India–Malaysia 2nd Joint Working Group Meeting on Cooperation in Public Administration & Governance Reforms

What happened: 2nd India–Malaysia Joint Working Group (JWG) on public administration reforms

The second India–Malaysia Joint Working Group (JWG) Meeting on “Cooperation in the Field of Public Administration and Governance Reforms” was held on 18.08.2026. The JWG was co-chaired by Shri Puneet Yadav, Additional Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) (India), and Mr. Datuk Dr. Mohd Bakhari bin Ismail, Deputy Director General of Public Service (Development) (Malaysia). Senior officials from DARPG, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), including HCI Kuala Lumpur, and the National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) participated from the Indian side.

What happened in the meeting: review, capacity building, and technology-linked governance

The JWG reviewed progress since the first meeting held on 13 November 2024, confirmed and adopted the inaugural meeting minutes, and designated Points of Contact from both sides for coordination and implementation. Key topics discussed included capacity-building cooperation under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme. The Malaysian side shared feedback on academic modules, institutional and field visits, programme coordination, and hospitality extended to participants. Both sides also discussed proposed capacity-building programmes for the 2026 and 2027 cohorts and the Malaysian side welcomed a proposal to explore specialized programmes for senior Malaysian officials.

The meeting also included an exchange of experiences on public sector modernisation and governance reforms. Malaysia presented its public sector transformation approach based on People, Process and Technology, describing innovation as a key enabler. Discussions covered digital government, Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud services, shared digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, blockchain, data-driven decision-making, and connected government, with a focus on delivering simpler, faster, and more citizen-centric public services.

On the Indian side, the meeting highlighted centralized grievance redressal under the Centralized Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) (described as a 24x7 digital citizen interface platform for grievance redressal). DARPG also presented “Samadhan Didi” as an AI-enabled support using emerging technologies to improve responsiveness, transparency, and citizen-centric governance. “Samadhan Didi” is an AI-enabled voice chatbot launched on 30 May 2026, described as making CPGRAMS more accessible through multilingual, citizen-centric conversational responses.