Electronic governance or e-governance is the use of information technology to provide citizen and organizations with more convenient access to government information and services and to provide delivery of public services to citizen, business partners, and those working in the public sector. The most important anticipated benefits of e-government include more efficiency, improved services, better accessibility of public services, and more transparency and accountability. Citizen journalism, on the other hand is the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy and governance requires.

If e-governance is still the top-down flow of information then citizen journalism is bottom-up flow of information. Though the quantum of practices on e-governance by the state and citizen journalism by the citizens has grown in leaps and bounds with the rapid penetration of new media technologies like the Internet in our economic, social, polictial and other processess. The soul searching still needs to be done on do e-governance and citizen journalism flock together? Can e-governance facilitate and integrate bottom-up flow of information and make people participate in the governance process?

This panel cosisting of primarily e-governance and citizen journalism practitioners shall try to look into what has worked and what has not worked as far as e-governance and citizen journalism working in isolation and in tandem is concerned. Amongst other, the panel will address the following moot issues.

• Has e-goverance helped provide better and effective services to the people? Increased the accountability of the governments? Has e-governance faciliated civic engagement in the governing process?
• Has citizen journalism faciliated the independent flow of information and helped people to raise their voices and issues into the mainstream governing processess?
• Has e-governance and citizen journalism been able to flock together? If yes what are the examples? If not what are the drawbacks?
• What is/should be the future of e-goverance and citizen journalism flocking together?