The

Ministry of External Affairs of India The Ministry of External Affairs (abbreviated as MEA; hi, विदेश मंत्रालय, Videśa Mantrālaya, translit-std=ISO) of India is the government agency responsible for implementing Indian foreign policy. The Ministry of Ext ...

set up its Public Diplomacy Division in 2006 to advance

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

's conversations with the world. The key goal of Indian Public Diplomacy is to explain, on a day-to-day basis, the background of policy decisions in Indian foreign policy, to promote a positive image of India and to engage scholars, think tanks, and the media through its outreach activities. It was merged with the External Publicity Division of the Ministry of External Affairs of India in January 2014.

History

Indian Public Diplomacy goes back to the days of

Chanakya Chanakya (Sanskrit: चाणक्य; IAST: ', ; 375–283 BCE) was an ancient Indian polymath who was active as a teacher, author, strategist, philosopher, economist, jurist, and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kauṭil ...

who advocated the quality of listening as one of the most important attributes of an ideal king. Listening to the people on a day-to-day basis is a very important part of Public Diplomacy in the 21st century. The focus of Indian Public Diplomacy has been on communicating India's raison d'être of its foreign policy decisions as well as traditionally branding

globally by producing documentaries, films, coffee-table books etcetera.

Indian Digital Diplomacy

Social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

is an important instrument in the process of listening and thus two way communication. On 8 July 2010 Public Diplomacy Division of the External Affairs set up the official

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account of the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs and sent the first tweet: 'This is the official

account of the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs'. It was delivered into the cyberspace by 30-year-old IFS officer

Abhay Kumar Abhay Kumar en Name Abhay K.(born 1980) is an Indian poet-diplomat and currently serves as the Deputy Director General of Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi. He served as India's 21st Ambassador to Madagascar and Comoros ...

just three days after he had joined the division. This was followed by opening of official accounts of the Public Diplomacy Division on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

, Scribd, Issuu and Blogger. Proactive adoption of social media] by the Public Diplomacy Division acted as a catalyst for other divisions of the Ministry of External Affairs as well as Indian Missions and posts abroad, several of which opened accounts on Facebook.

Events

Public Diplomacy Division organized India's first ever conference on Public Diplomacy in December 2010 in New Delhi in association with Centre for Media Studies. The proceedings of the conference were webcast live. The key speakers included

Shashi Tharoor Shashi Tharoor (; ; born 9 March 1956 in London, England ) is an Indian former international civil servant, diplomat, bureaucrat and politician, writer and public intellectual who has been serving as Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, ...

, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, Professor Philip Seib & Professor

Nicholas J. Cull Nicholas J. Cull (born 1964) is a historian and professor in the Master's in Public Diplomacy program at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He was the founding director of this pro ...

of the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

, Centre of Public Diplomacy, Professor Etyan Gilboa from Israel and several other eminent speakers in the field of cultural and corporate.Conference on Information Age in public diplomacy to highlight impact of 24x7 media
"OneIndia.com", December 09, 2010

Awards

Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External received e-gov 2010 award for the innovative use of social media in the government and gov2. in 2011 award for being the first central ministry of

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

to make exceptional use of social media in government. Award was received by Under Secretary

on behalf of the Public Diplomacy Division.Public Diplomacy division gets social media award
"

Deccan Herald ''Deccan Herald'' is an Indian English language daily newspaper published from the Indian state of Karnataka. It was founded by K. N. Guruswamy, a liquor businessman from Ballari and was launched on 17 June 1948. It is published by The Print ...

", March 12, 2011

References

External links

Ministry of External Affairs Official Website