The Narendra Modi government feels that Ramayana, the eternal battle between good and evil, holds a borderless appeal and carrying the message of the Ramayana to international audience is the need of the hour. The MEA commissions films worth crores of rupees every year. Normally it stays away from religious topics and chooses subjects which give it heft for soft power projection or furthers national interests or promotes relations with friendly countries.

But, whereas this fits in with the larger patterns of Pakistan’s history, the emergence of a dynamic Indian honcho with the world in his fists is something Sharif could not have anticipated. If only Sharif knew how to take selfies and understood the intricacies of Snapchat.

The newspapers are packed with front page, head line stories of Prime Minister’s recent and successful visit to the West Coast of United States, where he professed his firm belief in ‘social media’ as the apt medium of the hour to connect people, build communities, local and global. 

A recent proposal of the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry to this effect received a big thumbs-up from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Now the ministry has started planning the dedicated corpus — funded by the government and the film industry — to finance full-fledged publicity campaigns for India’s entries in the run-up to the Academy Awards. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Mark Zuckerberg that social media can show governments where they’re going wrong, and allow heads of state to connect more personably than ever before. During a townhall Q&A at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, the two leaders talked about the modernization of India and discussed topics from the 40,000 questions and comments submitted by the public. 

Indian prime ministers have made it a practice to meet Indian communities during their foreign tours for the past two decades, but Modi has made a more concerted effort to harness the energy of the diaspora by holding public meeting like galas in major cities abroad.

With the Modi government planning to host representatives of more than 50 African States in New Delhi from 26 to 29 October, it is time to understand what this means for India, the reason for this sudden interest and what the dimensions are of this engagement.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi continued his 'selfie diplomacy' as he visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand mosque, the UAE's largest and the world's third largest, on his first visit to the Emirate. [...] The Prime Minister, who has a penchant for selfies, has clicked them in the past with several leaders and the 'selfie diplomacy' has emerged as an integral part of his overseas trips.