Minister Tharoor's twitter account creates a flutter

CUTTING RED TAPE: With 14,000 followers, Tharoor can reach out to his people by just logging on.

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New Delhi: The Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor is creating a flutter with his Twitter posts but it's leading to a raging debate regarding protocol.

Is the MoS breaching protocol or just being people savvy, ask some.

Actors Mallika Sherawat and Gul Panag are on to the social networking site Twitter. Even the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi is on to it.

But whipping up a controversy, one tweet at a time is the active presence of the former UN Undersecretary General Shashi Tharoor on Twitter.

A freshman politician with a significant online presence, why did Shashi Tharoor or Minister Twitter as he's called now have to be among the Twitterati?

The Minister said, "Well, I certainly see it as a way of demystifying government and the whole process of governance."

Tharoor twitters about cricket, parliamentray procedures, matters of public interest and even his love for mangoes, though not necessarily in that order.

"I spend about 15 to 20 minutes a day on Twitter and that much I can afford. People spend longer than that in the bathroom," adds Tharoor.

So while the 'To twitter or not to twitter' debate rages on, Indian politicos are quietly logging on. Narendra Modi switched to Twittering in Gujarati, a few other MP's opened their Twitter accounts and a few more might follow suit.

"Amusingly, in Parliament this week, I've had two different MPs coming up to me, saying 'Tell us about twitter, how do we tweet? What is it all about?' "

Given that the South Block bureaucrats aren't permitted to be on social networking sites and that his boss' twitter account has not updated since he's assumed office, Tharoor's 140 character tweets are creating a flutter of sorts in a traditionally tight-lipped ministry.

"Obviously, when the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister trust me and my judgement to do this job, they also trust my judgement to not to be indiscreet to reveal anything in my posts or to embarrass any outside contacts or to embarrass the government of India," said Tharoor.

However, for his more than 14,000 followers, the most for any Indian politician, his tweets are a unique way of getting in touch with him, cutting past all the bureaucratic red tape that separates the ministers from the ministered.