Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 18 (IANS) In less than a year, the external affairs ministry’s twitter account has collected over 10,000 followers, pioneering the outreach of government organisations on social media platforms.

On July 9, 2010, twitter account “Indiandiplomacy” started to tweet. It possibly marked the first time that a major Indian ministry was using a social media platform to create awareness about its activities.

On Wednesday, the ministry’s official account, managed by its public diplomacy division, had garnered over 10,000 followers.

Once ‘indiandiplomacy’ became active, it opened the doors for others to follow.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao was the first senior Indian bureaucrat to be on twitter.

She was was followed by the ministry’s official spokesperson Vishnu Prakash and additional secretary in charge of visa and passports B.K. Gupta.

The foreign secretary reached five figures fastest, having over 16,000 followers at present.

The ministry’s facebook page is followed by 1,179 people. Further, about 24 Indian embassies, high commissions and consulates have also opened their own separate facebook pages.

The recent entrants have been the Indian embassies in th Hague and Lisbon and the Indian consulate at Munich.

The ministry’s public diplomacy division also has a youtube channel, where it has uploaded exercpts of its commissioned documentaries.

Currently, there are over 80 videos on youtube, which has been viewed by over 28,000 visitors.