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September 11 was also a day of terror—in Chile in 1973. “I’ve been through this before,” Chilean author Ariel Dorfman wrote of the 2001 U. S. terror day. “The world will never be the same,” he recalls Chileans saying after their September 11.

Jocko Street returned from the front door all smiles and lollipop lore written all over his ruddy face. Alex Smart on holiday asked why all the glamour at 11 in the morning and Jocko did his li’l-bow routine, waving a folded something in his hand. “This Sir, in my hand is democracy, people’s power at work, Arvind doing his magic!”

Last week Nepal signed a Transit and Transport Agreement with China which will give the land-locked country access to four Chinese seaports. These are: Tianjin (3276 kms from Nepal), Liyanyugang (3379 kms), Shengzen (3064 kms) and Shenjiang (2755 kms). As against these, the Kolkata seaport which had all along served as the port for all imports by Nepal, is just 775 kms away.

After months of speculations that were not entirely unjustified, Justice Ranjan Gogoi is at last set to adorn judicial firmament as the 46th Chief Justice of India (CJI). The incumbent CJI, Dipak Misra has officially recommended the name of Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, as his successor.Finally, this clears the dark clouds of doubt that had surrounded Justice Gogoi’s appointment as the next CJI ever since his participation in the unprecedented January 12, 2018 press conference by the four senior-most justices— in which they had questioned the administrative functioning of the present CJI, Dipak Misra. Justice Gogoi will take over as CJIon October 3, 2018 and will remain in office till November 17, 2019.

Amit Shah says the BJP will rule for 50 years, i.e., till 2069 from 2019. By then Amit Shah will be history as will Narendra Modi along with an entire generation. Whether Modi and Shah get to become statues on the Sabarmati will depend on whether 50 years is time enough for the BJP to reverse Nehruvian socialism and transplant it with a ‘Hindu soul’. Note that 50 years is less than the 70+ so far after Independence.

Uncertain electoral prospect has caused trepidation to the BJP top leadership, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his close aide Amit Shah and the element of desperation was manifest in his speech at the executive meet of the party in Delhi. Though the senior leaders continued to eulogise and repose faith in Modi’s leadership, they took the extraordinary decision to let Shah continue as party president till the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This made it abundantly clear that he is the real boss; his writ runs and no one is to challenge his authority. Now the future of the party is in the hands of Shah.

For a politician like Mamata Banerjee, who is aspiring to move from state politics to play a national role and even become the prime minister, the recent past has been eminently forgettable.

It is highly admirable that India’s public sector oil giants — ONGC and OIL — continue to vigorously using their experience and skill to explore new oil and gas reserves within the country. Oil exploration is considered to be a big financial and technological gamble until it leads to discovery of commercially viable reserves. It is also good to see at least one private firm, Vedanta, is ready to make large on-ground investment in commercial exploitation of such proven hydrocarbon resources in India. The latest open acreage auction by the country’s upstream regulator, Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH), showed overseas Indian tycoon Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta bagging 41 out of 55 oil and gas exploration blocks. Actually, Vedanta had bid for all the 55 blocks although local giant Reliance Industries (RIL) and other foreign concerns stayed away from the auction — first time since India began offering oil and gas area for exploration and production through bids in 1999.

Earthworms are worming from under the soil and committing mass suicide in Wayanad, north Kerala. The earth is getting too hot for them, say some folks, post the battering earth got from unprecedented rains and floods. There are lots of people around the world who would wish such a fate on politicians and it’s a worrying thought for politicians, from Barack Obama to Amit Shah.

Labour has changed — and for the better, MPs and trade unionists told Tony Blair on September 7 after the former prime minister launched a broadside against Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The war criminal behind the invasion of Iraq lamented that Labour was “a different type of party” from the one he led. “Can it be taken back? I don’t know,” he told the BBC.