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It is a strange coincidence that on a day Supreme Court ordered the Union and state governments to come up with a law against “the horrendous acts of mobocracy”, the Hindu vigilantes were busy thrashing Swami Agnivesh and making him immobile in Jharkhand’s Litipara. This was happening just as the SC said that the “recurrent pattern of violence cannot be allowed to become the new normal”.

LUCKNOW: BSP national president and former chief minister Mayawati is preparing to launch herself as a potential Opposition candidate for the prime ministerial post for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Thiruvananthapuram Congress MP Shashi Tharoor survived a lynching in his constituency the other day when vandals attacked his office. He was not present when BJP youth-wing cadre ransacked and threw black oil all over the place. Activist Swami Agnivesh was not as lucky. He was set upon and given a thrashing in Jharkhand. But he, too, survived though he will carry mental scars.

While writing on the occasion of the 75th birth anniversary of Dr. Raj Bahadur Gour, famous Urdu satirist Mujtaba Hussain wondered how Dr. Gour had turned to be 75 and was much senior to him. He thought somebody must be joking as Dr. Gour himself never appeared to be so senior. That perfectly reflects the jovial nature of Dr. Gour. With him I had the opportunity to work and interact for over three decades while being a functionary of Ajoy Bhavan, the headquarters of the Communist Party of India in Delhi. I too never thought that his birth centenary will be celebrated during my life time.

The seventh review of China’s trade policies and practices held under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva on July 11 to 13 highlighted the Middle Kingdom’s growing clout and heft in the global economy ever since it became a member of the WTO way back in 2001. Being the world’s biggest merchandise trader and one of the larger recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI), its commercial engagement with the rest of the world counts a lot for the health and wealth of the world economy, particularly at a time when implacable insular elements and parochial protectionist policies hold sway in most of the advanced countries, led by the United States under the mercurial Donald Trump presidency.

Indications are that the Congress may once again return to the days of economic populism and an anti-American foreign policy favoured by Sonia Gandhi when the party was in power.

In the 2006 and 2012 elections, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO as he is widely known, was a clear winner in his back-to-back bids for the presidency, but voter fraud was rampant and the right-wing candidate was declared the winner in both cases. On his third bid, however, people were prepared for any and all attempts at voter fraud, with widespread efforts to defend electoral integrity. Voters were even told that if the right wing tries to buy their vote, take the money but cast a ballot for the coalition that included López Obrador’s MORENA (National Rejuvenation Movement), anyway.

The conservative right in the country values ‘true Indian values’ even if to find what those values are requires travelling back in time to the Vedic Age or sit down with Union minister Dr Satyapal Singh, who denies with vehemence that he did not descend from the apes!

At long last, the gloves have finally come off in the highly intriguing political face-off between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal. Three statements and two recent visits by Union ministers to Kolkata, slamming the Bengal government for its less than stellar administrative record, provided evidence that the central BJP leaders felt they have had enough of TMC’s tantrums. With the 2019 Lok Sabha elections approaching, TMC can no longer count on Mamata Banerjee’s self-proclaimed ‘personal equation’ with Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj or Arun Jaitley to stop BJP hardliners from gunning for her.

India-US relations have always had a roller-coaster ride despite being two largest democracies in the world. This has become more pronounced after US President Donald Trump took over because of his mercurial nature.