Despite the prime minister’s track record of delivering insults, the BJP has seized upon a lumpen imprecation to mobilise support.

The furthest we have ever been from this point – at 17 minutes – was between 1991 and 1996. But escalating nuclear weapon preparations and nuclear threats by high officials of Russia and Israel have reset the doomsday clock.

'Beyond Liberalism' by Prabhat Patnaik is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the underlying assumptions that seem to guide our world, be it in the realms of policy, economy or politics.

This fact is also a convincing repudiation of those who claim that international human rights instruments are ‘Western’.