Twitter
has launched Twitter Samvad in collaboration with the Indian government
so as to allow people to receive tweets as SMSes from government
offices, including the Prime Minister’s Office.
The
service was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his meeting in
New Delhi with Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo, who told media
persons after the meeting that “based on Indian technological
innovation, Twitter Samvad is dedicated and specially built for the
largest democracy of the world”.
“As
part of the Prime Minister’s Digital India initiative, this
tweet-powered service enables citizens to be the first to know about the
government’s actions by receiving political content in real-time on
their mobile devices anywhere in the country.”
The
event comes on the day the Supreme Court upheld the social media users’
freedom of expression as guaranteed by the constitution, by striking
down section 66 A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
As
of now, 16 government offices, including the ministry of railways, the
Bengaluru police and the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and West
Bengal are participating in Twitter Samvad, which is powered by
Bengaluru-based ZipDial, which was recently acquired by Twitter.
Calling
it a “milestone moment for Twitter, which was invented on SMS”, Costolo
said: “Making Digital India (campaign) a two-way relationship is
something we’re very proud of.”
Modi
tweeted on the new collaboration: “Lets deepen our connect! Give a
missed call on 011 3006 3006 & get my Tweets on your mobile as SMS.”
Users are required to give a missed call to the numbers associated with the accounts to follow the specific Twitter account.
On
placing the missed call, users will start to receive a curated set of
tweets throughout the day from the government offices they had called.
In case of emergency, government offices will be able to send push messages to people who had given them a missed call.
Costolo
also said that Twitter has collaborated on similar lines with various
governments globally, including with Japan’s emergency services after
the Fukushima disaster in 2011
Posted by : Gizmeon
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