Day's Agenda - Innovation, Transparency, Accountability & Skill Development
- Dr. Manmohan Singh Tweets -

Gitchandra S Oinam *

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has joined twitter to capture the attention of young Indians and inform people about the work done by his office through 140 characters on the microblogging site. "The Prime Minister's office is now on Twitter @PMOIndia Thank you for your support," Manmohan Singh's newly appointed communications advisor Pankaj Pachauri said on his own Twitter account. PMO sources said the account was presently managed by his communication team but there was a possibility that Manmohan Singh would send out tweets personally, ANI reported.

Within hours of opening the account late Monday, Dr. Manmohan Singh attracted nearly 7,000 followers and written three tweets till Tuesday afternoon. The account refers to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and it would be handled by his media team, PMO sources said. The prime minister's opponents have been criticising him for maintaining a silence over burning issues and remaining inaccessible to the media. So far, PM has written 69 tweets and more then 44,613 followers’ within15 days. Only few north east people are following PM’s tweets because of information gaps.

His first three tweets were about a function on bravery awards. This included his picture with the winners. "You make all of us proud...PM tells young brave hearts," said his last tweet, which provided a link to his public speech at the bravery awards function.

PM on Public Sector: Public investment is especially needed at a time when the country is looking towards domestic drivers of growth. PM was extremely happy to learn that 17 of our CPSUs have committed to invest Rs 140000 crore in the coming year.

On 2nd February PM said that MNREGA has provided employment to more than 250m people in 6 years, more than the population of Europe. In 2010-11 MNREGA reached 55 m households in the country. More than Rs 25,600 crore has been distributed as wages. If MNREGA is made more responsive, it could be a model scheme for overall rural development in the country.

On 3rd February, PM tweets about his speech at the annual conference of chief secretaries "Day's agenda - Innovation, transparency, accountability & skill development". Electronic Delivery of Services Bill has been introduced in Parliament ... it provides for delivery of public services to our citizens. Unfortunately, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill could not be passed in the last session of the Parliament. But, we do hope that we would soon be able to enact a strong Lokpal law. But we still have a long way to go. I would urge all of you to ensure that the Centre and the states work together to move ahead...." Last year, I had stated that our government was committed to taking all legal and administrative measures to curb corruption in public life. We have introduced a Bill on Citizens’ Charter which will empower citizens to demand services at appropriate standards from governments, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh tweets.

Up to 11 February 2012, Mr. Sashi Tharoor Congress MP has highest tweets of 8874 and number of his followers are 1,256,310. Narenda Modi tweets 831and his followers are 478,307; Narendra Modi says- The world is not for cowards... Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on. Development is the sole medicine for resolving every problem of the country. While the World has coined a term 'Globalisation', our ancestors already gave us the mantra of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam'! Smt. Sushma Swaraj tweets-1678 and her followers are 211,335; Smt. Sushma Swaraj tweets very sweet, sweet simple words! Ajay Makan Union Minister tweets 217 and his followers are 11,923; Ajay Makan tweets mostly official matters. Barak Obama tweets-2810 and his followers are 12, 451,034.

Among the media, CNN-IBN- 61,638 tweets and 170, 822 followers; Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN tweets 8,764 and his followers are-399,528. Ms Sagarika Ghose of CNN-IBN tweets 7970 and her followers are 63,543. NDTV tweets 28,404 and 381,809 followers; NDTV Anchor Ms. Barkha Dutta tweets 41,726 and her followers are 485,011. Star News- tweets 35,632 and 27,524 followers. Mr. Deepak Chaurasia of Star News tweets 217 and his followers are 7109. Times Now- 2,121 tweets and 7058 followers; Mr Arnab Goswami tweets 24 and his followers are 10,705. www.e-pao.net, Manipur tweets 44,997 and 1340 followers and www. kanglaonline tweets 7375 respectively.

Among the film stars, Amir Khan tweets 8280 and his followers are 489,840. Amitabh Bachan tweets 197 and his followers are 222,510 and following Barak Obama only; AB latest tweet is -- Friends, would you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist? If you are unable to answer this question, ask those around you!! If you woke up this morning with only the things you thanked god for yesterday, how would your life be? Something to dwell on!

Mr. Prime Minister, I would like to speak one line of Mr. Rahul Gandhi; -- like baggers, our youths shall not migrate to other states in search of jobs. Jobs have to be created within mile. Technical and professional training centres shall be open within mile. There is no good reason to go outside state for job and professional training; instead, more vocational training centre / institutions have to be open by the state government. There are many reputed training institutions willing to open training centre in the state if the state government is willing to provide them support or invite state people to open training centres/ institutions in the state. There are many educational franchise dealers world wide.

Mr. Prime Minister, please pull up some unfit state babus to relearn and proper training. We simply bark but we don’t bite; but they don’t bark but they bite. Politician can’t do corruption without the help of bureaucrats. Next government will be inaugural by employees salary strikes. We extend our appreciation to union government new policy for compulsory retirement of unfit babus in public interest. Performance appraisal has to be done with immediate effect.

Centre has notified a rule making it compulsory for IAS/ IPS and officers from other all India service to retire in "public interest" if they fail to clear a review after 15 years of service and second evaluation will be done after 25 years of service. Performance review may be done by government at any other point in their career. Non performers who are retiring are entitled to post retirement benefits, including pension for life. Performance review will include appraisal of the entire service record of an officer "regarding suitability or otherwise" for further retention in the service. The new rules say " the central government may, in consultation with state government concerned, required a member of the service to retired from service in public interest, after giving such member at least three months previous notice in writing or three months pay and allowance in lieu of such notice." Earlier, the government was empowered to compulsory retirement of any officer at any stage only if s/he is convicted for a crime or Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) imposes a penalty of compulsory retirement and performance review was done only after 30 years.

Mr. Prime Minister, Delhi, Orissa and Union Government have implemented "Citizens’ Charter" Please give a direction to the Manipur Government to implement citizen charter.

A Citizens' Charter represents the commitment of the organisation towards standard, quality and time frame of service delivery, grievance redress mechanism, transparency and accountability. Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India, in its efforts to provide more responsive and citizen-friendly governance coordinates the efforts to formulate and operationalise Citizens' Charters. Various Central Government Ministries/ Departments/ Organisations have brought out their Citizens' Charters. With a view to ensure effective implementation of Citizens' Charter, Nodal Officers have been appointed in the concerned Central Government Ministries/ Departments/ Organisations.