This is a saga of how the Hindu outfit saw the promise in Anna and pursued him for its gains. How often do we meet strangers on a flight and realise that it could possibly be the beginning of a lasting friendship? This is how yoga teacher Ramdev and super cop Kiran Bedi met in mid 2010 when both of them were on the same flight and Ramdev spotted her. Although fate...

-The Telegraph   Team Anna members today lobbied BJP leaders over their Jan Lokpal Bill but failed to get a commitment. Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley told the team that their party wasn’t opposed to the government introducing separate bills to tackle corruption in the lower bureaucracy and judiciary. The team wants these brought under the ombudsman. Hazare’s associates were also told that the BJP favoured a strong Lokpal but not a draconian one,...

The anti-corruption movement has enabled the Indian middle class to feel smug about itself. Its members have gone through a vast range of emotions during the last two decades, from self-hatred to self-righteousness. Liberalisation of the economy has created for this class an excitement of many kinds. It has meant the freedom to pursue the quest for wealth without guilt and, at the same time, it has meant feeling set...

-The Economic Times   What should be the agenda for national renewal? Should we discuss what should be done in individual sectors like agriculture, infrastructure, energy, etc., and plead before the rulers of modern democracy to accept some of our suggestions or should we focus on the decision-making processes itself, which exist in governance today? Who takes decisions in our 'democracy'? Who influences these decisions? Are these processes really democratic? Is lack of...

Putting aside their earlier differences, the teams of social activists Anna Hazare and Aruna Roy have broadly agreed to come together on the anti-graft lokpal bill ahead of Parliament’s winter session, which begins next week. The development followed a series of meetings between Hazare-led India Against Corruption and Roy’s National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) to narrow down their differences on the bill. Both sides confirmed the development. “We had...