Why in News?
The 2nd India-Malaysia Joint Working Group (JWG) Meeting on Cooperation in the Field of Public Administration and Governance Reforms was held on 18 August 2026.
The meeting focused on strengthening cooperation between India and Malaysia in public administration, governance reforms, capacity building, digital governance and exchange of best practices. Both sides also discussed strengthening cooperation between India's National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) and Malaysia's Public Service Department.
Key Highlights
- The meeting was co-chaired by Puneet Yadav, Additional Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), and Datuk Dr. Mohd Bakhari bin Ismail, Deputy Director General of Public Service (Development), Malaysia.
- The meeting reviewed progress made since the first JWG meeting held on 13 November 2024.
- Both countries discussed capacity-building programmes under India's Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme.
- Malaysia expressed positive feedback on academic modules, institutional visits, field visits and programme coordination under ITEC.
- The two sides discussed proposed capacity-building programmes for the 2026 and 2027 cohorts, including specialised programmes for senior Malaysian officials.
- India and Malaysia exchanged experiences on public sector modernisation and governance reforms.
- Malaysia highlighted its public sector transformation approach based on People, Process and Technology, with innovation as an important enabler.
- Discussions covered Artificial Intelligence, digital government, cloud services, cybersecurity, blockchain, shared digital infrastructure and data-driven decision-making.
- India shared its experience with the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) and the AI-enabled Samadhan Didi chatbot.
- Malaysia presented the Malaysia-India Governance Partnership: 2027-2029 Strategic Roadmap to provide a framework for implementing areas of cooperation.
About Samadhan Didi
Samadhan Didi is an AI-enabled voice chatbot developed by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). It was launched on 30 May 2026 to make CPGRAMS more accessible and citizen-friendly. The chatbot uses conversational AI to provide quick and simple responses to citizens and supports a more responsive and multilingual grievance-redressal system.