After years of torture and imprisonment, Mohamed Nasheed was, at 41, democratically elected to the presidency of the Maldives. The critically acclaimed documentary "The Island President" (98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) tells that story. More centrally, it tells President Nasheed's heroic story of putting a human face on this low-lying island nation, which faces inundation through climate change.

Four Indian naval ships scheduled to visit Shanghai on a rare goodwill visit next week, first since 2006, will receive "high-profile" reception, China said today. As External Affairs Minister S M Krishna spoke of the goodwill tour of the naval ships to Shanghai during his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jeichi here today, the Chinese Minister told him that a high-profile reception awaited them.

The People’s Republic of China’s Government of Guizhou Province and New Zealand’s Te Puni Kōkiri (Ministry of Māori Development) have launched an international agricultural exchange programme. The programme recognises that investing in the education of young people is a vital way to boost development in rural areas.

For those of us committed to using cultural diplomacy as a significant force in advancing the national interest, that kind of condescending view is aggravating and we always welcome solid evidence that it is wrong.Such evidence comes now from the British Council...

More broadly, the assumption underlying most efforts at public diplomacy seems to be the belief that anti-Americanism around the world is a failure of marketing. If we just do a better job of selling what we do around the world ... then Pakistanis won't mind our launching drone strikes on their territory and will give us a free pass when we kill a bunch of border guards by accident.

The United States has cut funding to a popular Pakistani version of the children’s program “Sesame Street” amid allegations of fraud and abuse, a US official said Tuesday. The program, run under the umbrella of the US-based Sesame Workshop by a local theater group, had been awarded some $20 million in funds from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Is this “superpower” model going against the very fundamentals of India’s “soft power”? Three characteristics distinguish India: a 5,000-year-old extant, unbroken, well-documented, civilisational, cultural heritage; an overwhelming population of no less than 1.2 billion; and a living laboratory for pluralistic development without a common spoken language.

A new Confucius Institute for Traditional Chinese Medicine — the first of its kind established with the cooperation of a foreign medical institute — is expected to open in September, said Gao Sihua, president of the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.