The pressure on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to enact the Lokpal Bill to check corruption by public servants is mounting, 42 years after another government first attempted to create such a law, as civil society representatives and the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) have joined hands to push for the early enactment of a tough law. On April 3, the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI)...

The editorial, Not a wealth of information (Our Take, March 19), was a correct description of what WikiLeaks has revealed about how India's foreign affairs and political establishments work. However, one sentence needs to be commented on, and that is its recommendation for setting up "a commission to look into the idea of public funding of political campaigns". This reveals how short our public memory is. Three learned groups have laboured...

Eighty labourers, both men and women, are at work at Thiruvanduthurai village in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, about 325 km south of Chennai. They are digging a pond - about an acre wide and six feet deep - funded under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, or MGNREGS. Outside the work perimeter, two middle aged men look on, worried. P. Murugan and K. Govindaraj are farmers from the...

In Tamil Nadu, untouchability is so deep-rooted that there are separate burial spaces for Dalits and upper castes even in some urban pockets. “Samarasam ulavum idame Nam vaazhvil kaanaa Samarasam ulavum idame… Jaathiyil melor enrum Thaaznthavar keezhor enrum bethamillathu Ellorum mudivil serndhidum kaadu Thollai inriye thoongidum veedu Ulaginile ithuthaan Nam vaazhvil kaanaa Samarasam ulavum idame…” (Here, in this place pervades equality Which one could not have seen ever in one's lifetime! Steering clear of caste discriminations Such as the high, the low and...

Global business abhors uncertainty. The ministerial-level corruption in UPA-II has slowed FDI and FII inflows. The stock market, despite double-digit corporate profit and 8.6% GDP growth, reflects the anxiety of Indian and foreign investors. To take India's growth story forward in the 20th year of economic reforms, political reforms must catch up. Misgovernance won't do in a globalised, interconnected world. Two kinds of political corruption blight India: episodical and ongoing. Episodical...