In a clear act of public diplomacy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on BBC Persian this week to engage the network's Iranian audience on a range of issues regarding the state of relations between Iran and America. In an interview-format program, she tried to address some important issues raised by Iranians living either in Iran or outside the country.

The Assisi gathering, held on the 25th anniversary of a historic initiative in favor of peace hosted by John Paul in 1986, this time did not include common prayer among the delegates...In fact... the delegates were withdrawing to various rooms around the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels

The most innovative thing about the Department of State’s “Apps4Africa” public diplomacy project isn’t the immediate outcome—small cash prizes for the best mobile phone applications—but the process.

Such fanfare went beyond the service of prosecuting a single crime. More likely, the charges being leveled at Iran came in the service of “public diplomacy,” an attempt to establish a broad narrative that serves a policy decision. Pushing the narrative of the Iranian “boogeyman” is not unusual in U.S. policy circles.

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.

India’s regional literature offers plenty of potential to appeal to a world audience in a big way through appealing stories, poetries, novels, folk tales and also by its children’s literature.

India is one the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India recognizes 18 official regional languages in India with a developed script and literary tradition. In addition, there are nearly ‘1576 rationalized mother tongues’ or dialects as per the 1991 census of the Government of India. Linguistic diversity adds to the richness of Indian culture and every region of India has a highly developed literary tradition with excellent writers of national, and a few of international fame.