south asia
As relations between India and Pakistan continue to thaw, opportunities for contact and dialogue have increased across a variety of areas, including diplomacy, sport and the entertainment world. In one notable development, Indian screen legend Naseeruddin Shah embarked on a week-long visit to the neighbouring country, amid hopes that joint film, theatre and other performing arts productions could become a reality down the road.
Of the 158 countries the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) cover in their inaugural global terrorism index, only 31 have had no attacks in the ten years to 2011. Yet although attacks are distributed widely around the world, the majority are concentrated in just a handful of countries.
After investing tens of billions of dollars in Southeast Asia, China has now decided that its vaunted economic power, which has bought it significant influence with regional governments, is not enough. Beijing now wants to be loved, too. In this brave new world of Chinese diplomacy, language and culture -- and, yes, pop songs -- are playing a major role in Beijing's quest to be understood...
CPD Research Fellow 2011-13, Sarah Ellen Graham, pens the latest paper for the CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy series. Her research focuses on the bilateral relationship between the United States and India and culminates in her paper "Engaging India: Public Diplomacy and Indo-American Relations to 1957".
During her China tour, Begum Khaleda Zia sought Beijing's assistance in a number of economic projects in Bangladesh, including the second Padma Bridge, although the implementation of the first Padma Bridge is still hanging between certainty and uncertainty due to wrong policies of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League.
The Ethiopian Embassy in India has announced that it is to launch a Cultural and Tourism Center to introduce African culture to Indians in November 2012. It is expected that center is to be the first of its kind in India. The center is to be an indispensable element to promoting African values and Ethiopian culture in particular according to Metasebia Tadesse, Counselor for Political, Public Relations, Public Diplomacy.
It has been reported that Sri Lanka is expected to lobby the support of friendly US congressmen to defeat a resolution tabled in the House of Representatives on September 07 by seven congressmen demanding an international inquiry into alleged violations of the international humanitarian law during the military battle against the separatist/terrorist Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
"Today's India truly enjoys soft power, and that may well be the most valuable way in which it can offer leadership to the twenty-first-century world," says Tharoor in Pax Indica: India And The World Of The 21st Century which discusses India's international relationships.