American Voices works in countries emerging from isolation or conflict, said John Ferguson, the founder of the organization...“In many cases, we are the first Americans people have seen who are not diplomats or soldiers,” Ferguson said.

Students can function as citizen diplomats... and collectively contribute to strengthen shared values between cultures. This year, nearly 100,000 Indian students are enrolled in American colleges... but only 3,000 American students are studying abroad in India.

Still the longest State Department sponsored tour in U.S. history, the groundbreaking odyssey was conducted at the height of the Cold War and was only the second cultural mission of its kind to take place during that tense political period.

We aren’t doing too much in public diplomacy. We do have regular attendance at such expos, a military band that travels, a festival of arts held in the South Pacific, and shows like Pacific Night in Washington, DC and elsewhere . However, I don’t know if there’s a systematic plan to exploit this area on the world stage.

The audience in Los Angeles was transported to a country of mythic history, great wisdom and oneness with nature, of Himalayan peaks, trundling oxcarts and the love story of the Taj Mahal.

At the end of its four-day annual policy meeting, China’s ruling Communist Party approved a programme to make its ideology more popular at home and boost China’s soft power abroad.

APDS Blogger: Rajesh Mirchandani

For anyone who is Indian-born, as I am, the chance to see Ravi Shankar perform is akin to an audience with the Pope for Catholics – and perhaps even harder to accomplish. This one-off show at the Disney Hall had been scheduled for October last year and postponed twice - due, the press release said, to “illness and visa complications” (a public diplomacy blunder for U.S. immigration?).

A bronze bust of Mahatma Gandhi, gifted to the people of Egypt by India in recognition of their peaceful pro-democracy revolution, has been unveiled in Cairo to mark the fifth international day of non-violence.