The Occupy movement, decentralized and leaderless, has mobilized thousands of people around the world almost exclusively via the Internet. To a large degree through Twitter, and also with platforms like Facebook and Meetup, crowds have connected and gathered.

As a public diplomacy exercise, we hope that the “India Is…” contest will encourage people to think of India in creative, interesting and hopefully positive ways. With an eye on drawing participation of young people into the contest, we have planned a marketing campaign across social media including Facebook and Twitter in particular.

October in India means many things. The start of a busy festival season, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, and this year, the advent of the F1 races in Delhi.

Christina Tribble says diplomats’ growing use — and awareness of — social media “has sort of fundamentally shifted the way that we have to reach out, the issues that we think about."

Sunday is going to open up a very interesting period in Saudi history because now, for the next four years, people are going to be debating in the press and in tweets and on Facebook how exactly this is going to work and how much power or freedom the women have to be campaigning just like men.

APDS Blogger: Di Wu

Former US vice-president Al Gore will broadcast a presentation every hour for 24 hours across 24 time zones, as part of a campaign to convince sceptics of the link between climate change and extreme weather events. The 24 Hours of Reality campaign also asks people to hand over control of their accounts on Facebook and Twitter for an entire day to deliver Gore's message.

Essentially, the heart of our public diplomacy initiative is to engage more effectively beyond the official level contacts. Sort of going beyond the seminar circuit and establishing a people-to-people contact... The mode involves targeting campus interactions, developing contests, which get young people to think creatively beyond collaborations, beyond summit level engagement. It’s a work in progress.