Gift Economy
Come September, when Japanese PM Shinzo Abe visits India, he will bring along a special birthday gift for Narendra Modi. On September 17, Modi’s birthday, Abe is expected to be in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to lay the foundation stone of Modi’s dream project—the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train. The 500-km high-speed train corridor, India’s first, will be built at the cost of Rs 1 lakh crore and use the Japan-origin shinkansen technology. It will be interesting to see what return gift Modi chooses to gives Abe, whose birthday follows just a few days later, on September 21!
Judgement Day
With less than a month to go for the appointment of the next Chief Justice of India, murmurs of dissent have begun at the Bar. A lawyers’ association, apparently disgruntled by collegium system’s opacity, has written to the President, the PM and MPs, asking them to intervene. As per custom, the outgoing CJI appoints the next senior most Supreme Court judge. The association,...

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