Kiren Rijiju inaugurated the India Disaster Response Summit jointly organised by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Facebook.
- The aim of the event is to discuss how to use social media platforms to 'prepare, respond and recover' for, during and after a disaster.
- Facebook shared its disaster maps, developed using aggregated, de-identified data, with NDMA. These maps can aid swift disaster response by providing real-time, actionable information.
- India became the first country to partner with social networking site Facebook on disaster response
- A Disaster Information Volunteers (DIV) programme was introduced by Facebook Head (Policy Programmes) for South Asia, Ritesh Mehta.
- Under this programme, a network of trained volunteers would provide supplementary information on disasters in their local communities to assist government relief efforts through the Facebook Workplace platform,
- The programme will be piloted in two disaster-prone states -- Assam and Uttarakhand
