Beginning today the capital city plays host to a mega arts fest that brings together exponents from the performing arts, films, poetry, literature and cuisine, all aimed at making Delhi a tourism hub as well as to draw attention to India's soft power through the arts.

Ten Myanmar amateur directors will compete in Japan-Mekong film competition to be held in Ibusuki and Kagosheema in Japan in the first week of December under the cultural exchange program of Myanmar and Japan, a local weekly reported Friday.

Two months ago, during Asian Art Week, Christie’s auction house invited hundreds of wealthy collectors, scholars and art patrons to its New York headquarters in Rockefeller Center for what it described as a special exhibition and symposium about the rise of Chinese contemporary art.

World governments are increasingly excited about the economic power of the arts and the value of cultural exchange in a changing world. Because the prodigious levels of government support in Europe and Asia are diminishing, they want to better understand our American advocacy techniques.

“Abu Dhabi Art is part of a greater vision to build transnational cultural institutions to ensure that the Arab world is not isolated,” said Rita Aoun Abdo, director of the cultural department of Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Co., or T.D.I.C., which co-organized the fair and is the agency behind the development of Saadiyat Island.

India's soft power has failed to use contemporary art or its living artists as a tool for cultural diplomacy. In all the euphoria of the Obama visit and the ramifications for everything from bilateral business deals, odes to Indian culinary excellence and Michelle's bazaar-style shopping, the one thing that was oddly missing was any reference to art.

The power of culture can often be underestimated as a diplomatic tool, but cultural exchange can not only serve as a universal icebreaker, it can tear down walls and build bridges between the most hardened of enemies. It may not turn foes into instant friends, but it does allow nations to find points of commonality that transcend politics.

“I hope that the Spanish people will be able to garner a great interest in traditional Korean culture through the creative, embroidered works of Korean women,” said collector Huh Dong-hwa, director of the local museum, in a statement.