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Prime Minister Narendra Modi was slated to reply to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address at 4 pm on Tuesday. PM Modi must have spent the previous hours prepping for the reply which came nearly 24 hours after Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had set ablaze the Lok Sabha with his maiden speech as LoP. Some say the Prime Minister must have burned midnight oil overnight drafting the reply in his head. Rahul Gandhi did not leave him any option with a fiery address which brought both Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to their feet at different points in time, compelled to break the spell cast by the newly anointed LoP.

Indian cities are suffering from five-fold bottlenecks that prevent them realizing their full economic potential. Those are lack of common economic vision, challenges related to land supply, unintegrated urban planning and industrial infrastructure, inadequate institutional framework and capacity, and business-related policy and regulatory constraints.

It is almost a month since June 4 when Trinamool Congress emerged victorious in 29 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal out of the total of 42 trouncing the BJP which was reduced to 12 from the earlier 18. Since then, reports of clashes between TMC and the BJP cadres have been reported, but the most embarrassing moment for the ruling party was when a video surfaced featuring party strongman Tajimul Islam beating a couple for their alleged extramarital affairs at Chopra in Uttar Dinajpur district of the state. The incident took place at a salishi sabha, a mediation meeting and rightly evoked widespread outrage and condemnation in the state.

The monsoon season has set in, bringing much relief from months' scorching heat across the country. However, it has also brought about great trouble for big cities that see rainwater getting trapped and throwing normal life out of gear. Floods in some parts of the country are another thing to worry about at this point of time. A few days back, newly elected Members of Parliament shared photographs of their homes and neighbourhood streets inundated with muddy and filthy rainwaters in their Delhi homes. They were unable to walk out of their homes and take a flight to their cities and other safer locations. A few days back, Delhi was struggling with scarcity of clean drinking water as the supply from states upstream reportedly dwindled and failed to meet Delhi's soaring water needs in the peak summer.

WASHINGTON: Two things are clearer than ever after the first presidential debate. First, Trump is a fascist and a liar who can’t be allowed near the White House ever again. Second, despite Biden’s faltering performance as messenger, the task ahead of the people’s and labour movements is still the same: Block fascism in November.

With a record number of over 360 journalists detained in jail in more than 30 countries across the world mostly on the charges of espionage, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange must thank Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his stars to get himself freed after pleading guilty to violating the US espionage law, ending a 14-year-long legal battle. In a rare show of respect for and diplomatic solidarity with Australia, the US finally decided to pardon Assange. WikiLeaks was involved in the most controversial leaks of classified US military documents and videos from the war the country waged in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early part of this century highlighting abuse of prisoners in American custody, human rights violations and civilian deaths.

The results of the first round of French national elections held on June 30 are out on expected lines. The far right National Rally (RN) led by Marine Le Pen has got 34 per cent of the votes against the Leftist New Popular Front’s 29 per cent and President Emanuel Macron’s party at 20 per cent. Only few candidates with 50 per cent votes, will be elected in the first round. The fate of French democracy will be finally decided on July 7 in the second round when the candidates with maximum votes get elected.

India’s opposition has taken a new task in hand to restrain Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government from turning the country into a “police state”, as the later “lays foundation” for it by implementing the three new criminal laws form July 1, 2024. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has threatened, “INDIA will no longer allow this Bulldozer Justice.” Opposition has demanded a fresh and comprehensive review of the new criminal laws in the Parliament of India.

The 18th Lok Sabha has the potential for positive functioning. The Narendra Modi government said they wanted consensus. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought agreement and criticised the Opposition for causing problems. Modi stated that in his third term, his Government would aim to function in Parliament in consultations with the opposition.

US had a presidential TV debate on Thursday which was a major pointer at the kind of electoral contest in store. By that logic, the Americans are facing a senile person the incumbent President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee who cannot control his reflexes and responses, compared with the Republican rival Donald Trump who keeps lying and saying atrocious things.