Culture diplomacy has been increasingly used to enhance the exchange of ideas, values, and traditions, with the intention of fostering mutual understanding.The second edition of the Indo-US Printmaking Exhibition, which displays the printmaking works of over 120 artists of repute from the USA and India, was inaugurated in New Delhi.

A photo exhibition titled ‘Jam Session: America’s Ambassadors Embrace the World' provided art and music lovers with a sense of how cultural diplomacy can work wonders in fields where politics fears to tread. The display features images of U.S. jazz musicians as musical envoys between the 1950s and the ‘70s, particularly during the Cold War.

Hishaam Aidi, writing for Illume Magazine, emphasizes the central role played by hip-hop in the Arab Spring; indeed, as Aidi points out, Time Magazine not only rated Tunisian rapper Hamada Ben Amor ("el General") as being one of the 100 most influential people of 2011...

Vice-President Xi Jinping's trip to the United States this year is expected to be an opportunity to further promote public diplomacy between the two countries, as more US citizens have positive views on China, a US embassy spokesman said on Thursday.

The year-long series will conclude in the winter, the ambassador said. "Sports, movies, animation and cartoons, music and youth exchanges are among the priorities campaigned by both sides" to promote public diplomacy, Niwa said.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will travel to Brazil to meet with underserved youth... As a Cultural Ambassador, Abdul-Jabbar will lead conversations with young people on the importance of education, social and racial tolerance, cultural understanding, and using sports as a means of empowerment.

Art films and dance recitals no doubt do their bit to further cultural understanding, but a comic can, with one fell swoop and a calibrated punch-line, unite a contrastive crowd in laughter like nothing else can. The U.S. State Department has brought to India a stand-up act that will resolve any residual doubts about the south Asian immigrant experience.