Cultural diplomats appointed to display India's soft power in US

A first-of-its-kind delegation of "culture diplomats" has been sent to the US to promote Indian culture in the country, officials said.

The culture diplomats, who are officially called teachers of Indian culture, have the mandate to spread various aspects of rich culture of the country, in addition to holding yoga camps.

"I want to hold yoga camps in all the 50 States. The objective is to have trained yoga teachers and volunteers in all American States, who would then train others," Mox Raj, Teacher of Indian Culture at the Indian Embassy in Washington DC told PTI.

He has already started taking regular yoga sessions for the Indian Embassy officials in downtown Washington DC.

He is part of the first batch of 24 teachers of Indian culture who have been dispatched to various diplomatic missions across the world.

Including him, three of them have recently joined Indian diplomatic missions in Washington DC. The other two being sent to New York and Chicago.

While process is on to send Teachers of Indian Culture to more than 100 diplomatic missions, the first batch of cultural diplomats have been sent among others to Budapest, Suva, Brussels, Guatemala City, Reykjavik (Iceland), Mahe (Seychelles), Lilongwe (Malawi), Kingston (Jamaica), Maputo in Mozambique, Nicosia (Cyprus), Kiev (Ukraine), Hong Kong, Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Bratislava in Slovak, Manama (Bahrain), Geneva and Minsk in (Belarus).

Before being sent to overseas missions, these cultural diplomats received orientation and went through training camps in Delhi, wherein they were told that their mandate is to develop Indian culture and teach yoga and Indian philosophy and Veda through holding camps, workshop and lectures.