As India enters its 70th year of independence and its status on the world stage grows, its position within Asia becomes more critical. It's high time India consciously, calculatingly and coordinately uses its ample soft power to its advantage. One way is to open a global chain of "Gandhi Centers."

Eminem called himself a “modern-day Shakespeare” in 2001. Now the Royal Shakespeare Company is trying to further bridge the gap between rap and the writer: They’ve created an app with Samsung, “RE: Shakespeare,” which remixes Shakespeare through a hip-hop lens.

Fifty embassies, cultural institutes and international organizations will participate September 1 through 5 in the "Open Your Culture" Embassies' Festival aimed at promoting cultural diversity and the art of the countries with diplomatic missions in Romania. 

The long-awaited 11-storey China Cultural Centre in Queen Street has been completed and a writers' forum featuring five reputed Chinese novelists tonight will kick-start its series of pre-launch programmes. Designed by prominent Singapore architect Liu Thai Ker, the centre took over two years to build. Its official opening later this year is expected to be hosted by both countries' top leaders.

The Kremlin is backing an ambitious effort to make the B-sides of the Russian literary canon more accessible to a global audience. Is it a boon for cultural understanding — or propaganda? [...] They (U.S. and Russia) were joining forces to publish a treasury of Russian literature in English, at least 100 volumes strong, spanning three centuries and possibly more.

The Narendra Modi government has decided to make India's Buddhism links the centrepiece of its cultural diplomacy thrust through a blitzkrieg of novel projects, after the Prime Minister feted East Asian leaders through his first year in office with references to this religious bridge.

José Carreño Carlón, director of the Fondo de Cultura Económica, said the truck is meant to promote Spanish-language learning, especially among the children of Latin American families. [...] Jose Luiz Martinez, director of international affairs for the National Council for Culture and the Arts, said the book truck is an example of "cultural diplomacy."

“One of the policies adopted by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in the new period is cultural diplomacy, since we believe culture is able to make the societies closer to one another and book first for why the opportunities for the active cultural diplomacy." [...] "We think of attending Moscow event as an overture to our next activities in the other international book fairs, as we try to turn these activities into the landmarks for our cultural exchanges.