The Left parties said on Monday that the August 30 deadline set by anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare for the Centre to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill was not feasible and suggested that the government convene a special session of Parliament next month for passing the Bill. Asserting that the CPI(M) wanted an effective Lokpal Bill, general secretary Prakash Karat termed the Bill pending with Parliament “inadequate.” “We are not satisfied with...

Until about a year ago, the number of Indians who knew the name of Kisan Baburao Hazare, popularly known as Anna Hazare, ran into a few thousand -- small change in a country of a billion people. The former army driver was known for his peculiar experiments of social reform in a village in Maharashtra, in western India. He had received national awards for his social work. By the end of...

AHMEDABAD: A silent revolution has just begun in Rangpar village of Wankaner taluka and its surrounding villages toward sanitizing voters list using RTI. Leading this campaign is Ratna Ala, a resident who is visually challenged and passionate about RTI. In December next year the state will go to the polls for another round of high voltage assembly elections. But seven people from Rangpar , who are now joining hands with...

Buoyed by what they claimed to be a ringing endorsement of the Jan Lokpal Bill in Congress scion Rahul Gandhi's constituency, Team Anna on Thursday swiftly ramped up its plans, announcing a dramatic hour-long blackout to coincide with August 15. Announcing the results of the "referendum" in Amethi, Team Anna claimed that 90% of Rahul's constituents polled by them had supported their version of Lokpal Bill. The Hazare group said over...

  There are times when fathers and sons say the same things. In 2008, days after terrorists from Pakistan massacred scores of people in Mumbai, a group of affluent young couples met for dinner. They work in large corporations, hold university degrees from the United States and England, subscribe to The Economist and even read it. But it was inevitable that when the men started talking about how the Indian government was too...