Australian PM Julia Gillard’s use of Twitter a lesson for Indian politicians, diplomats

Australian PM Julia Gillard with Manmohan Singh (File Photo)

AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Julia Gillard is now following babu blogger on Twitter. Surprised? One of the most prominent global leaders using social media to reach millions of active users around the world, Gillard’s way of using the micro-blogging site is an experiment in itself. Like a film star or a footballer making fans ultra-happy by writing autographs, Gillard has been wooing people across the globe by following over one lakh users in the micro-blogging site. And that is probably a lesson for the growing breed of Indian politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats and even PMO who have ventured into this exciting 140-character world of Twitter. Till a few days ago, @PMOindia, the official account of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had followed just one account: Indian Diplomacy, the official Twitter account of public diplomacy division of ministry of external affairs. Till February 9, it followed six more including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s office, The White House, African Union and United Nations. No doubt, the Indian PM has managed over 42,000 followers in Twitter, but his office has not really been able to create any fan club on the net.
Also, none of the Tweets is what Dr Manmohan Singh himself posts. It was made clear from day one that it was not Singh’s personal account but of his office, meaning PMO. And that’s precisely why the Tweets lack any personal touch and read more like short excerpts of press releases. Here too Julia Gillard’s use of Twitter can be of help. If she Tweets herself, you can differentiate it from the rest because of her signature JG there. Maybe Indian PM does the same.
Twitter is used by a number of Indian politicians like Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, Union ministers Sachin Pilot, Ajay Maken, Milind Deora, MP Naveen Jindal and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh. Among Indian diplomats using Twitter are former foreign secretary and India’s ambassador to US Nirupama Rao, India’s ambassador to South Korea Vishnu Prakash, MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin, 2005 batch IFS Sumit Seth to name a few. Some of them should follow the Gillard model of using Twitter to reach out to the maximum number of people and create unorganized fan clubs. Interestingly, Nirupama Rao who follows 135 people including her diplomat colleagues, journalists, foreign who's and who, has not followed PMO’s new Twitter venture (till February 9 night). Any reason?

Australian bureaucrats’ playing with Barbie dolls and finger paint creates row

Will You Indulge in Finger Painting?

THE Federal government in Australia adopted a unique method of encouraging bond among government employees. It hired a firm to help bureaucrats play finger-painting, Barbie dolls and balloon animals.

But that soon created a controversy. After Australian media highlighted how taxpayers’ money was wasted for indulging the bureaucrats, the opposition political leaders joined the chorus making it a big controversy in a relatively clean Australian government set-up. As was reported by leading newspaper Herald Sun, the department of human services admitted that spending $2660 on a laughter workshop was “a misuse of public money”. It was also decided that no laughter services would be hired in future to pamper bureaucrats.

The rationale behind organizing such workshops was to create ice-breakers for people to have an informal moment to get to know each other better, according to reports. 

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Know Your Babu: Arvind Jadhav, IAS, CMD, NACIL (Air India, Indian)

Name: Arvind Jadhav

Assumes office as the new Chairman and Managing Director of National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) on Monday. Batch & Cadre: 1978 batch IAS of Karnataka cadre Date of Birth: 05/06/1956 Place of Domicile: Uttar Pradesh Mother Tongue: Marathi Indian Languages Known: English, Marathi, Kannada and Hindi Foreign Languages Known: French and German

Educational Qualifications Masters Degree Geography, First division PG diploma, International Trade IIFT, New Delhi

Graduation Kanpur University with English, Economics, History, First division Some Major Postings * Assistant Commission, Mysore, Land Revenue Management & District Adminstration ( From 01/08/1980 to 01/05/1982) * Managing Director Karnataka Silk Marketing Board (From 01/12/1984 to 01/05/1986) * Managing Director Mysore Minerals Ltd * Joint Secretary Union Ministry of Power, (From 05/07/2001 to 04/01/2007) * Principal Secretary Joint Secretary Level - Infrastructure Development Department, Bangalore Foreign Trainings Diploma of Export Promotion (4 weeks in Italy in 1987) MBA in Personnel & General Admn 1-year in Australia in 1998)

(Inside an Air India plane: Will the Maharaja see a turnaround?)