India’s soft-power reach out is undergoing a makeover to meet the challenges of the resource-crunch in spreading its art, culture, culinary traditions, as well as entertainment and spiritualism overseas. Compared to countries like China or the UK, what India has been spending on leveraging its soft-power to win friends overseas remains negligible. Soft-power plays an important part in winning friends and goodwill abroad.

Iran’s ambassador to UK said, diplomacy remained as the most influential factor in soft power. [...] “Presently, detailed daily discussions are underway in Britain on role of diplomats in the European country’s decisive negotiations indicating that politicians are faced with challenged while appointing the right type of person who simultaneously possesses relevant experience and knowledge,” 

It has been suggested that Donald Trump will be a president who will focus on "hard power" to underpin his foreign policy goals rather than focusing on "soft power," which was Obama's preference. The United States cannot just use this or that; it needs to use both. Hard or soft, it's about power, period. [...] While taking a strong stance on security and defense, Trump needs deploy American soft power institutionally in his foreign policy.

The Park Geun-hye administration started with an ambitious middle-power foreign policy agenda. But as President Park’s time in office seems set to come to an end, South Korea’s middle power prestige may fall victim to South Korea’s domestic politics. Park had several policies seeking to utilize South Korea’s middle power status. The "Eurasia Initiative" aimed to establish a logistics and energy network through North Korea, Russia, Central Asia and on to Europe.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi stayed away this year, India followed a strategy of quiet diplomacy while projecting its soft power at the world body, even as it suffered a setback in the fight against terrorism. India had a low profile on the diplomatic front that masked a lot of behind-the-scenes diplomacy. After having made a trip to Washington to address the Congress, Modi did not attend the annual general debate of the General Assembly.

The end of Cold war and dismantling of mighty Soviet Union along with dissolution of Socialist system in East Europe, Russia, having lost the Cold War to USA, was forced to lay down for years as its allies began dropping the Kremlin and joining the USA and Europe through NATO and EU. Further, dismantling of anti-West military alliance Warsaw Pact increasingly weakened Russia as it gradually lost its influence globally.

Once again East Asian countries have dominated the global education tables. In recent weeks, both the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) published their rankings of education systems worldwide based on students’ skills and knowledge. 

After a year dominated by controversy over China’s soft power forays into Australian politics, experts are warning the emerging superpower is using Australian media to exert political influence with implications for press freedom. A recent report argues this “major blind spot in Australia’s… understanding of Chinese-language media” could become “a trigger for social disharmony”.”