India, Pakistan to boost cultural ties, but movies ban on

India and Pakistan Friday agreed to accelerate people-to-people contacts through greater cultural exchange in diverse areas, including education, tourism and sports, but failed to achieve a breakthrough on the screening of films.

"The two sides underlined the importance of interaction in the field of culture and related areas as a part of efforts to expand people-to-people contacts and agreed to work on the modalities of proposals identified by them," said a joint statement at the end of two-day talks here between Indian Culture Secretary Badal Das and his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas.

Das and Abbas discussed an entire gamut of issues aimed at promoting friendly exchanges between India and Pakistan that included proposals for cooperation in the fields of arts and culture, education, medicine, archaeology, tourism, youth affairs, sports and media.

But despite the "cordial atmosphere" at the talks, the two countries failed to achieve a breakthrough on the long-standing Indian demand for lifting a ban on screening Bollywood movies in Pakistan.

India has responded positively to a request to hold a festival of Pakistani films, but the modalities and dates are yet to be worked out. There was, however, no official confirmation and the proposal doesn't even find mention in the joint statement.

The Pakistani delegation also called on Indian Tourism Minister Ambika Soni and discussed steps to promote tourism between the two countries.

Source: Xinhua