Thiruvananthapuram, May 5 (IANS) Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor was pleasantly surprised when he got a tweet from the prime minister of Greece George Papandreou appreciating a speech he had made on pursuing "soft power". The Greece cabinet discussed Tharoor's speech at a meeting April 29.

 
 Praveen Ram, who heads Tharoor's office in the city, said the Thiruvananthapuram MP was surprised to see a tweet from Papandreou that his speech was presented and discussed in the cabinet meeting presided by the prime minister on April 29.
 
 Tharoor immediately acknowledged the tweet, Ram told IANS.
 
 “Incidentally the speech 'Why nations should pursue soft power' was made in mid-2009 at the Mysore campus of Infosys. The speech became a hit once it was uploaded on to YouTube last year. It was through this that the Greece prime minister noticed it and took it up,” said Ram.
 
 Tharoor, in his speech, said India is fast becoming a superpower not just through trade and politics, but through 'soft' power, its ability to share its culture with the world through food, music, technology, Bollywood. He argued that in the long run it's not the size of the army that matters as much as a country's ability to influence the world's hearts and minds.
 
 Tharoor, a former under secretary general at the UN, resigned as minister of state for external affairs following a controversy over the Indian Premier League.