Recently, Israeli leaders have made successive high profile visits to China, while engaging in considerable public diplomacy efforts vis-à-vis the Chinese people. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even greeted the Chinese people in their native Mandarin during their New Year’s Festival.

After four years of constant refusal to resume bilateral cricketing relations and giving Pakistan cricket the cold shoulder, the ice has finally started to melt. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) finally decided to restart the most intense cricket rivalry in the world, having invited Pakistan to play three One-Day Internationals and two Twenty20s in India later this year.

Dubai: Ever since the news of resumption of India-Pakistan cricketing ties broke on Monday afternoon, the readers’ polls and social networking websites have gone into a tizzy. The range of emotions, both for and against the tour, clearly shows the passion that the game can ignite between the two countries.

India and Pakistan will play a series of cricket matches later this year, marking the resumption of bilateral sporting ties after five years. Cricket matches between the South Asian rivals are not only one of the world’s most intense sporting rivalries - they are often intertwined with politics.

The cricket diplomacy that the BCCI is now forcing upon the grieving souls of Mumbai’s dead, is schlemiel raised to the nth power. Like a bird depositing pebbles in the mating game, India has been depositing dossiers while Pakistan’s sceptics get to say their lines yet again: you are going to get punched in the face again, Mr Chidambaram.

The report calls for new measures to build trust and improve perceptions of each other in the fields of education, diplomacy, media and security. They include doubling Australia’s public diplomacy budget, extending post-study work rights to international students, and training Australian teachers in Hindi language in anticipation of it being added to the Australian curriculum.

Having myself fired a few arrows at Dr Singh and the ruling Congress Party last month, I thought I would turn to an area where India is enjoying success: the projection of its soft power abroad. Here, arguably, it is outstripping China, its Asian Century rival.

India must remain the “land of the better story”. As a society with a free press and a thriving mass media, with a people whose creative energies are daily encouraged to express themselves in a variety of appealing ways, India has an extraordinary ability to tell stories that are more persuasive and attractive than those of its rivals.