Kapil Sibal eyes social media route to reach people

As part of a new strategy, Union Communications minister Kapil Sibal has recently headed a round table on citizen enegagement and use of social in New Delhi with 100 stake holders participating in it from social media organizations, civil society organizations, industry associations, members of legal fraternity, and representatives of government departments and agencies.

Ways of improving public participation in policy formulation and implementation of its projects and programmes, requirement of capacity building within government for use of social media, contextualising social media to Indian realities including Indian language content, development of mechanisms to protect privacy and identity of individuals and mechanism to address security concerns about data including personal data — were the key focus areas discussed during the round table.

While all stakeholders were in favour of increased use of social media as an important instrument in initiating dialogue with citizens in a participatory democracy, Sibal, who wanted to censor the social media in his recent remarks, has agreed with their views and felt that such close interactions not only build healthy democratic practices but also contribute to transparent and accountable governance.

Sachin Pilot, his deputy has also stressed the need to enable mechanisms which would help people from all parts of our country to participate in their own language and in the form of their choice, like text-based, voice-based or even sign-based.

The need for convergence of different channels of communication like print, electronics and social media and need for synergies between these channels was also favoured during the meeting.

The outcome of the round table will be that appropriate mechanisms will soon be created within government structures to enable faster response as required by social media based interactions, especially to those bills which elicit public reaction and participation. A realistic move towards popular participation in policy-making.