The Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Government of India, was on Friday awarded the prestigious Gov2.0 Award- 2011 by Governance Now magazine for exceptional achievement in 'Gov2.in' and for being the first central Ministry to propagate and use social media extensively. Other recipients were Municipal Corporation of Delhi(MCD), Delhi Traffic Police(DTP), India Post, Census India 2011 & Planning Commission 12th Plan.
The event was held in the evening of Friday, March 11 at the Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi.
Initiated by Governance Now magazine in 2011, the 'Gov2.in' Awards aim to recognize the pioneers in the Government organizations for the use of social media tools for creating interactive platforms for improving citizen service delivery. It is also awarded for promoting use of social media by the government.Governance Now magazine successfully highlights issues related to governance and public policy.
On this occassion, a Gov2.0 forum was launched by Governance Now, which was inaugurated by Honourable Minister of IT and Communications, MrShri Kapil Sibal. Speaking on the occasion Mr Sibal said,
"Social media platforms are transformational and should be used to facilitate governance though some time is needed for teledensity to improve in rural areas but eventually the mobile revolution will power gov 2.0 there."
Speaking at a panel discussion in the morning session, Joint Secretary Navdeep Suri, who heads India's PD division said,
"The Public Diplomacy division is using social media to communicate more effectively with diverse constituencies, to receive feedback in a way that makes the Ministry of External Affairs more responsive to citizen concerns and to build global communities of friends of India. Effective use of Twitter during the evacuation of our nationals from Libya by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and by PD division has received an extremely positive response."
The award was received by Under Secretary Abhay Kumar, who manages digital diplomacy initiatives at the Public Diplomacy Division, MEA, on behalf of the Division. The PD division is one of the first Government of India organisations to tap into the potential offered by social media and Web 2.0 tools.
Suggestions/Critiques welcome.
-- Madhur
1 comments:
Congrats to the Public Diplomacy Division, not only for netting the award, but for using social media to get closer to the people. I consider public diplomacy as the 'human arm', and social media as the 'human touch' through which more people can understand and be understood. Looks like the Division is using these tools very effectively.
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