As I have watched mass hysteria build up over Anna Hazare’s fast, there have been moments when I felt that his supporters had forgotten that India is a democratic country. I have long believed that the most apolitical Indians are those who belong to the English speaking, tweeting, texting middle classes but I had no idea just how apolitical they were till last week. Without reading the Jan Lokpal bill...

The government appointed committee to draft the Lokpal Bill has set June 30 as the deadline to complete the task, law minister M Veerappa Moily said on Sunday. Moily, who is also the covener of the committee, said the government was keen to introduce the Bill in the monsoon session of Parliament. "If all cooperate, the Bill will be passed in the monsoon session itself," he told reporters here. Moily said Karnataka chief...

A day after he ended his 97-hour fast demanding a stronger anti-graft Lokpal Bill, social activist Anna Hazare Sunday said the process of formulating the act will be videographed and the procedures will be made public. 'The committee will start its work on the draft from April 16, the procedures will be videographed and made public,' Hazare told reporters. 'The procedure will be totally transparent, from formulation to the time after it...

After raising the issue of nepotism in the newly-appointed joint committee on Lokpal Bill, yoga guru Baba Ramdev on Sunday backtracked saying that he had no problem with inclusion of father-son duo Shanti and Prashant Bhushan in the drafting panel. "The question of nepotism was raised by the media and not me. When I was asked about it, I said that though we have played a role in the Jan Lokpal...

Rejecting allegations of nepotism in selecting the five civil society members on the joint drafting panel of the Lokpal Bill, social activist Anna Hazare on Sunday said they needed experienced people and law experts to draft a stringent anti-corruption law. "The committee is not permanent, it has been formed only for two months and we should not think that he or she is there or not there. We need experienced people...