Sushma Swaraj Makes ‘Global Thinkers’ List for Twitter Diplomacy

Foreign Policy magazine named Sushma Swaraj in its list “for fashioning a novel brand of Twitter diplomacy”.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. (Photo: Reuters)

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has been included in Foreign Policy magazine’s 2016 list of ‘15 Global Thinkers’ “for fashioning a novel brand of Twitter diplomacy”.

In a website posting, the magazine recalled how, when around 10,000 Indian workers in Saudi Arabia faced a "food crisis" earlier this year due to job losses, Swaraj tweeted about the issue to her 60 lakh followers on the social media website. The magazine said in a blog post on its website:

What followed was a weeks-long social media operation in which Swaraj posted information for migrants about rations provided by the Indian embassy, claims for unpaid wages, and government-organised transportation home.

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Stating that this was not the first time that Swaraj had used the internet to reach out to people abroad, the posting said: "From evacuating Indians from Yemen to helping replace lost passports, Swaraj has earned the nickname 'the common tweeple's leader' for her aggressive use of Twitter."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to congratulate Swaraj for this.

Among others who are on the list are German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Swaraj is currently recuperating after a kidney transplant operation at the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.

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