Social media do their bit in supporting Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev

The world has witnessed the power of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to create revolutions in the Middle East and Africa. Now, it seems like it is India's turn.

In the months since Anna Hazare launched his first fast and Baba Ramdev called on followers to fight corruption, thousands of Indian youth have logged on to social networking sites to air their views and express solidarity with the two leaders in the fight against graft.

Ritesh Singh, a second-year student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, created a community page called 'India against Corruption' on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/IndiACor).

"I was convinced about the enormous reach of social media and decided to undertake special efforts to take advantage of its full potential of reaching out to the largest number of people in the least amount of time." Singh created the 'India against Corruption' page in December, and since then more than 2 lakh people have 'liked' the site on Facebook. The community debates news related to the upcoming Jan Lok pal bill as well as Hazare and Ramdev's ongoing campaigns.  It's common for a post on the India Against Corruption Facebook page to get more than 100 comments from users.

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Singh also created a Twitter page at the same time, which now has 14,526 followers.

But social media can also be used in more controversial ways.

A hacker group that calls itself 'Anonymous' claimed to have hacked the website of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) on June 6 as a way of expressing solidarity with Baba Ramdev and his fight against graft in the country.  The same group is reported to have previously targeted websites in Iran, in order to protest that government's cracking down on websites that spread rebel ideology.

Mahesh Murthy, a founder of the leading digital advertising firm Pinstorm, and a Co-Founder of Seedfund, says attacks like those by Anonymous might not be a bad thing.

"I think it (hacking by 'Anonymous') is for a good cause - it puts the Indian government's suppression of dissent on the global map - which can only cause embarrassment and be a controlling and negative pressure on the Government against aggressively using such tactics in the future."

Several seem to agree with Murthy.  Anonymous recently opened a website for its India operation, which has been liked by 1,716 people (http://www.facebook.com/OperationIndia).  A Twitter feed, set up specially for Anonymous' Operation India, has 226 followers.  (https://twitter.com/#!/operationindia)

Singh does not justify Anonymous' mode of support. "Attacks would only lead to justified retaliation from the Government," he said.

Singh sees potential in expanding his social media campaign without resorting to hacking.  He's has plans to launch more tech projects like an India Against Corruption Game, India Against Corruption Mobile Apps, India Against Corruption Browser Toolbars and others.