation or an emergency where in a larger audience can be contacted at once with ease So, what impact does social media make to the government ?

Social media is instant and does not need the intervention of traditional media. It induces transparency. It has the ability to sends and gathers information instantaneously. It initiates a conversation and fosters trust. With this recent initiative Delhi traffic police had proven that it is listening and responding to queries and problem. But the question that I want to pose here is that, has DTP undergone a difference in reputation. Facebook is still an elitist medium and very few people have access to Facebook to make it a mass movement. It still is an elitist medium and is inappropriately represented. Myth demystified It is often believed that Facebook can be used actively only by youth brands and B2C segment, in India. It puts that belief into perspective.

Indian Government has had a short affair with social media so far. The adage Love it or hate it you certainly cant deny it certainly sums up Indias tryst with innovations in e-governance using Social media as a tool. While government does not encourage its employees and departments not to be too active on social media so as to compromise confidential information, it has woken up to the endless possibilities that social media provides on the engagement and penetration front.

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