A Tomb Stone of a Jewish serviceman served in Ceylon

Jewish Footprints and Connections that Shaped Sri Lanka’s History

Today, the Chabad Houses in Colombo and on Sri Lanka's southern coast have attracted considerable attention amid a rise in anti-Semitic incidents and rhetoric. It is noteworthy that Colombo once had an active synagogue, which served as a regular place of worship for British Jewish servicemen World War II

Repositioning India as the Capital of Buddhist Tourism: A Blueprint for a Global Destination

Buddhist tourism as an important tool of India’s soft power. The shared Buddhist heritage can help develop cultural ties with Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Mongolia, South Korea, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, and several other Buddhist-majority nations through cooperation in archaeology, monk-to-monk dialogues, youth programs, academic exchanges, and cultural festivals

Mohenjo-daro’s ‘Dancing Girl’: The Silence Surrounding Women in Public History

Mohenjo-daro offers South Asia an opportunity to look backwards without dividing the past into national possessions, and to recognise that the region’s cultural memory is older and more interconnected than its modern inheritors.

How a Film by a Boston-Based Immigrant is Dismantling the Model-Minority Concept

Jam Boy represents a much-needed question for the South Asia diaspora, about why it takes a third aggressor for us to see the common struggles that we share, and why it is only in these situations that we remember that our ideas of home are the same.

More on Soft Power, Culture and Society

Literary festivals are flourishing in Pakistan; interest in native literature waning

Pakistani writers are not only writing about love and romance, but also on feminism, religion, culture, socio-political, ethnic, and identity issues.

Hockey, friendship, Partition, and the pangs of separation: Old Lahore remembered through a documentary

Every scene in this intimately filmed documentary tugs at the heartstrings. The pain of separation felt so palpable to me that I wept with the characters.

Millets in gastronomic glory at five-course UN luncheon to promote 'humble foodgrain'

Jaishankar told reporters before the luncheon that he hoped to “familiarise the members of the Security Council” with “all the virtues of millets”.

Illuminating forgotten pasts: English translations of Ghalib’s Chirag-e-Dair

The rediscovery of Ghalib in the English translation of Chirag-e-Dair as a modern cosmopolitan man who can appreciate the port town of Calcutta, find spirituality in the Hindu temple town of Banaras, and firmly situate himself in Persianate traditions of West Asia opens up a history of cultural exchange to the contemporary South Asian reader

India, Bangladesh bolstering ties through Silchar-Sylhet Festival

The Silchar-Sylhet festival aimed at strengthening the longstanding bonds of friendship between the two neighboring nations, which share a wide range of complementary traditions, cultures, and other things.  The festival once again demonstrated the closeness between India and Bangladesh, and improved mutual understanding.

Colombo's iconic Lighthouse Clock Tower is a silent sentinel of time

This is the story of the beginning of the oldest clock tower in Asia and the only lighthouse clock tower in the world.

'Made like a Gun':Romancing the Royal Enfield Bullet in the service of the Indian Armed Forces

The record-breaking Tornadoes display team of the Army Service Corps was formed in 1982, debuting at the 9th Asian Games in New Delhi. It has since participated in more than 1,000 major international and national events, always riding Royal Enfield Bullets. 

US returns looted antiquities to India, Pakistan

The network supplied the international art market with stolen antiquities from countries including, but not limited to, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, the prosecutor's office said.

The amazing adventures of a Lithuanian scholar in the Indian subcontinent

The re-connection with Poska, in many ways, underlines the deep-rooted connectivity between the Indian sub-continent and Eurasia along with the eastern and central parts of Europe, much of which remains forgotten or ignored.

Humorous ghost stories in Bengali literature: Connecting oral literature tradition to the modern digital age

Over the years, these relate to representations of various regions of eastern India and, at times, the extended and larger region of erstwhile Bengal, including the present country of Bangladesh. Many of these stories also help to understand how identities are constructed across time and space in folklore and in written literature.

Bollywood’s first faltering steps abroad: The challenges of shooting of Africa mein Hind(1939-1940)

Seth Govind Das invited Basu to direct a movie based on Indian connectivity with Africa.

A light-hearted film with pan-South Asian resonance

Though these themes are presented to us in an Indian setting, they resonate with the larger South Asian context where middle-class women often find themselves similarly weighed down within domesticity, doing unacknowledged and unpaid physical and emotional work in their homes.

Rare cross-border bonding: Indian, Pakistani journalists in Nepal break misinformation barriers

“The most important legacy of the gathering is the lifelong relationships formed by journalists from Pakistan and India. Those relationships will translate into fact-based reporting on issues important to the future of both countries.”

Indian cricket star Virat Kohli makes a specially-abled Pakistani fan's day in Dubai

Noor’s patience paid off as Kohli, after he got to know about her, came to see her after India’s training session got over. Kohil met Noor and her family and clicked pictures with them

Nepal’s honey hunters find traditional livelihood under threat from 'development'

Overharvesting is not the only threat to the Himalayan giant honeybee. Across the Nepal Himalayas, earth-blasting and the construction of roads and dams is impacting the fragile mountain ecosystem