An international website that helped sustain recent mass movements in countries such as Syria, Libya, Canada and Brazil has involved itself in the Anna Hazare campaign. Avaaz.org is co-founded by Res Publica, an American “community of public sector professionals dedicated to promoting good governance, civic virtue and deliberative democracy”, and MoveOn.org, an American “non-profit progressive public policy advocacy group”. Avaaz has the expertise to manage funds, strategies and propaganda for public campaigns...

Anna Hazare’s movement has got support from at least two Northeast outfits that till a few years ago had been wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles. Dilip Nunisa, chairman of the Dima Halam Daoga (pro-talks) group that is in a peace pact with the Centre, was at Ramlila Maidan today with his deputy Yathong and publicity secretary S. Langthasa. “We could not meet Annaji but met some other leaders of his team and expressed...

-The Telegraph   The RSS today came out in support of Anna Hazare’s protest against the Centre over the Lokpal bill. An official statement, based on a news conference addressed by Sangh general secretary Suresh “Bhaiyya” Joshi, said: “The RSS, in a resolution it had passed at its national delegates’ convention in March 2011, said clearly that it will support the campaigns against corruption. Accordingly, our swayamsevaks have participated constructively in all these...

-The Hindu   The Communist Party of India (Marxist) protests against the manner in which anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare was arrested, but does not support the method adopted in his agitation, Biman Bose State secretary of the party stated here on Sunday.  According to the Constitution, the Parliament and State Legislatures have the authority to make laws, Mr. Bose told journalists after a meeting of the State Committee of the CPI(M). “Undemocratic” “Laws cannot be...

You said that the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies conducted a survey asking people what they felt about street protest. What did you find? One of the first national representative surveys was the National Election Study held in 1971. This is when a protest culture was beginning to take shape in the country. There was the Naxalite movement and also a time when the Congress was dislodged for the...