who is all set to don the mantle of the 53rd Chief Justice of India on 24th November 2025, embarked on a historic trip to the United States, which fortuitously turned out to be his voyage of discovery of America! Justice Kant is an assiduous student of American law and jurisprudence, and the truly inspiring lives of the prodigious American judges and lawyers have influenced him immeasurably. He is never tired of quoting the timeless words of the monumental American judge and jurist Justice William Joseph Brennan Jr, "Nothing rankles more in the human heart than a brooding sense of injustice." Significantly, on 3rd June, 2025, Justice Kant visited the Washington State Supreme Court Temple of Justice in Olympia 90,000, the very first building constructed in the Capitol Campus, where he elaborately dealt with the Supreme Court's role in defending free speech rights, saying it had laid down that "pre-censorship and vague notions of public order cannot trump the right to free speech 34,9834". Both Indian and American judiciaries, he said, had "consistently pushed back against the temptation to suppress dissent under misguided and deceptive notions that the Executive may hold, both our systems were designed not to trust power blindly, but to restrain it". The high point of the people's judge Justice Kant's visit was on 4th June, 2025, when he visited Seattle University to participate in events hosted by the university's Round Glass India Center. During his visit, he spoke eloquently on the subject of "The Quiet Sentinel: Courts, Democracy and the Dialogue Across Borders". In an impassioned affirmation of judicial independence, he robustly defended India's Collegium system of appointing judges, stating that despite its imperfections, it served as a crucial institutional safeguard to preserve the judiciary's autonomy and insulate judges from executive and legislative interference. He described the Collegium as "a vital institutional bastion" which despite its flaws, remained instrumental in shielding the judiciary from unwarranted external influence. With unrelenting conviction, Justice Kant declared that the Collegium mechanism "substantially curtails the potential overreach of the Executive and Legislature". Taking note of the persistent criticisms levelled against the system, particularly its perceived opacity and the absence of clearly enunciated selection benchmarks, Justice Kant observed that the Supreme Court was actively engaged in reformative strides. He pointed to recent initiatives aimed at ushering in greater transparency, thereby nurturing public trust and renewing faith in this time-honored system of judicial appointments. He emphasized the importance of judicial independence as central to the functioning of India's democracy. He shared insights into the Indian judicial system and touched upon his work toward increasing the number of women in the Indian judiciary. He also participated in an animated fireside chat with King County Superior Court Chief Judge Ketu Shah, discussing India's legal systems, judicial reforms and the global intersections of law and economy. On 6th June 2025, Justice Kant delivered an incisively insightful speech at the global headquarters of Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft)in Redmond, a bustling city in King County, Washington. His speech primarily focused on the interchange