Twitter

Friday, Jun 12, 2009 10:15 PDT

How The World Works

The minister of Twitter

India's Shashi Tharoor shows juvenile American politicians how micro-blogging should be done.

By Andrew Leonard

Shashi Tharoor, recently appointed India's minister of external state affairs, is, according to his Wikipedia page, "a prolific author, columnist, journalist, human-rights advocate, humanitarian and adviser or fellow of various institutions."

Fully rounding out his renaissance profile, he is also, reports Sepia Mutiny, "the first Indian minister to actively use Twitter."

Sepia Mutiny compiles some excerpts, and by god, they have just about convinced How the World Works to get on board the Twitter-train. While American politicians (I'm looking at you, Charles Grassley) comport themselves on Twitter in a fashion that would embarrass most self-respecting teenagers in either India or the United States, the minister manages to be funny, informative and, most of the time, typographically coherent.

To wit:

Have given 13 interviews in 3 languages and 2 more TV shows pending. A little overwhelmed by the media scum.
3:31 PM May 19th from TwitterBerry

Scrum. I meant, scrum.
3:32 PM May 19th from TwitterBerry

@renuka book will be published in 2010. A collection of my tweets. Tentative title: "Meet, Eat and Tweet: Using Twitter to Keep the Public Tharoorly Uninformed."
9:35 PM Jun 5th from TwitterBerry