How to make friends: Delhi needs to invest in systematic and sustained outreach to opinion-makers | The Indian Express

How to make friends: Delhi needs to invest in systematic and sustained outreach to opinion-makers | The Indian Express

Written by Sanjaya Baru |Updated: October 23, 2019 9:43:50 am

The writer is Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, New Delhi.

How to make friends: Delhi needs to invest in systematic and sustained outreach to opinion-makers

What is not recognised is that it is the business of media to reach out to anyone who wishes to seek them out. Lend an ear, but be professional in what and how you report.

Prime Minister Modi and his team have excelled in creating events that help create global awareness about India — like the Howdy, Modi event in Houston.

On being informed about India’s nuclear test in May 1998, the first thought that had occurred to the late Naresh Chandra, then India’s ambassador to the United States, was what he would have to do to limit the fallout of negative political and public opinion in circles that mattered in Washington DC. Chandra called the venerable Henry Kissinger and having informed him of India’s action, asked him what he thought of it.