Bang on schedule, a few hours before the Chennai Super Kings took on the Kolkata Knight Riders, word leaked out that the UPA would give in to Anna Hazare. Hordes, by which I mean dozens, celebrated at India Gate, by which I mean that they held ice cream in one hand and candles in the other. The Leaders of the Revolution — Hazare, Baba Ramdev and Anupam Kher — could...

Egypt, Tunisia and now — Jantar Mantar. That’s what a gaggle of school students felt Anna Hazare’s protest site had become. “Tunisia, Egypt and now India,” said one banner. Teenager Ankita, who held aloft the poster, said she could not hold herself back. “A revolution is on. And I wanted to pitch in,” said the Class XII student of a reputable city school. Schoolmate Ashish Parikh nodded. “It is the tipping point.” They were...

Cash transfer as substitute for state service provision is a dangerous recipe for callously anti-poor and corrupt governance. THE staggering number of recent articles, papers and books on the virtues of giving cash in place of public services to the poor has created an impression that a sort of epidemic has broken out. Economists, policymakers, bureaucrats and newspaper commentators are all infected by it and are in turn infecting others. The central...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) and civil society groups are clearly not happy with the government's draft of the Lokpal Bill, intended to check corruption in high places. But a public consultation, a day ahead of the discussions that the NAC's Working Group on Transparency and Accountability is due to have with government representatives and others, demonstrated how difficult it will be to get a consensus on a...

The population of India’s commercial capital is growing very slowly in the suburbs while it is shrinking in the old city, the preliminary census data on Maharashtra released on Friday shows. Meanwhile, the population of adjoining Thane district has grown explosively at 35.9% between 2001 and 2011, as expensive real estate in the city has pushed people to satellite towns such as Kalyan and Vashi in this district. The shift in people...