Anna Hazare and his followers have a skewed notion of corruption. Would they ever see the Bhopal gas tragedy as the symptom of the problem? The government’s initial contempt and arrogance for Anna Hazare’s protest turned into craven pandering as his hordes made a carnival of it in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. One was troubled by the fate of other protesters who have received short shrift—the small, the struggling and much suffering...

Ankaji Bhai Gangar, a 49-year-old subsistence farmer, stood in line in this remote village until, for the first time in his life, he squinted into the soft glow of a computer screen. His name, year of birth and address were recorded. A worker guided Mr. Gangar’s rough fingers to the glowing green surface of a scanner to record his fingerprints. He peered into an iris scanner shaped like binoculars that...

State links PDS to UID to plug leakages in food supplies but gaps remain Madhya Pradesh has opted for the technologically most sophisticated—and costliest—method for revamping its public distribution system (PDS). It is one of a handful of states that is trying to ensure that subsidised food reaches the segment it is meant for, the poorest of the population or those below the poverty line (BPL). But the route it has...

-PTI   A Parliamentary standing committee has found discrepancies in MGNREGA wage distribution system and feels that reported number of corruption cases related to it is a just tip of the iceberg. “The number of corruption cases as reported is just a tip of the iceberg and the real situation in this regard may be more serious,” the committee said in its report on wage disbursement to labourers under MGNREGA by Post Offices...

-IANS   From collecting mounds of garbage, removing slush caused by rains to cleaning toilets, a group of volunteers, mostly students from premier medical and engineering colleges, kept Ramlila Maidan, the nerve centre of Anna Hazare's movement, clean at a time when it saw unprecedented footfall on all the 13 days of his fast. Initially, most of these students came to lend support to Anna Hazare's movement against corruption, but swayed by the...