The new Lokpal Bill panel will have equal representation from civil society, but it will remain an informal committee, the Union government told social activist Anna Hazare on Thursday, whose 'satyagraha' for a stringent anti-corruption legislation entered its third day. Hazare's supporters are disappointed there will be no formal notification issued on this committee which would have made it binding on the government to go by it. The deadlock, therefore, continues though...

Veteran social activist Anna Hazare, who is continuing with his hunger strike demanding enactment of an anti-corruption bill to give wider powers to the Ombudsman, on Wednesday rejected Union Agriculture and Food Processing Industries Minister Sharad Pawar's offer to quit from the Group of Ministers (GoM) meant to look into the amendments required in the Lokpal Bill. 72-year-old Hazare criticizing the NCP leader said Pawar should quit his ministry anyway. Pawar today...

Over seven lakh calls to a phone number set up to register the number of supporters for an anti-corruption movement. Schoolchildren who have swapped their cricketing heroes for a 78-year-old Gandhian who is fasting unto death. Cries castigating Manmohan Singh's effeteness being greeted by a roar in the swelling crowds. And a mostly-out-of work Uma Bharti scouting for a photo-op but barely managing one. At Jantar Mantar, the site of Anna...

The deadlock between the Government and Anna Hazare's supporters continues even as the two sides made considerable progress on several other points on how to add more teeth to the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill. Union Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal met veteran social activist and Gandhian Anna Hazare's supporters - Swami Agnivesh and Arvind Kejriwal – twice on Thursday to resolve the contentious issues. But the two sides failed to come to consensus...

Anna Hazare’s fast puts into focus the government’s attempts to protect politicians India Against Corruption, a group formed by Anna Hazare and other social activists and former judges, has given 17 reasons why the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by former Supreme Court judge Santosh Hegde, now the Karnataka Lokayukta, is far better than the Bill prepared by the union government. The Jan Lokpal Bill, hailed as a civil society initiative, provides for...