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...

Anna Hazare's sitting on indefinite fast in Delhi has galvanised the middle-class of this country, which is most vocal against corruption but also the one responsible for most corruption in this country. Corruption is a very contentious issue. Our morals tell us to oppose it but for convenience we often make a compromise, always giving ourselves the benefit of doubt. Former prime minister Chandrashekhar used to say that corruption can never...

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...

Sometime this month, Justice N Ramamohana Rao of the Andhra Pradesh High Court will deliver a verdict that will directly impact earnings of the 114 million people who work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the Central government's work guarantee programme. The verdict will also indirectly impact earnings of the 400 million workers and labourers who toil in India's factories and fields for 'minimum wages'. The question Justice Rao...

Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare will observe fast unto death from today until the government enacts a comprehensive law like the Jan Lokpal Bill to tackle the menace. "My fast unto death begins on Tuesday. I was saddened when the Prime Minister rejected the demand by leading civil society members to include them and senior ministers in the joint committee to draft the Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen's ombudsman Bill)," 72-year-old Hazare told...