Tag: International Yoga Day

Cultural diplomacy poised for a bigger role, to promote Brand India: ICCR chief Amarendra Khatua

- by Manish Chand

Politics divides, culture connects. In Shanghai, a pact was signed between India and China to recreate Raj Kapoor’s 1951 classic Awaara into a contemporary Chinese opera.
Amarendra Khatua, the new director-general of Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), who was in Shanghai to deliver the keynote address at the 18th China Shanghai International Arts Festival (CSIAF), struck an upbeat note on long-standing civilisational ties and promoting cultural exchanges in Tier-II and Tier-III cities in India and China. The joint theatrical remake of Awaara, which remains the most popular Indian movie in China, hints at more such collaborative cultural tie-ups India is set to pursue in days to come.
“Cultural diplomacy is poised to play a bigger role in India’s foreign policy calculus in days and months to come and promote Brand India,” said Khatua, a veteran diplomat who is also famous as an accomplished poet who writes and translates in English, Hindi and other Indian languages.

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The Great Indian Yoga Show: Projecting soft power across continents

- by Manish Chand

It promises to be a spectacular show, inviting the world to revitalize its sinews through the ancient Indian practice of yoking body, mind and spirit. With barely days to go for the first International Yoga Day, the Indian government is leaving no stone unturned to showcase the country’s greatest soft power export to a global audience, cutting across hemispheres and continents.

The UN will commemorate the inaugural edition of International Yoga Day on June 21, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Sam Kutesa in attendance. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will represent India at the event, commemorating the first International Day of Yoga at the UN Headquarters in New York. It will be broadcast live at Times Square, the pulsating heart of Manhattan, to a global audience.

Showcasing Soft Power

In a curtain-raiser media event giving a peek into an array of events lined up to celebrate this high moment in yoga’s global journey, Sushma Swaraj eloquently described yoga as “the soft power of India” which can usher in lasting peace for a violence-wracked world.

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India banks on yoga export: Blending soft power and commerce

- by India Writes Network

India is banking on the global popularity of yoga to cash in on the success of its most famous cultural export. In the recently unveiled new Foreign Trade Policy, yoga has been included under the services export section, a move that shows the government’s enterprise in leveraging its soft power.

The trade policy focus on the ancient Indian discipline of wellness has come in the run-up to a host of events India will be hosting for celebrations relating to the International Day of Yoga on June 21, a pioneering step that was possible only with India’s proactive diplomacy.

The new trade policy aspires to make India a star player in world trade by 2020 – currently Asia’s third largest economy accounts just about 2% of global trade.

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UN reform process has acquired a critical mass: India’s UN envoy

- by India Writes Network

The United Nations will turn 70 in 2015. But the world body is increasingly looking like a relic of the past and is badly in need of reform to stay relevant amid the ceaseless flux in geopolitics in the 21st century. Amid the defining shift of power from the west to the rest and the emergence of India on the global stage, the case for the reform and expansion of the UN Security Council has become all the more urgent. In his maiden address at the UNGA, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a robust pitch for reform of the UNSC to “make it more democratic and participative.” “Institutions that reflect the imperatives of 20th century won’t be effective in the 21st century. The world in the 21st century has changed and will be changing at a faster pace. It becomes imperative that we formulate according to the changing times and new ideas of 21st century to sustain our relevance,” Mr Modi told delegates at the 69th session of the UNGA.
In this free-wheeling interview with Manish Chand, Editor-in-Chief of India Writes Network (www.indiawrites.org) in New York, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Asoke Kumar Mukherji speaks about India’s strategy for accelerating the reform of the UNSC, the enthusiastic support for India’s candidature for a permanent seat in the powerful council and the way ahead on Prime Minister Modi’s initiative to get the UN to designate an International Yoga Day.

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