In the Japanese government’s new budget, one small item stands out: a $5 million grant to Columbia University in New York to fund a position for a professor of Japanese politics and foreign policy.

India has long seemed unable or unwilling to become a major player on the world stage. But the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is looking to change all that. In order to compensate for a small and weak foreign service, he is tapping into India’s considerable soft power: its emigrants, intellectuals, and yogis.

A good Muslim engagement strategy supported by the U.S. proved effective in 2005 in Belgium in creating a model for how to engage 500,000 Muslims largely from Turkey and Morocco. The U.S. Embassy in Brussels, together with nongovernmental organizations and private sponsors from the United States and Belgium, brought together an impressive group of American Muslims to meet with an equally impressive group of Belgian Muslims to discuss everyday practical issues regarding Muslim participation in society.

Equality of all faiths before the law is a foundational feature of India's constitutional democracy, President Pranab Mukherjee, has said in his address to the nation on the eve of Republic Day.  The co-existence of various faiths was a matter of pride for India and a source of the country's "soft power" the President said. 

India wants to know: where has Michelle Obama been all day? This is unusual for the Harvard-trained lawyer who has made important international trips by herself to project American soft power.

This speech made history. No State of the Union address in the modern era makes the case more that America stands as strong and resilient as ever. (...) The State of the Union address shows not just Americans, but the entire world, that America is still an exceptional nation—one that believes in the rule “by the people for the people.” Mobs and factions can never take our sovereignty away from us.

An interview with the man whose coinage 'smart power' is much in use in diplomatic-strategic circles. Joseph S. Nye Jr. is a leading US political scientist. He is also a former dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and worked in various capacities with several American presidents. Nye is a prolific writer and has written over 13 books and over 150 critically acclaimed articles in professional and policy journals. 
 

China is often portrayed as a giant in the hard-power leagues of the economy, technology and the military. But when it comes to the country's soft power, China watchers have little optimism. As some analysts have pointed out that soft power is all in the mind, think tanks are important as a deliverer of soft power as they convey ideas.