“The British Council has responded to challenging financial conditions since the 2010 Spending Review and we are glad that the Committee has recognised that we have continued to successfully deliver our work and be “a major instrument of UK public diplomacy and ‘soft power’”.

Cultural exchanges between Chinese and African artists have borne creative fruit. For two years, Chinese and African artists have been visiting each other's countries as part of a program initiated by the Ministry of Culture. Li Qiang, a Nanjing-based landscape artist, says South Africa inspired him so much he was in a "creative trance".

Last month the Economist published a brace of articles setting in motion a spirited debate over whether India has a strategic culture. The authors draw an unfavorable contrast between neighboring China, whose "rise is a given," and India, which "is still widely seen as a nearly-power that cannot quite get its act together." They catalogue several factors that purportedly explain New Delhi's underperformance in diplomacy and strategy.

New York State is now the yogurt capital of the nation. The state’s chief yogurt promoter, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, claimed victory on Thursday in the battle for national yogurt supremacy, citing state data that showed New York topping California in production for 2012. Hoping to milk the announcement for all it’s worth, Mr. Cuomo’s office issued a nearly 2,100-word statement celebrating New York’s triumph.

The type of bomb used in at least one of the Boston attacks is one that many recent veterans are all too familiar with. It was fashioned out of a pressure cooker. The devices are common in kitchens around the world. Instructions for turning them into bombs are distressingly easy to find. But I hope that their misuse as devices to wound and kill won’t obscure their value for bringing people together.

Australia should work harder on its official and unofficial diplomacy to strengthen its ties to India, after a new survey revealed Indians had a mixed perception of the two countries' relationship. The nationwide survey of 1233 Indians, conducted in seven languages, found that Indians generally have a positive image of Australia, seeing it as a good place to get an education and raise a family.

Almost 315 years after Russian Czar Peter the Great’s first visit to Holland, six Russian students and six of their Dutch counterparts are tenaciously working on a joint cultural project dedicated to the bilateral year between the two countries.

Social media have become one of the few places where young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan can meet. Yet, not without risks. While it might be nearly 19 years since a May 1994 ceasefire put the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold, analysts are increasingly viewing the situation on the Line of Contact (LOC) with alarm.