Advocates of liberalisation argue that by reducing state intervention and increasing transparency economic reform reduces corruption. Recent allegations of corruption suggest that this may not be true. In a season for scandal, allegations of large scale corruption have captured political India's attention. The instances to which such allegations relate are many, varying from the sale of 2G spectrum and the mobilisation and/or disposal of land and mining resources to purchases made...

Farmer leader Manveer Singh Tevatia on Monday announced that he along with his supporters will sit on a fast unto death at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi from December 1 in support of their demands to amend the Land Acquisition Act 1894 and to implement UP government's new land acquisition policy with retrospective effect from 1997. The demands also include right to decide the rate of the land-to-be-acquired should be...

RTI activist Akhil Gogoi today said he had a strong suspicion that another scam, like the LoC scam that took place during the AGP regime led by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, had taken place during the tenure of chief minister Tarun Gogoi. “The people of Assam are well aware that an LoC scam took place during Prafulla Mahanta’s rule but we have a strong suspicion that another LoC-like scam took place during...

Haryana, reeling under a skewed sex ratio, is faced with yet another startling fact – an NGO has found that girls are being "bought" and brought to Haryana from 20 states across the country. The state's sex ratio stands at 837 in the 0-6 years age group, its lowest in the last five years and second only to Punjab. In one case, the family of a girl from Bihar was paid...

Familiar battle lines emerged on Sunday on the eve of a conference to restore the credibility of the UN's talks on climate change after last year's near-disaster in Copenhagen. Campaigners said the interests of the environment and poor countries would not be sacrificed to help boost the faltering process, while the European Union (EU) called on China, the United States and India to agree to "fair" curbs on their carbon emissions. Nearly...