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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: He came He saw. But he failed to conquer. That broadly sums up the much-hyped-up three-day mission of BJP president Amit Shah to Kerala.

LUCKNOW: The recent visit of CM Yogi Adityanath to Ayodhya has made it clear that BJP and the saffron brigade would keep the temple issue alive for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s four-nation Europe tour that ended on June 3 couldn’t have possibly been better timed. A series of global events — from deadly terrorist attacks in the UK and Afghanistan and President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement — coinciding with the prime minister’s diplomatic mission only strengthened his resolve seeking stronger bi-lateral and multilateral cooperation on security, economy and environment protection. Almost toeing Modi’s meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, last week, was Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, seeking to push China and European Union closer. It was in a week during which a Europe-US rift on the Paris pact and other issues, including NATO funding by members, seemed to widen. Both Modi and Li Keqiang pledged their full commitment to the Paris agreement. Nearly 200 countries agreed to the 2016 Paris pact to curb climate-changing emissions. After President Trump’s announcement last week, the US joined a very rarified club outside the climate agreement with just two other members, Syria and Nicaragua.

Kashmir is again in the news. In fact, it always is. Mainstream media generally provides the official version, except in rare cases. Kashmir is really burning.

Indian Muslims know their future lies in jamooriyat—democracy. “No one can change the Indian Constitution. And, till then we are safe”, they say.

Nitish Kumar, who stayed away from Congress president Sonia Gandhi's May 26 luncheon for Opposition leaders, was unconvincing in his clarification after his lunch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hosted in honour of visiting Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, that no political meaning should be read into a meeting between a chief minister and the Prime Minister.

The irony of the United States President Donald Trump announcement during a White House Rose Garden briefing on Thursday that his country would exit from the historic Paris climate agreement designed to reducing carbon emissions to slow climate change is not lost on the rest of the universe. The world has been fully alive to this sort of a bull in a China shop behaviour ever since Trump assumed office as he began systematically questioning the superpower voluntarily shouldering responsibility for universal common good when the rest of the world is either reluctant or curmudgeon in bearing or sharing the big burden!

The demonetisation might have boosted the credibility and stature of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and his NDA government in the eyes of the common Indian, particularly the urban middle class but it has miserably failed do enhance the economic standing of the country in the global arena.

BHOPAL: Strange and unprecedented incidents are happening in the Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party. These include refusal by a senior party leader to resign from the Ministry though he has been elected to the Lok Sabha and has taken oath as a member, another minister being served a non-bailable warrant in connection with a murder case and the serving of an externment notice to a district level BJP leader, who happens to be the son of a former minister. In another highly embarrassing incident, a cabinet minister and a BJP member of parliament publicly exchanged abuses over the sensational disclosure of a sex racket allegedly run by a middle-level BJP worker.

The NDA government is in the month-long mirthful mood, celebrating the completion of three years in office as it has been able to deliver a taint-free government for a nation that had been painfully inured to the sorry spectacle of a scam after scam tumbling out of the cupboards of the erstwhile UPA government that held office for more than a decade! Though comparisons could be odious between UPA and NDA, as the latter focused more on presenting a clean image even with an intimidating presence of a single leader at the helm in a democracy, the apparently tranquil landscape does not mean everything is hunky-dory and that most of the nation’s problems including legacy ones and the new normal of promoting personality cult can be ignored.