Tackling corruption requires economic reforms and a popular re-engagement with electoral politics. We should shun the politics of hunger strikes. The idea of a ‘Jan Lok Pal’ is flawed and profoundly misunderstands the causes and solutions of corruption in India. It seeks to create another chunk of Government, more processes and rules, to solve a problem that, in part, exists because of too many chunks of Government, too many processes and...

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...

India needs sustainable political and governance reform, not 'Mr India'-type prime-time populism Anna Hazare got his timing right, as Kumar Ketkar, a distinguished journalist from Mumbai, put it. Considering this was obviously planned as a television-based mobilisation of middle-class India, pitching it between the cricket World Cup and the Indian Premier League series was perfect timing. Even as Mr Hazare fasted, a large number of his supporters joined him between meals,...

The government has decided to issue biometric PAN cards to taxpayers across the country to weed out the problem of duplicate and fake ones. The decision was taken recently by the finance ministry and it comes in the wake of a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report that asked the income tax department to ensure that a single tax payer is not issued multiple cards. The proposed new biometric Permanent Account Number...

To say that no one has elected Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and the rest to speak for ordinary citizens is to say the obvious. The mostly middle-class people and the chatteratti (film stars, celebrity cops and so on) who have rallied to Mr Hazare’s cause remind one of the people who held hands and lit candles after the November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, saying, “Enough is enough”. TV stations...