Twitter’s #PositionOfStrength, a women’s empowerment initiative launched on Friday across India to help female Internet users bridge the gender equality gap online, using online platforms to expand their reach and influence. It was previously run in Australia and India, but this is the first time the campaign arrives in Asia.

Blocked by Beijing from maintaining diplomatic ties with most of the world and barred from many global organisations, Taiwan is turning to museum diplomacy to boost its international standing and highlight its history as a regional entrepôt rather than a province of China.

The original Silk Road, established more than 2,000 years ago, was a critical network of trade routes that promoted economic, political, and cultural exchange among Asia, Africa, and Europe. China’s new “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “Twenty-First Century Maritime Silk Road” will do the same, with newly built or upgraded infrastructure facilitating the flow of trade, investment, culture, and ideas — and thus supporting shared economic growth.

Everybody wants to be in the film business, it seems. Web retailer Amazon makes shows. Netflix used to only deliver content, but now makes its own series. One of the first things e-commerce giant Alibaba did after going public was to set up a film division. The reason for the rush is, in a word, branding.

I was excited to take part in an international symposium last week on Buddhist-Muslim interfaith dialogue in the commercial crossroads of Southeast Asia and the capital of Thailand, Bangkok. Appropriately titled "Interfaith Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence in Multicultural Societies."