Last week, an enterprising resident welfare association in Ghaziabad organised a registration camp for unique identification (UID) numbers. It found people queuing up till midnight for a week with infants, grandmothers and some with domestic workers in tow. No one had a clue as to how UID was different from the several other identity documents each of them had been scrupulously accumulating and treasuring. They were initially informed that all they...

-The Business Standard   Hazare's job is done, time now for people's representatives The term “civil society” has been used and abused at will these past few months in India. In a clever coup staged with the active involvement of a section of the media, a clutch of Social Activists and retired civil servants was allowed to project itself as “a representative of civil society”. A confused government, a directionless ruling alliance...

A day after the Orissa government halted land acquisition for the controversial Posco project, its detractors observed Wednesday as a 'Black Day' to protest the anniversary of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the state government and the steel giant six years ago. On Tuesday, the Jagatsinghpur district administration suspended land acquisition for the 12-million tonne steel plant project after protests escalated in Gobindpur village with leaders of the Congress, CPI,...

-The Times of India   Sometimes, nonsense verse captures it. The film character Anthony Gonsalves, inspired by George Bernard Shaw, sang, "The whole country of the system is juxtapositioned by the haemoglobin in the atmosphere - because you are a sophisticated rhetorician, intoxicated by the exuberance of your own verbosity." Few words apply better to the current Lokpal Bill stand-off. For this to break, the rhetoric must stop with ground being...

Orissa government is finding it difficult to acquired land for Posco's Rs 52,000 crore steel project as anti-displacement brigade gained strength from political parties and Social Activists with Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patker on Monday visiting Dhinkia, the entry point to the proposed plant site on Monday and lending her support to protester. Last week Social Activists Swami Agnibesh visited Dhinkia and warned the government of any violence...