“How is government aggrieved if illegal commission has been closed?” The Supreme Court has declined to interfere with the Rajasthan High Court judgment transferring cases of alleged corruption during the Vasundhara Raje government, being probed by a State government-appointed Commission, to the Lokayukta. A Bench of Justices D.K. Jain and H.L. Dattu dismissed a special leave petition filed by the State government challenging the High Court's order, which set aside the constitution...

We should be grateful to Anna Hazare for dedicating his life to the people and battling for accountability in governance. Millions look to him for inspiration and guidance. We are all sick of mismanagement, venality and the lack of accountability that plague not only governance but also other institutions, including many NGOs that call themselves “civil society” institutions, the term made fashionable by international donor agencies. The support base of this...

Any perceptive analyst of democracy will testify that there is no necessary relationship between democracy and a corruption-proof regime, or development, or political stability. If we were to evaluate democracy from the vantage point of the desired ends we expect it to realise, it would fare rather poorly when compared to authoritarian governments, say the one institutionalised in Singapore by its former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Yew transformed Singapore...

Tackling corruption requires economic reforms and a popular re-engagement with electoral politics. We should shun the politics of hunger strikes. The idea of a ‘Jan Lok Pal’ is flawed and profoundly misunderstands the causes and solutions of corruption in India. It seeks to create another chunk of Government, more processes and rules, to solve a problem that, in part, exists because of too many chunks of Government, too many processes and...

Anna Hazare and his supporters appear to have come to an agreement with the central government over forming a joint committee to draft the Lokpal bill.  We can all agree that corruption in India is a cancer eating away at the very core of the nation. Amidst the frenzied coverage of the hunger strike, and the exclamations of support for Hazare on social networks, there has been scant discussion of...