The United States and Iran have signed an initial memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at ending more than three months of war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and launching a 60-day push for a permanent settlement, in a breakthrough that carries direct consequences for India's energy security. US President Donald Trump signed the document late on Wednesday, 17 June, at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, on the margins of this week's Group of Seven (G7) summit in France. Video released by French President Emmanuel Macron showed Trump signing the text. Asked by a reporter as he left Versailles, Trump confirmed it was signed and called the agreement hard-won. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed separately, according to Iranian state media. The Islamic Republic News Agency and the state broadcaster IRIB published an image early on Thursday showing Pezeshkian holding up a copy bearing his signature. The prime minister of Pakistan, which mediate...
The Cockroach Janata Party: How a Judge's Courtroom Remark Became India's Fastest-Growing Political Movement
On the morning of 15 May 2026, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant was presiding over what should have been a routine Supreme Court hearing on the designation of senior advocates. Referring to people without formal employment or professional standing, he said: "There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don't get any employment or have any place in a profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists and they start attacking everyone." By nightfall, the words had become the most talked-about phrase in India's digital public square. By the following morning, they had spawned a political party. The Remark and the Response A day after the comment went viral, Justice Surya Kant issued a clarification, saying his criticism was directed at individuals who had entered the legal profession using fraudulent degrees, not the country's youth in general. He called India's young people the "pillars of a developed I...