-IANS   A day after the Congress slammed civil society campaigners as "unelected tyrants", veteran Gandhian Anna Hazare on Tuesday said people were the masters of the country having all the rights to question their servants over their functioning. Talking to reporters here, Anna Hazare said the value of parliament could not be denied but people must be consulted before taking decisions. "Parliament is a big thing, but bigger than parliament at the...

-The Indian Express   Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was simply stating the obvious on Sunday when he said, “Parliament is supreme.” Neither did he depart from a common understanding of the scheme of things under our Constitution when he clarified that it is Parliament’s right to decide on legislation and nobody else can presume to lay down deadlines for bills to be passed. Yet, such had been the abdication of argument...

Civil society” has dominated popular discussion for the last few months. It may be hard to recall how rare the use of the term was only some years back. In 2002, when I published a book analysing the role of civil society in preventing, dampening or inciting communal riots, I was asked in a television interview whether I was overstating the power of civil society vis-à-vis the state. And in...

The Congress-led government last week exempted CBI from providing information sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The move has not gone down well with civil society activists who are not only terming the move as “illegal” but are also thinking of challenging it. “It is not only wrong but also illegal. It’s written in the RTI act that only intelligence or security agencies can be exempted but CBI is...

In his lifetime, Nigamanand, an ascetic fighting a lonely battle against quarrying activities in Uttarakhand, tried to draw the attention of the national media to an environmental disaster waiting to happen in the state. In his death, the 36-year-old Sadhu, who went into a coma and died on Wednesday following his four-month-long fast in the same hospital at Dehra Dun where Ramdev was admitted, has forced civil society, politicians and the...