Just a few minutes on foot from the bustle of downtown Bucharest, the State Jewish Theater, down a small side street in the Romanian capital, cuts a forlorn figure. Yet the theater is one of the few vestiges of what was once a large Jewish community in Romania, and one of the few professional Yiddish-language theaters left in Europe.

As the realm of diplomacy increasingly engages the public at large, culture is being writ large in the vocabulary and method of foreign affairs experts around the globe. One of the major tasks of diplomats is mastering the art of public diplomacy, employing the allures of visual art, music, literature and performing arts, in a world increasingly interconnected culturally. 

The first edition of Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) International Television Dance Festival is scheduled to be held in Hyderabad; the city with royal patronage for arts, literature and architecture, on January 15. Prasar Bharati is hosting the event. The Dance Festival is conceptualised so as to bring the cultural diversities from across the world into limelight, by breaking cultural barriers.

Heather Humphreys launched a new cultural initiative called Creative Ireland at the Irish Consulate in New York on Friday. [...] Creative Ireland is the government’s Legacy Program for Ireland 2016. It is a five-year all-of-government initiative, from 2017 to 2022, which at its core is a strategy which aims to improve access to cultural and creative activity in every county across the country and among the diaspora.

The Korean Culinary Arts & Science High School, Seoul South Korea led by Dr. Lee, Senior Lecturer and Jhang, Ethnic Korean Cuisine Chef along with 10 students had a food and cultural exchange programme with the students and faculty of Mount Mary Higher Secondary School & College (MMHSSC), Chumukedima, Nagaland on January 13. This was stated in a press note issued by the organiser. 

It was the opening ceremony of ‘2017 as the year of Japan-India friendly exchanges’ when renowned Indian film director-writer, Imtiaz Ali announced the production of his new film, ‘Love in Tokyo’ in collaboration with a major Japanese film studio, Shochiku. This Indo-Japanese collaboration is a part of the friendly exchanges the two countries are looking at by means of cultural exchanges.

As China-Switzerland relations gain new momentum, their people-to-people and cultural ties have yielded fruitful results, said Jiang Jianguo, a senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC), here during a visit in Switzerland earlier this week.