Since January 2012, Dr Manmohan Singh, the outgoing prime minister of India, has regaled the 1.24 million followers of the prime minister’s official account on Twitter with blurry photographs, links to turgid Press Information Bureau releases, and festive tidings. No more.
 

India’s mild-mannered Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is known to be measured in his public utterances. This is perhaps why his combative response on August 30 to attacks made by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Rajya Sabha, India’s Upper House of Parliament, made headlines. In recent weeks, the BJP has accused Singh of presiding over a government battered by a slew of corruption scandals and failing to take steps to revive the Indian economy, which has seen a sharp deceleration in growth.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said India would like to see a “strong, stable and prosperous” Pakistan and that he was happy to see democracy flourish over there as he received a Pakistani parliamentary delegation. Mr Singh also told the delegation led by Senate Chairman Syed Nayyer Hussain Bokhari that closer relations between parliaments in the two countries was necessary for strengthening bilateral ties.

Having myself fired a few arrows at Dr Singh and the ruling Congress Party last month, I thought I would turn to an area where India is enjoying success: the projection of its soft power abroad. Here, arguably, it is outstripping China, its Asian Century rival.