-PTI   Inching closer to the crucial double-digit mark, food inflation rose to 9.80% for the week ended August 13 on the back of dearer onions, potatoes, fruits and protein-based items. Food inflation, as measured by Whole Price Index (WPI), stood at 9.03% in the previous week. The rate of price rise of food items in the corresponding week of August, 2010, was 14.56%. As per data released by the government today, the price...

Residents of the state capital, who had planned to binge on non-vegetarian food after Sawaan, will have to go slow because of an increase in the price of onions, a common ingredient in meat and Fish dishes. Ironically, vegetarian dishes, too, will cost more as the prices of greens have also shot north. Though you and I have to shell out more, there has been only a marginal increase in the wholesale...

Some commentators have compared the struggle led by Anna Hazare with the movement against corruption led by Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s. A man of integrity and courage, a social worker who has eschewed the loaves and Fishes of office, a septuagenarian who has emerged out of semi-retirement to take on an unfeeling government — thus JP then, and thus Anna now. Superficially, the comparison of Anna to JP is flattering...

While his means maybe Gandhian, his demands are certainly not. If what we're watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you're likely to get: tick the box — (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is...

Frankly, whatever be your opinion on the Jan Lokpal Bill and on the radical tactics used by Anna Hazare, the sheer popular support for the agitation against the government's attempt to introduce a diluted anti-corruption law is astounding. That by itself has left cynical smarty-pants like myself, never mind arrogant dumby-pants in the ruling party, dumbstruck. The power of the mob - an abbreviation of the Latin 'mobile vulgus' or 'excitable...