The 12th yearly ‘Chiranthana-UAE Exchange Media Awards’ were recently given to four Indian journalists working in the UAE’s print, TV and radio media. The four award winners were selected for their contribution to the welfare of the Indian expatriate community in the UAE, by airing their woes and grievances in effective ways that helped the poor and low-income sections of society.

On his second day in New Delhi, Vice President Biden met with Indian leaders to discuss the increasingly important bilateral relationship between our two countries. In meetings with Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari and others, Vice President Biden emphasized a range of opportunities for our countries to work more closely together on issues such as economic growth, trade, energy and climate change, security and investments in innovation and education.

In a South Delhi neighborhood, the sound of a man reciting Dari, a Farsi dialect spoken in Afghanistan, over a loudspeaker attached to a modest two-story building rose over the din of vegetable hawkers. The building was a church run by Afghan refugees who had converted to Christianity. The man was a young Afghan priest reading the Bible before a Sunday service in its basement.

Last month’s U.S.-India strategic dialogue in New Delhi was widely viewed as a failure. As Ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan, a former Indian diplomat, put it, “The India-US Strategic dialogue, by all accounts, accomplished little….

This is a stark contrast to the stories of India's economic rise that have dominated headlines for the past decade. Many in India have been lifted from poverty, and the middle class has greatly expanded, as have the ranks of millionaires and billionaires. Yet extreme poverty is still a problem, and India has not been as successful as some other developing countries when it comes to reducing childhood illnesses and mortality.

Three BBC correspondents based in three of India's largest cities have complained to the corporation's director-general, Tony Hall, about the size of their redundancy offers. Ram Dutt Tripathi, who works in Lucknow, Mohammed Omer Farooq (Hyderabad) and Manikant Thakur (Patna) have asked why they are not entitled to the same pay-off terms as other BBC staff.

Holy Stoked, a small collective based in Bangalore, is working to create a community of skaters in a country where many people have never even seen a skateboard. Parks are important to any young skate scene—especially in places without great street spots—so Holy Stoked cofounders Shake and Soms reached out to Levi’s about teaming up to build a park in Bangalore. Lo and behold the jeans giant agreed to help.

India’s global ambitions have grown remarkably over the past decade. However, questions are being raised about the capacity of its diplomatic corps to act as an effective catalyst in India’s transformation to a global power. Analysts are asking whether the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) has the numerical strength to project India’s influence in a manner befitting an emerging power. Do its officers have the expertise to engage in the kind of complex diplomacy that is required of a global power?