opinion

Charles’s speech was almost an implicit reproach to the president’s own rambling, undisciplined public pronouncements. And in more than one way the address was pitched over the head of Trump.

The Congress has to blame itself. The party could not formulate a coordinated offensive to corner the ruling party. Except for token and individual statements from different leaders, the party did nothing to make the ruling party feel defensive. There was not a simple or even a standard demand asking the government to prove its majority on the floor of the house.

The global balance of power has shifted. The global south has both demography and economy on its side. The era of a Western-dominated world order is over. This is obvious, but it will take some time to sink in across the West.

Trump is known to admire the British royal family, describing the king as a “fantastic man”. Recent history suggests the king may even be one of the few people to whom Trump is willing to listen.

Apparently, realising that he could not build up a credible case against Justice Swarana Kanta, Kejriwal resorted to his characteristic way of subjecting his target to a media trial by writing a 2400-word letter to the judge, which is insinuatingly malicious and casts aspersions on her integrity without any concrete evidence and purely on the basis of fanciful assumption.

Trump’s attack on the Pope – indefensible for Meloni as someone who has defined herself as a Christian and whose party draws on a vast Catholic electorate – gave the Italian Prime Minister the exit she needed to signal her distance from Trump’s recent actions to voters.

Since the start of the war, a diverse resistance movement has worked to counter the Kremlin’s authoritarian practices and propaganda. It reflects a broader variety of voices, values and stances than is currently possible in Russia, offering a crucial insight into the future political aspirations and hopes of ordinary Russians.

Year after year, firearm violence and mass shootings have plagued the nation. Yet, one form, an instantaneous background check, locating a gun shop and selecting a firearm is all that stands between desiring a gun to acquiring a gun in some states in the US.

There are hundreds across Punjab, who have also fallen prey to drugs and violence. And that is the tragedy that has struck Punjab today from which it needs to be redeemed. Merely banning the ‘Lawrence of Punjab’ will not help in redeeming Punjab. That may be a momentary palliative treatment of the symptom. The actual scourge is too deep and needs radical surgery.

AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s reaction that these seven MPs and the BJP have “betrayed” Punjab and that the Punjabis will never forgive them does not hold any ground. Nor do such protestations resonate anywhere in Punjab, not even among the AAP cadres.

At the national level, yes it will be a grave setback for the AAP. However, except for ‘optics’, it will not make any difference to the fortunes of neither the AAP nor the BJP in Punjab. None of these MPs carries any political weight to alter any equations on the ground.

The people of Bengal, unequivocally, know how to celebrate the festival of democracy. And are 'simultaneously' volatile enough to defy the perceived calculation behind voter participation and mandate.