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.

APDS Blogger: Rajesh Mirchandani

For anyone who is Indian-born, as I am, the chance to see Ravi Shankar perform is akin to an audience with the Pope for Catholics – and perhaps even harder to accomplish. This one-off show at the Disney Hall had been scheduled for October last year and postponed twice - due, the press release said, to “illness and visa complications” (a public diplomacy blunder for U.S. immigration?).

The Commonwealth, too, has an opportunity by virtue of its strengths to carve out a new role for itself in the world...It is not an alliance or a trading area.... But it is a soft power network that represents the realities of our changing world and is underused. We intend to seize this opportunity in Perth.

Due to failures of civilian institutions, many soldiers have become de facto nation-builders, anthropologists, and public diplomats. They were not, in many cases, trained for these missions. But they were the only option—albeit an expensive and inefficient one.

Australia should grasp the chance to play a critical role in fostering so-called soft power connections between India and China, thereby boosting its international standing as well as regional harmony. That is the rationale behind the new Soft Power Advocacy and Research Centre at Macquarie University, launched last week.

Whatever became of President Barack Obama’s vaunted foreign policy czars, who were to transform America’s international relations through soft power diplomacy? The answer is nothing good. One by one the czars have fallen by the wayside, leaving a trail of bureaucratic irritation and diplomatic failure behind them.

China has cultivated a delicate foreign policy toward the Southeast Asian region over the years. It initially followed soft-power diplomacy...This "feel-good factor" paid dividends as it helped China to sign a code of conduct on the dispute of the South China Sea with the contending parties.

More than 300 of the Communist Party’s most powerful leaders met in Beijing and discussed ways of boosting the nation’s “cultural soft power”: an admission that for all the country’s economic prowess it lacks the magnetic draw of a country like America.