Sushma Swaraj placed in 'Global Thinkers' 2016 list alongside Clinton, Merkel, and Trudeau

"For fashioning a novel brand of Twitter diplomacy" External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has been included in Foreign Policy magazine's 2016 list of 15 Global Thinkers.

The magazine recalled the incident when about 10,000 Indian workers in Saudi Arabia faced a "food crisis" earlier this year due to job losses, Swaraj tweeted about the issue.

"What followed was a week-long social media operation in which Swaraj posted information for migrants about rations provided by the Indian embassy, claims for unpaid wages and government-organised transportation home," stated the magazine.

The magazine further stated that this is not the first time that the minister has used the internet, especially Twitter, to reach out to the people abroad. "From evacuating Indians from Yemen to helping replace lost passports, Swaraj has earned the nickname 'the common tweeple's leader' for her aggressive use of Twitter," stated the magazine.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was one of the first to congratulate the Sushma Swaraj:

"Very proud to see our hardworking EAM @SushmaSwaraj part of the @ForeignPolicy Global Thinkers list 2016! Congrats," Modi tweeted.

Other Global Thinkers on the list are German chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.

Swaraj is currently recuperating from a kidney transplant operation at the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.