pakistan
Pakistan-India cricket matches have also offered opportunities for cricket diplomacy as a means to improve relations between the two countries by allowing political leaders to exchange visits and cricket followers from either country to travel to the other to watch the matches.
![Photo by Brandon Warren | CC BY-NC 2.0](https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/sites/default/files/styles/275x168/public/uploads/TWiPD_11Nov15.jpg?itok=N1tgGchV)
Headlines this week explore the role of cultural diplomacy and exchanges in facilitating cross-cultural understanding and engagement.
Pakistani border troops on Wednesday presented sweets and exchanged greetings with their Indian counterparts on the occasion of the Hindu festival of Diwali […] Despite ceasefire violations and violence in the disputed Himalayan region, the exchange of sweets between Indian and Pakistani army personnel along the LoC on their respective days of national importance has been a recurring feature.
In the mid-2000s, when the latter perspective was ascendant, the US and UK launched a "Cultural War on Terror", mobilising art, music and film - what the state department called Public Diplomacy 2.0 - aimed at disrupting the "jihadist narrative" and spreading liberal interpretations of Islam
The healing touch provided by the feel-good diplomacy for the return of Geeta from Pakistan has evaporated with the cancellation of the Delhi concert by Ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali. While the Ministry of External Affairs refuses to acknowledge any setback to India-Pakistan people-to-people relationship, the Pakistani civil society figures think otherwise.
The Embassy of Switzerland, in collaboration with the Satrang Gallery of the Serena Group, hosted a Sculpture Exhibition on October 30 - 31, 2015 within its premises to promote cross-cultural understanding and creation through visual art.
Set in lush green lawns of the Swiss embassy, an exhibition featuring the work of 12 Pakistani sculptors was held on Friday. Speaking to The Express Tribune, Satrang Gallery Director Asma Khan said the embassy asked her to put up a show of sculptors for them.
The Pakistan High Commission has started an Urdu Language Training Center in the Sri Lankan capital. The avowed purpose of the venture is to help Lankans who go to Pakistan either for higher studies or to do business, communicate with locals. But it is undeniable that one of the aims of the Center is to counter the spread of Hindi, which is already a hugely popular language in Lanka thanks to Bollywood films and their songs.