Women’s Day: Narendra Modi's women achievers picks set social media abuzz

This follows his announcement last week that he was thinking of giving up his social media accounts.

Seven women achievers will share their life journey through Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s social media accounts on Sunday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday marked International Women’s Day by handing over control of his social media accounts to seven women achievers who spoke about the issues and causes close to their heart.

This follows his announcement last week that he was thinking of giving up his social media accounts. That turned out to be a teaser for Sunday’s celebrations.

Since morning, from Sneha Mohandoss, who runs FoodBank India, to Veena Devi, sarpanch of a village in Munger district of Bihar, whose venture of growing mushrooms changed her life, and Arifa from Jammu and Kashmir, who has revived the traditional Namda craft of carpet weaving, seven achievers in turns took over the Prime Minister’s Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram accounts.

Malavika Iyer, who managed to complete her Ph.D. despite losing her hands in a bomb blast, got a much-coveted follow-back from the Prime Minister’s Twitter account at the end of her turn at tweeting.

Massive response

The videos posted by the women achievers were also broadcast through the IGTV vertical screen viewing format of Instagram and had garnered a huge viewership on that platform.

Ms. Iyer’s video, for instance, garnered more than 3.5 lakh views within a couple of hours of posting.

The Prime Minister has a following of 35.5 million on Instagram.

On YouTube, where Mr. Modi has 4.54 million subscribers, these videos gathered traction. Officials told The Hindu that the choice of women achievers was made by the Prime Minister himself from a nomination process invited publicly.

In the morning, just before signing off for the day, Mr. Modi had posted a message for the event. “Greetings on International Women’s Day! We salute the spirit and accomplishments of our Nari Shakti. As I’d said a few days ago, I’m signing off. Throughout the day, seven women achievers will share their life journeys and perhaps interact with you through my social media accounts,” he tweeted.

There were some cheeky responses too, with one social media follower on Twitter, @vikrantbhadaur6, asking Ms. Mohandoss for Mr. Modi’s Twitter password. She replied, “New India...try logging in :).”