India's PM Manmohan Singh Joins Twitter

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has started a Twitter account in an effort to be more accessible to the masses and make his office more transparent.

Singh's account is @PMOIndia, which refers to the prime minister's office. It will be handled by his communications team. The first tweet from the account was on the national awards for bravery function held at Singh's official residence. The tweet said, You make all of us proud-- PM tells young bravehearts at Bravery Award function.” It also had links to the Prime Minister's speech made on the occasion and photographs of the event.

The Prime Minister has been criticized for being inaccessible to the media. The Twitter account is expected to have regular updates on the Prime Minister's programmes in near real time.

The step comes after TV journalist Pankaj Pachauri took over as Communications Adviser to the Prime Minister. Earlier Pachauri had tweeted about Singh's meetings with experts on skill development and provided links to a public speech by the Prime Minister.