Now get to know what the Govt is up to with direct tweets from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on your phones!

Today seems to be a good day for all social media fans in India. In the morning, Supreme Court of India gave Indian citizens the right to post on social media sites without any fear by striking down the draconian Section 66 A of the IT Act in its entirety. And right in the evening we got the news that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) has took another step in his Digital India initiative by launching ‘Twitter Samvad’, a service aimed to boost the nation’s e-governance plans by helping government bodies and leaders communicate directly with citizens on a daily basis via tweets and SMSes on their mobile devices.

PM Narendra Modi announced the rollout of this initiative through a tweet.



Through ‘Twitter Samvad’, Government of India will share a set of curated tweets delivered from the government and leaders’ accounts to mobile users across the country as SMS—every day. Updates on government services, policies and activities can be delivered to any user with a mobile device signed up for the service with each of the 16 launch partners. Anyone with a mobile phone, with our without a data plan, can register for the service by giving a missed call to a unique number for each of the partners.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, who met Prime Minister Modi to discuss areas of collaboration, said, “Based on Indian technological innovation, Twitter Samvad is dedicated and specially built for the largest democracy of the world. The Lok Sabha election of 2014 was the first-ever Twitter Election in India and we want to continue contributing to the development of digital governance in India. 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 company is demonstrating its commitment to the Indian market by launching Twitter Samvad during the Twitter CEO’s first-ever visit to India. Rishi Jaitly, Twitter’s Market Director for India and Southeast Asia, said, “We are proud to have launched a service here that is for the people and of the people. This can eventually give every political leader and every government organization a mobile microphone to connect with each Indian, whether in Imphal or in Diu or in Leh or in Pudducherry.”

Twitter Samvad is based on the platform provided by ZipDial, an Indian company recently acquired by Twitter, making this the company’s first Indian service launched using indigenous technology.

Here is a list of a 16 government partners who are participating in the launch of Twitter Samvad: