Now, foreign secretary Rao on Twitter

Her first post went out from her account (www.twitter.com/forsecnrao) at about 12.10 p.m. Friday - "Leaving4NewYork tonite."

According to a foreign ministry official, Rao will be herself sending out tweets through her Blackberry phone. “It will be mainly used to inform about her events,” he said.

The second tweet sent by Rao was, “Enroute to (Washington) DC. Spkg at The New School NY on India-China on Sat 3.30pm”.

She is accompanying External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna to the UN.

Within an hour, she had gathered 150 followers with word of mouth spreading through
twitter. “Thank you all for your words of welcome!” she noted.

With this, the ministry of external affairs has taken another big step in the social media web.

The ministry's public diplomacy division started its own account last year,
(www.twitter.com/Indiandiplomacy), which has over 5,800 followers.