While recently on a cultural diplomacy adventure across Central Asia on an American Music Abroad tour—the State Department’s flagship musical exchange program that American Voices administers—with the bluegrass band Della Mae, I had the opportunity to encounter the public diplomacy space that are the State Department’s American Corne

The US Consulate had planned to set up the centre for cultural exchange at the university but scrapped the same after sanctioning a sum of Rs 43 lakh to the OUCIP. “The decision was justified citing the politically charged atmosphere on the campus and the inaccessibility of the campus,” officials at the OU said.