New Government to Deploy Social Media for Effective Governance

"Since social networking is being used in a big way, its impact assessment is also necessary. So far some ministries have been doing this at a small level for individual topics. We will soon have a proper mechanism for such kind of assessment," a government official told IANS, requesting anonymity.

Among the ministries that have already undertaken impact assessment of social media are the information and broadcasting ministry and external affairs ministry.

Modi has two twitter accounts, a personal one - @narendramodi with 4.8 million followers so far - and the other one as prime minister - @PMOIndia which has logged 1.61 million followers in less than a month since he became prime minister.

Social networking played a major role in the election for the BJP, led by Modi himself. Modi, who was then Gujarat chief minister, had a blog, Facebook page and Twitter handle which relayed his speeches, programmes, and comments.

In fact, Modi is the first Indian leader to address public gatherings through virtual 3D rallies. Prominent BJP leaders, including party president Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, and nearly all spokespersons used Twitter and Facebook throughout the election, and got widespread positive reactions.

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