Centre Wants Facebook, Twitter And Instagram Accounts Of All Students Linked With HRD Ministry

Modi government is working on a plan to connect itself with the social media profiles of as many as 3 crore students of different colleges and universities across the country.

Institutions have been directed to upload the details of their social media champions by July 31. (Representational Image/ Getty)

New Delhi: In what could be touted to be one of the biggest surveillance activity by government in the recent times and concern for many, the Modi government is working on a plan to connect itself with the social media profiles of as many as 3 crore students of different colleges and universities across the country. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA government is reportedly planning to 'connect all students' with its Human Resource Ministry via social media profiles including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The government, however, has said that the activity will not be mandatory and students need not to link their accounts, if they do not want to. According to a report by The Telegraph, a circular by HRD ministry has already been issued which aims to connect close to 900 universities and 40,000 colleges in the country through this guideline. "The letter said the objective behind the connectivity initiative was propagation of the achievements of the students and the institutes using the social media platform," read the letter accessed by The Telegraph. The ministry also stated that each institute is expected to identify a teacher or a non-teaching official as a 'social media champion' (SMC). “The SMC is expected to communicate to all other HEIs (higher education institutions) and the MHRD (ministry of human resource development) the good work done by the institution and their students from time to time,” the letter said. Here's what the letter by HRD Ministry mentioned in details: 1. SMC of every institute has to operate the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for their institution and also open a new one is they don't exist. 2. They have to network these with the social media accounts of other HEI (higher education institutes) and the MHRD. 3. Then, SMCs will have to connect the social media accounts of all the students with their respective college/ universities and the MHRD. 4. The SMC has to publicise at least one achievement from their assigned HEI on social media platforms of their institute on weekly basis. 5. On Twitter, SMCs will have to retweet the positive stories posted by other HEIs. The report also highlighted that all institutions have been directed to upload the details of their social media champions by July 31 on the website of the All India Survey of Higher Education, which is maintained by the HRD ministry. Several experts and senior professors have called the decision of linking social media accounts of students and institutions on such large scale dangerous and a massive surveillance activity. What are the exact benefits of linking social media accounts of students is still debatable but such a massive pile of data can be misused and lead to become a major privacy issue in the future.