The Indian government has launched a new online platform called MyGov to encourage citizen participation in governance. This website allows citizens to volunteer for specific projects and also invite suggestions regarding various policy decisions. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) will be managing this platform. What's worth noting though is the site is actually usable, which is something most government portals can’t boast of. IT Secretary R.S. Sharma told The Economic Times that they are also developing a mobile app which will allow citizens to take pictures and report public problems on the forum. it's worth noting that BJP had mentioned in its election manifesto that it would be opening up the government to draw expertise from the industry, academia and society into the services. It had also stated plans of using technology for e-Governance and engage pro-actively with the people through social media for participative governance and effective public grievance redressal mechanism. Sign up flow Users can sign up for the forum by providing requisite personal details like name, email address and mobile number, following which users are sent a activation mail. While there are several user complaints regarding signing up or logging into the forum, we didn’t face any such issues or snags at the time of writing this article. After activating the account, users are led to a page to update their Residential Details (State, District, and City). One can provide details on their areas of interest (urban development, social justice, IT and volunteer for senior citizens among others)…
