Thursday, December 10, 2009

Hey there! British bureaucrat issues guide on Twitter etiquette; any cue for Indian babus?

JUST recently Indian minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor landed up into a huge controversy for his tweets when he called economy class travel as "cattle class" after the government issued an advisory for the ministers not to fly business class as a part of austerity measure. Now, a British bureaucrat has published a guide to Twitter etiquette and strategy so that civil servants who are regularly using the popular microblogging service, Twitter, could follow some basic dos and don'ts. Yes, the Twitter can rock as this is being increasingly used by government departments, Members of Parliament etc. and it has the potential to deliver many benefits in support of the government's communications objectives, the British government guide said. But there's a warning! "Inappropriate content being published in error, such as... protectively marked, commercially or politically sensitive information... Require clearance of all tweets through nominated people in digital media team," the official guide said. (Courtesy: Tom Green from Oxford University, UK for alerting babu blogger) Hey there! babublogger is using Twitter. Check at http://twitter.com/babublogger No army officer receives gifts from American company No case relating to Army officers being obliged by gifts from American companies, has been brought to the knowledge of the government, defence minister AK Antony said in written reply in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has issued instructions to identify sensitive posts in various ministries or departments of the Union government, and asked those departments (under its advisory jurisdiction) to rotate officials working in sensitive posts to avoid development of vested interest by the people working on these posts. This information was given by the minister of state in the ministry of personnel, public grievances & pensions Prithviraj Chavan in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Action & Appointments a) Kiran Dhingra, a 1975 batch UT cadre IAS and secretary, ministry of housing & urban poverty alleviation, will hold additional charge of the post of secretary, ministry of urban development during the absence on leave of M Ramachandran, a 1972 batch Uttarakhand cadre IAS from December 21, 2009 to January 8, 2010. b) Medithi Ravi Kanth, a 1986 batch Kerala cadre IAS has been appointed as joint secretary in the ministry of power for a period upto June 20, 2012, from the date of assumption of charge of the post, or until further orders. c) Harbhjajan Singh, a 1983 batch UP cadre IAS has been appointed as joint secretary in the department of heavy industry. d) R C Misra, a 1976 batch Orissa cadre IAS, presently special secretary and financial adviser in the department of information technology in the ministry of communications and information technology has been appointed as secretary in the department of administrative reforms & public grievances and department of pension & pensioners welfare in place of Ms Rajni Rajni, a 1973 batch Haryana cadre IAS.

2 comments:

  1. Better if we don't take that cue from Brtish diktat. otherwise, a wasteful bureaucracy in the form of a censor board will crop up with all its evil.
    R.B.

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  2. Communication is important, but it could be counter-productive if not done properly. We have seen that before.

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