The hockey heads of Pakistan and India are attempting to renew ties later this year in the wake of last month's successful "cricket diplomacy." Efforts are underway between the federations of the two countries, who have not played in a bilateral series since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, to play matches in both countries.

A group of 17 North Korean taekwondo performers will visit the United States from late next month through early June to present the Korean traditional martial art to an American audience, according to the Voice of America, a U.S.-funded radio broadcaster.

Football authorities, from Fifa to the FA, are keen to argue that the sport is a benign force, an agent of positive social transformation even. They portray football as the universal game for a global world, an instrument of soft power and peaceful diplomacy and a device for overcoming social divisions.

In their quest to accord further impetus to ties between Indian and Pakistan after cricket diplomacy somewhat thawed them, the hockey honchos of the two countries are mulling giving another push to the bilateral relations later this year.

Speakers at a seminar titled “Cricket Diplomacy Makes a Difference” welcomed people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan on sports and cultural activities to defuse traditional tension between the governments of both the countries.

Sources in the government said that India would most likely send its cricket team first to Pakistan and then Pakistani team could tour India. “As the current season is all full and packed, it is for the BCCI to find a schedule that will suit both the countries..." the sources said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s invitation to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to watch the Cricket World Cup semi-final between the two countries is not quite a googly — cricket diplomacy has been used in the past — but can something come of the gesture?