A new publication Communicating India's Soft Power - Buddha to Bollywood, by Daya Kishan Thussu discusses India's rising soft power and places it within a historical context. It presents an analysis of India's cultural influence outside the country.

In recent years, India has emerged as a major economic and political power: on the basis of purchasing-power parity, it was the world's third largest economy in 2013. Yet the country's cultural influence outside India has not been adequately analyzed in academic discourses.

As the world's largest democracy with a vibrant and pluralist media system, India offers an excellent case study of the power of culture and communication in the age of mediated international relations. This book, a pioneering attempt, from an international communication/media perspective, is aimed to fill the existing gap in scholarship in this area. The discussion of India's rising soft power is located within a historical context, thus problematizing the notion of Soft Power itself. The book will be aimed at university courses on global media/international relations/area studies – among others.

The author, Daya Kishan Thussu, is Professor of International Communication and Co-Director of India Media Centre, University of Westminster, London.

The book is part of the Global Public Diplomacy Series and is available to order from Palgrave Macmillan