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India and Bangladesh have signed several agreements during the recent visit of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India. These agreements cover various areas including connectivity, health, trade, energy, defense, maritime cooperation, and aid. One of the key agreements is Bangladesh agreeing to take part in India's $1 billion project for the comprehensive management and restoration of the Teesta River.

The left wing President of Bolivia foiled an attempt by the army generals of his government on Wednesday but the dissenting voices in the pro-government army ranks and the vertical split in the ruling party have made the political situation difficult for the incumbent President.

President Droupadi Murmu must have known the moment she woke up that she would be mentioning “my government” again and again when she addresses the joint session of Parliament. It is another presidential chore — addressing joint sessions of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, reading out aloud the speech written for her by the government of the day which she did on June 27.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have to undergo his first litmus test from July 1, the date scheduled for implementation of the three new criminal laws –The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) – on account of strong opposition from the various section of the society, including the State Bar Councils and Bar associations across the country and a demand for a comprehensive review by the Parliament of India, where the people of the country have just sent a very strong opposition. These laws will replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), and Indian Evidence Act (IEA).

Most states and union territories in India are gripped by hunger deprived of food, the only source of any strength that can keep them alive. In fact most of the regions fall in the worrisome category and very few fall in the moderate. There is hardly space left for those who could be placed in the lower category, and yet those in the alarming category, lowest and awaiting the end have crowded over everywhere. They all know that “No Hunger” target is still unreachable…while succumbing to darkness eternally. Each day, more than 25,000 among the masses from the lower depths get perished, that includes little more than 10,000 babies.

UNICEF Child Food poverty report 2024 has brought forward startling figures on child malnutrition in India. As per the report 40% of the country’s children suffer from severe food poverty and 36% with moderate to severe food poverty. Our rank is much below even from our south Asian neighbours with Pakistan at 38%, Bangladesh 20%, Nepal 8% children suffering from severe food poverty. The seven more worse off countries than us are Somalia (63 %), Guinea (54 %), Guinea-Bissau (53 %), Afghanistan (49 %), Sierra Leone (47%), Ethiopia (46 %) and Liberia (43 %).

Following the 1973 US-backed military coup in Chile, the country became a testing ground for neoliberal economics that was forcefully administered at the point of a bayonet. Fifty years later, on the other side of the Andes, Argentinian President Javier Milei is seeking to introduce sweeping economic reforms that make the Chilean model seem relatively tame by comparison. Unlike Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Milei did not seize power by force but was elected by a substantial majority in November of last year.

Julian Assange, easily the world’s most persecuted and famous journalist, is free at last. At the moment of writing this column, Assange is onboard a private plane that is costing him half a million dollars (which his family plans to pay off via crowd-funding donations appeal), to fly from Saipan, the capital of Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to Canberra, Australia, where his family awaits his return as a free man. His 14-year-long ordeal with the Anglo-American national security juggernaut that witch-hunted him most perniciously for his incredibly impactful guerilla journalism exposing countless crimes of the US-led “rules based order”, at last ends. However, the plea bargain that he was compelled to accept because of his failing mental and physical health, of pleading guilty to one count of felony under the obsolete US Espionage Act of 1917, exposes the ongoing injustice by the American empire of grotesque malfeasance.

The choice of Russia as the destination of the first official visit in his third term heading a coalition government is laden with symbolism and strategic implications, encompassing political messaging to coalition partners and a reinforcement of economic ties between India and Russia.

A new era has begun after a decade in the 18th Lok Sabha with election of Om Birla as Lok Sabha Speaker for the second term, who was welcomed jointly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi after shaking hands to the Chair of the House of the People. Having a Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the House after a decade signals ushering in the new era of “the opposition capable of holding the Modi 3.0 government accountable” for their decisions and actions.