Cabinet tweeting under Indian People's League

The entire Union cabinet is now on Twitter. Cabinet meetings are called Cabinet tweetings and go like this-a Cabinet member with the handle, pmsingh, tweets: my long trip abroad is due, who'll deputise in my place; seeing this pmukh tweets: that'll be me; seeing that, pcbaram tweets: no, that'll be me. This new form of governance was ushered in after lawmaking was outsourced to the IPL (Indian People's League). The Cabinet reports to the IPL.

Cabinet tweetings are tremendously transparent and India, as has been noted on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and chain emails, is a vastly better country as a result. Also, all Cabinet notes are now the length of a micro blog.
Very soon, parliamentary proceedings will be conducted via tweets as well. There was some concern whether the Speaker's or the Rajya Sabha chairperson's tweets will be obeyed by MPs. But experts on parliamentary proceedings have pointed out that since verbal orders in both the Houses are ignored, presiding officers' tweets being ignored isn't a problem.

Next in line are ministries. We will get something like this-jram tweets: let's clear all the big projects; seeing that envronsecy tweets: but, sir!; seeing that jram tweets again: refer to the last cabinet meeting, sorry, tweeting, especially to pmsingh. Every official interaction, from the Central to state to panchayat levels, is supposed to be a-Twittered before the end of 2011.

Millions of Indian citizens are of course not netizens, and this is posing a little bit of a problem in New India. Tamil Nadu is the only exception-all citizens were given free smartphones and free Net connections as part of the state's poll campaign. IPL leaders have tweeted and Facebooked that they are "seriously considering this problem" and that they will announce a solution at an "appropriate time". This has been lauded as an example of open governance.

When a few reactionary types with a fondness for Old India pointed out these statements sound like old establishment, they were dismissed with the answer that policy tweets and policy posts are by definition more transparent than policy statements.