The Karnataka Lokayukta and Member of Jan Lokpal Bill Joint Drafting Committee N. Santosh Hedge on Monday made a forceful plea for bringing politicians and bureaucrats under the jurisdiction of the proposed Lokpal at the Centre as maladministration and corruption could not take place without the nexus between the two. Speaking at a public meeting at the International Centre Goa (ICG) at Dona Paula near here on Monday on “Role of...

The law ministry has prepared a 10-point governance reforms agenda which envisages capping a bureaucrat's term to 20 years and seeks reforms in allocation of mining and land rights. The presentation made to key UPA functionaries, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi , says all new recruitments to central government jobs should be for 20 years and any extension beyond that would depend on the outcome of...

Anna Hazare's sitting on indefinite fast in Delhi has galvanised the middle-class of this country, which is most vocal against corruption but also the one responsible for most corruption in this country. Corruption is a very contentious issue. Our morals tell us to oppose it but for convenience we often make a compromise, always giving ourselves the benefit of doubt. Former prime minister Chandrashekhar used to say that corruption can never...

That accountability is vital in a democracy was reinforced at a National Convention of the National Campaign for the People's Right to Information held in Shillong recently… If governments do not investigate corruption, people should have the right and power to do so themselves. When the idea of a people's legal right to information took initial shape in the dusty villages of Rajasthan nearly two decades ago amidst people's struggles for...

Several officials across central ministries have been spending unusually long periods in the same department, thanks to political and bureaucratic patronage. Some of them have taken bizarre proportions, with at least two section officers in the ministry of corporate affairs being there since 1977, for almost 34 years. According to last available communications, the ministry top brass was still trying to ensure that both of them remained there. Details also show that...