By Ashraf Padanna
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou liked Dr Shashi Tharoor’s speech on the need for nations to pursue soft power at ‘TED Talk’ so much that he has made it a point to present it to his cabinet. He has also tweeted this from his official Twitter account: (http://twitter.com/#!/PrimeministerGR) “Why nations should pursue ‘soft power’. @ShashiTharoor’s innovative #TedTalk, presented at #Greek Cabinet Meeting. (http://www.ted.com/talks/ shashi_tharoor.html).
TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading.” At the TED Talk, world’s leading thinkers and doers gather for an event many describe as the highlight of their year. Attendees call it ‘the ultimate brain spa’, ‘Davos for optimists’ and ‘a four-day journey into the future, in the company of those creating it’. Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill
Gates, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and many Nobel laureates.
The first TED Talk in India was help in Mysore and Dr Tharoor’s speech on ‘Why nations should pursue soft power’ was the highlight of the event. It has since become one of the most popular clips on YouTube with 172,482 views (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiTrl0W1QrM).It is considered an unusual recognition for an Indian politician, author and thinker to get acknowledged by a foreign prime minister and his cabinet and that too from the land of ancient Greece or the Hellenic Republic, generally considered the cradle of Western civilization and which is the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympic games, Western literature and historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles and Western drama.
According to Dr Tharoor, India is fast becoming a superpower not just through trade and politics, but through ‘soft power’, its ability to share its culture with the world through food, music, technology and films. He says in the long run it’s not the size of the army that matter as much as a country’s ability to influence the world’s hearts and minds. The followers of Thiruvananthapuram MP, meanwhile, crossed the one-million mark yesterday and by the evening, the number grew to 1,001,388, second only to cricketer Sachin Tendulkur who has 1,051,793 followers among Indian twitterers.
“Thanks for all you congratulatory messages on reaching one million followers. It has been an interesting journey and I have been glad to have you along,” the country’s former chief twitter said in his latest message on the micro-blogging site yesterday. Dr Tharoor had the largest number of Twitter followers in the country, surpassing film stars Priyanka Chopra (991,831), Shah Rukh Khan (884,124) and Amitabh Bachchan (748,511), until Tendulkar overtook him last month as chief twitterer. Tendulkar’s feat is attributed to an online campaign by his followers urging netizens to follow the cricket icon to help him cross the one million mark. He otherwise appeared on Twitter very rarely. “Not sad at all!
As I said, records are for Sachin!” Dr Tharoor tweeted, responding to a Wall Street Journal report on this. Interestingly, Kerala stars barring cricketer Shreeshant (172,132 followers) has not evoked much enthusiasm among Twitter fans. Among the Malayali twitteratis, Mohanlal has 60,167 followers, followed by Mammootty (43,883) and youth icon (29,618).
Name of Source: Oman Observer