They are veteran Mexican pianists but James Demster and Fernando Garcia Torres are just beginning to savour the delights of Carnatic and Hindustani classical music and dance on their maiden tour to India. It has bred in them a desire to collaborate on a fusion project.

As the U.S. population of illegal immigrants swelled over the past decade, Democrats and Republicans have attempted various iterations of immigration reform with little success. After Arizona's governor signed a controversial immigration law in April 2010, immigration reform was thrust back into the national conversation and became a flashpoint for the midterm elections.

Days after big names launched the Tijuana Innovadora, grisly slayings provided a reminder of Mexico's drug war. Still, the city is determined to shrug off the violence and enjoy its moment in the sun.

Somewhere in Mexico, an entire clan with the last name Maganda (the Tagalog word for "beautiful") has lived for more than 200 years, according to the country's National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). In that same coastal region, NCCA said locals like to drink the sap of coconut, which they also call tuba (the same term used in the Philippines).

"The whole world knows about the Silk Route, the Amber Road, but what about the Galleon Trade? For more than 250 years, the Philippines was the center of the world, with Asian, European and Latin American goods being traded on its very soil," the [National Commission for Culture and the Arts] said.

This year, the University of Arizona School of Music lays the foundation for the College of Fine Arts' innovative Institute for Arts of the Americas, starting with a year-long exploration of the music of Latin America. A special emphasis will be given to music and musicians from Mexico as the country celebrates two important anniversaries – the bicentennial of its independence and the centennial of its revolution.

In her well-received remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let slip a statement that immediately sent the inter-American affairs semantic fashion police scurrying. She referred to the on-going threat posed by Mexican drug cartels and their allies to Mexican society as an "insurgency."

India and Mexico today agreed to promote cooperation between the two countries in the tourism sector and look at renewing the agreement they signed in this regard in 1996.