The officials chosen for the day-long workshops ranged from under secretary to joint secretary, in easy batches of five.

The Indian foreign ministry allows only officials of the rank of joint secretary or above to talk to journalists. Most, however, prefer to route media queries through the External Publicity Division.

In Indian missions, the ambassador or press attache are the only direct interlocutors with the local media.

'It has now become very important to train officers in media handling. For example, if they were posted abroad as ambassadors, they could be immediately asked by a local news channel to come to the studio to give an opinion on, say, Mumbai terror attacks or Pakistan,' said a senior officer from the ministry.

There were mock studio interviews, recorded and shown to the group. 'It demonstrated how bad most of our body language was,' said another official who too attended the class.

Simple but valuable tips followed: sip water constantly before an interview, keep a smile fixed on your face, remove distracting jewellery like multiple rings.

Each workshop ended with a press conference, with one participant at the dais -- and at the receiving end -- and the rest making up the media corps.

Contacted by IANS, Ravi Shyam of MTW India division who conducted the workshop declined to comment. 'I am covered under a non-disclosure agreement. All information on media training is put on our website,' he said.

(Devirupa Mitra can be contacted at devirupa.m@ians.in)