TheJaggi

Rogue state meets dumb Europe: How the US and Europe are destroying their own power  By R Jagannathan Barely one year after the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the United States of America increasingly appears to fit the definition of "Rogue State", and Europe is emerging as a "dumb orphan" unable to separate its own core interests from stupid political posturing. Hegemons usually do not need to break the rules, for most rules would have been made by themselves in their interest. When they do break their own rules, they claim high principle as motivating their actions (eg, the US invasion of Iraq based on dubious intelligence, ostensibly to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction, or Nato's 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia without UN approval, ostensibly to prevent the Serbs from ethnically cleansing Kosovans, to name just two instances).  Usually, though, hegemons just promise something - promises they don't intend to keep ...

It is one thing to ask Governors in opposition-ruled states to not play politics and sit on bills passed by legislatures, quite another to mess around with constitutional provisions and convert the judiciary into the final arbiter on all matters. The recent verdict of a two-judge bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, which heard petitions of the Tamil Nadu government against Governor RN Ravi’s tendency to delay sanctions on bills passed by the state legislature, serves the purpose sending a message that Governors cannot substitute their wisdom for that of elected legislators. Equally, one cannot but point out that the courts have no business telling other constitutional functionaries what they must or must not do, and in what timeframe, when the constitution itself does not prescribe any such thing.  If there is a sense that Governors are over-reaching, the remedy for it lies in the political sphere and not the courts. Governments that think they are being single...