The Indian Embassy has taken to Sina Weibo, the popular Twitter-like microblogging service from China, in an attempt to portray India’s modern image and promote Indian culture and tourism to Chinese youngsters. Since Sina Weibo boasts a hundred million users...it provides a perfect platform for the Indian embassy to remove the earlier misconceptions and present a modern image of India.

In the slow-evolving world of diplomacy, it may be the biggest innovation since the wax seal: social media that lets Canadian diplomats go around the censors to speak directly to, and hear from, the citizens of the world’s rising superpower.

That was the genesis of the MEA’s move beyond its high walls into the social media platforms and to become more accessible through the tools of the 21st century—Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and their ilk.

When an Internet research group recently released a study concluding that the most influential person in the Twitter universe was Rafinha Bastos, a Brazilian comedian ...the English-speaking world was predictably baffled.

The Department of State is pleased to announce “Ask Alan,” a new effort to engage with the Iranian people through our Persian language social media brand, USAdarFarsi. Every month on Facebook and Twitter, we will be asking our fans for questions on a topic that we set in advance. Our Persian language spokesman, Alan Eyre, will then provide answers to the most popular questions in Persian.

The Australian government is to post on YouTube images of so-called boatpeople being turned away and sent to Malaysia, in an effort to deter asylum seekers. The video will show arrivals at Australia's offshore detention centre on Christmas Island being expelled and boarding aircraft. Asylum seekers remain a politically sensitive issue in Australia.

South Africans and private institutions have been “generously” donating money and other resources to relief efforts in East Africa. South Africa recently mounted a media blitz to raise money for a government-established relief fund, as well as for medical supplies and non-perishable foods. The government has tried to widen the reach of the campaign with social media like Facebook and Twitter.

What started as two unrelated social actions over a month ago — a Facebook campaign against inflated cottage cheese prices (an Israeli staple) and a doctors’ strike — has blossomed into a nationwide, multipronged collective revolt unprecedented in recent Israeli history. The Arab Spring, it appears, is turning into a hot, hot Israeli summer.