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There is red alert in watered-out Kerala. Thousands are stranded on rooftops, and thousands more on/in “second floors”. Choppers are flying rescue sorties but many of the 'Mayday-Mayday' drown in air. Newspapers have stopped landing on stoops. If they do, they come rolled in watery weather. SOS to “water-proof television news” is unstoppable. TV news channels have no time for Atal Behari Vajpayee’s poetry. The tragedy at home doesn’t allow Delhi distractions.

The 72nd Independence Day was no different from the 71st or the 70th. That’s because the ‘Man’ on the ramparts of the Red Fort was the same who stood on August 15, 2014, ’15, ’16, ‘17 – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, often referred to as ‘Feku’ on social media. It isn’t slang which anyone would want to be saddled with. It says about you that you’re prone to throw empty words, make idle boasts and are generally unreliable.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: These are not frightening frames from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. These are shocking sights of a real-life tragedy unfolding its horrors. And it has been the lot of God’s Own Country to witness it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi coined a new phrase ‘Minimum Government; Maximum Governance’ in 2014. Recently in his ‘mann ki baat’ radio address, he said good governance is the birthright of every Indian citizen like swaraj (independence) and we should have it.

In VS Naipaul’s death, Hindutva has lost an icon. It is an irreparable loss, for there is unlikely to be any other Nobel laureate who will echo BJP MLA Sangeet Som’s view on the Taj Mahal as a “blot on our culture”. Like the UP legislator who said that the monument was built by “traitors”, Naipaul saw the Taj as “an extravagance that speaks of the blood of the people” at a time when “North” (India) saw “mosque on temple; ruin on ruin”.

In the wake of the Independence Day address of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the publication of an opinion poll of a news channel that the Congress has good chance of regaining all the three states- Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in the coming assembly elections, the highest level of the BJP leadership is seriously thinking of proponing the Lok Sabha poll to December this year coinciding with the assembly elections.

James Hadley Chase wrote ‘Fear is the Key’ – a thriller which featured a Red Indian protagonist who, to get going on a career in crime and rake in dollars, came to the conclusion that the key to ransom is to put the fear of death in people with cash to spare. But how do you inject fear? The answer: How about killing a couple of fat cats? With that sort of blood-sport, safes will open!

NDTV also stings. Till the other day it was thought stings are only Cobrapost. But NDTV anchor Nidhi Razdan wants Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold a press conference, “like prime ministers of all democratic countries hold.” This after Modi gave an “email interview” to questions newspapers mailed.

The moves by Amit Shah, the so-called Chanakya of BJP, are no more invincible and his charisma is on the decline. Recent defeats of his party at the by-polls have shaken his confidence. It is perhaps this sense of loss that has prompted his frequent Kolkata visits.

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments