In an effort to encourage individuals to help feed tens of thousands of hungry children across the world, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has created a social media platform through which people can share their favourite meals by making donations to the agency. The Internet portal, WeFeedback, engages supporters through an online “Feedback Calculator” that helps them to work out how many children they could feed if they donated...

A former bureaucrat has said that most business houses "maintain" MPs to influence government policies or decision making in their favour. "Some of the large industrial houses also fund politicians who are in the Opposition as a hedge to ensure that any decision that may be given in their favour is not opposed by them. They also treat such funding as a long term investment," writes former Economic Intelligence Bureau director...

Asks whether she personally approves of Digvijay's statement Even as the war over a controversial CD purportedly featuring the co-chairman of the joint committee on the Lokpal Bill intensified, social activist Anna Hazare on Monday wrote to United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi urging her to rein in some of her colleagues who, he said, were trying to derail the process of drafting the legislation. He pointed an accusing finger at Congress...

Itself the outcome of a bottom-up movement, the Jan Lokpal bill ironically proposes a centralised framework against graft. Without checks and balances. There was never any doubt that India needs a strong Lokpal Act. The protest has paved the way for its enactment. With the exultation over the anti-corruption campaign’s ‘victory’ quieting down, it’s time to take stock. Nuanced arguments—and indeed substance—have to recover lost ground to take the discourse...

For over a year, travelling to various parts of the country, activist and prime mover of the Jan Lokpal Bill, Arvind Kejriwal, has been repeating the same story over and over again, on the anti-corruption structures we have currently. Last month, at a huge gathering of RTI activists in Shillong, Meghalaya, he explained. “When an official acts as a whistle-blower and complains against his boss, a senior officer, the Central...