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Nepal Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli paid a five-day official visit to China from June 19. Before going into an analysis of that visit and its import and impact on Nepal, India and China relationship, it may be useful to take a brief look at an important development in the internal politics of Nepal in the immediate past.

Howsoever, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his colleagues may abuse Indira Gandhi, compare her to Hitler, to mark the 43rd anniversary of Emergency, she remains the most popular leader of India. If BJP leaders think they can get votes by recalling days of Emergency and accusing Indira Gandhi of turning the country into dynastic democracy, they are sadly mistaken. Modi has, however, made Emergency the centre-piece of his counter attack on the Congress: “Your grandmother imposed Emergency, and you have cheek to call me a dictator!”, he told Rahul Gandhi.

The Pakistani government’s removal of a virulently anti-Shiite militant from its terrorism list at the very moment that an international money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog was deciding to put the country on a watch list, highlights Pakistan’s struggle to come to grips with militancy.

“What the hell’s going on?” Resentment and bitterness have taken hold of the once redoubtable Arun Shourie. He says “we are so callous. We’re demoralizing the army. They’re endangering the lives of soldiers this way.” Retired army generals do not think the ‘leak’ endangers soldiers. The decision to release video-proof must have been taken with the army’s permission. Shourie cannot be such a babe in the woods to assume otherwise.

I do not hold any brief for Indira Gandhi as far as her decision to impose Emergency is concerned. There is no doubt that the Emergency period will be recorded as a black chapter in the democratic history of the country. But certainly I have every reason to differ with Arun Jaitley when he compares Indira Gandhi with Hitler.

For BSP supremo Mayawati the 2019 Lok Sabha election is an opportunity to consolidate her grip on the dalits and untouchables of Uttar Pradesh and resuscitate her own image as a dalit champion. Unfortunately her impulsive political actions of the past have given her a negative hue.

In news U.S. workers won’t like to hear, particularly those in Midwestern industrial states that saw their jobs and plants decamp south of the border, some two-thirds of Mexicans support a new North American Free Trade Agreement. Some of that support seems to be coming from people in that country who are so angry at President Trump that they are inclined to back whatever it is that he opposes. Also in support of a new NAFTA is Mexico’s leading presidential contender, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known by his initials, AMLO.

“What the hell’s going on?” Once journalist-now-dissident-BJP-leader Arun Shourie labels Indian Army’s ‘surgical strikes’ “farjical/farcical strikes” and the next day – 636 days after the army’s special forces struck and decimated terrorist launch pads in POK – television news channels are awash with video proof of the strikes with “boisterous and elated” TV anchors demanding that every Rahul, Nirupam, Arvind and Doubting Yechury “apologize” for not believing the army.

The monsoon session of Parliament beginning on July 18 is expected to see sharpest confrontation between the BJP and the Congress led opposition making the smooth functioning of the proceedings of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha impossible. Right now, the political temperature has hottened so much that any talk of cooperation being mentioned by the ruling party leaders for passing the bills, is being dealt with contempt by the Congress and the other opposition leaders. The Congress President Rahul Gandhi is in a most foul mood vis a vis the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and he is looking for any opportunity to hit back at the PM. Mr. Modi and the senior BJP leaders open diatribes against the Gandhi family, have widened the area of confrontation and in all possibility, the coming Parliament session, will be a victim of that.

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