Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting international relations. There can be different instruments in conducting diplomacy, and the recent usage of the term ‘health diplomacy’ has encompassed not only international agreements on health but also efforts to promote the role of global health in foreign policy, as well as the use of health interventions to support foreign-policy objectives.

Interestingly, the ‘Himalayan tragedy’ provided India with a readymade opportunity to score brownie points over its main rival and neighbour China on aid diplomacy and the Narendra Modi administration grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Although China had overtaken India as Nepal’s largest foreign investor in 2014, Beijing failed to catch up with New Delhi’s humanitarian diplomacy on this occasion.

On November, 8 2013, Super typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm ever recorded, destroyed an area as big as Belgium and affected the lives of 14 million people in the central islands of the Philippines. Immediately following the storm, a surge of prominent international newsmakers and their crews descended on Tacloban and began live reporting from the disaster zone.