Today, Americans are terrified of a pandemic virus whose infection rate has spiked up again. With just four percent of the world’s population, the US already has a quarter of the world’s Covid-19 deaths.
China loomed large over the in-person visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Mark T Esper to New Delhi on October 26-27.
The American project was founded on rank hypocrisies. On the one hand, President Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the stirring words in the Declaration of Independence that upheld “these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”, did not free his own slaves (not even Sally Hemings, who bore him six children).
Think about this, almost half of Americans thinks he’s handling this pandemic swimmingly according to a recent CNN poll that puts him closer to 45 percent.
“Extraordinary times require extraordinary solutions”—that is how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi summed up the worldwide response to the coronavirus pandemic during a video conference on March 30 with the heads of all of India’s embassies and high commissions across the globe.
As the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic shifts from China to the developed West, all too many rich countries are acting selfishly, invoking the “national interest”, by banning exports of vital medical supplies.
The fight in this week’s Democratic primaries may have been about who confronts Donald J Trump in November’s US presidential election, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden.
After staying away from the heat and dust of gruelling summer electioneering and leaving the job of fronting the Congress Party’s campaign to her son Rahul and daughter Priyanka, Sonia Gandhi is back to doing what she does best—coalition-building—even before the last votes in India’s parliamentary polls are cast today and results declared four days later. The purpose: to stop the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from recapturing power in the event of a clear majority eluding the saffron party and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by it.
The first half of May saw the South African general elections making headlines in all of the major international news channels. From political analysts to economists, everyone was having their say about the difficult path the African National Congress (ANC), especially its leader Cyril Ramaphosa, was having to navigate to win people’s vote. The reason?
Since Donald Trump took charge of the White House, it did not take long for him to demonstrate that he will implement his many quixotic, disruptive and reckless ideas on a range of foreign policy and global issues.
When polling in India’s parliamentary elections concludes on Sunday (May 19), the entire national focus will be firmly on nine remaining constituencies out of total of 42 in West Bengal even though voting will also take place in some other states, including Uttar Pradesh, electorally the most crucial state.
A supporter of the current dispensation in the United States with President Donald Trump at its helm, may be forgiven if he or she were to view the contemporary world through the lens of the above doggerel of a 19th century compatriot, William Wendell Holmes. For such a viewer, it would have looked a wonderful world some years ago. Everything was going right for America. There was the perception of it as the sole hyper-power, and one that was largely seen as benign. Thereafter, through the mechanism of America’s complex political system, its people put a new man on horseback to run it.
It’s Ramadan in Gaza. This year, it is punctuated by scarcity and fear, rather than feast and celebration. For many families in Gaza, this will be a month of mourning. Twenty-nine Palestinians were killed during last weekend’s fierce Israeli military assault, including two pregnant women and an infant just a few months old. The night before the holy month began, flashes of light penetrated the dark sky as Israel dropped bombs on us yet again.
Indians can feel proud that they have been able to nurture democracy since the inception of their independence. Today after the nation has practiced democracy practically unbroken for seven decades,
Venezuela is in a limbo. The country has two presidents fighting over legitimacy; two superpowers eying its rich oil fields and gold mines; an economy that is on the verge of collapse with inflation reaching one million percent and external debt shattering the roof at more than 175 percent of GDP; and an unfolding humanitarian crisis that has forced more than three million people to flee to neighbouring countries seeking refuge.
On a trip to Ethiopia in the 1990s, I met with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to try to persuade him to stop jailing journalists. Since Meles’s guerillas had ousted a repressive Soviet-backed dictatorship a few years before, there had been an explosion of exuberant and sometimes wildly inaccurate little newspapers, many of them attacking Meles.
The Indian general election, being held in seven phases, will have its sixth round of polling today, on May 12. Five phases of voting have already been completed, in which the fate of 425 constituencies was decided.
