Ukraine crisis: Twitter handle \'OpGanga\', WhatsApp help Indians during tough times

Visakhapatnam: Social media tools including instant messaging apps like Twitter and Whatsapp are helping the Indians stranded in war-torn Ukraine in having direct communication with their parents and share updates from the government authorities during the present troubled situation there.

The Indian government, which had been in a battle with Twitter in 2021, is also taking its help by opening a dedicated Twitter handle with a domain name of @opganga with a tag line of OpGanga Helpline, an official account of Operation Ganga to assist in the evacuation of Indian nationals from Ukraine.

Within one day, nearly 15,000 users followed this official Twitter account to get updates of both the government and the parents' messages and Indians' concerns.

MBBS student Prasad Nampally from Kharkiv national medical university from Kharkiv told Deccan Chronicle that Whatsapp helped them a lot for being in touch with their parents and friends during this crisis period.

“If someone is missing from our team, we can easily find it out by using WhatsApp. My parents would have turned mad if there could not be a technology tool available in this conflict zone,” Prasad said.

Another Indian, Srinivas, said that for the last few days they were thinking about a dedicated social media handle for Indians apart from the link to the Indian Embassy in Ukraine.

“We felt happy now after getting the Indian government’s Twitter handle for Operation Ganga. We got a platform to get genuine messages than the fake and unnecessary stuff at the other channels. We thank the Indian government for this,” Srinivas said.