In the past 25 years, there have been several changes in India’s foreign policy. Some of these changes are a strong reiteration of the fact that foreign policy has several layers and multiple stakeholders. These changes include: the growing importance of state governments in India’s ties with the outside world – this phenomenon is referred to as ‘para-diplomacy’. The second is the increasing importance of the Indian Diaspora in India’s external outreach and the third is the increasing role of what is dubbed as ‘Soft Power’ in India’s foreign policy. While these issues are often viewed in silos, there are close linkages between all three.

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