The National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) said on Saturday that while it fully backed anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare and his team on their right to agitate for a Jan Lokpal Bill, it had strong reservations over the methods adopted by the group and disagreed with the provisions of their Bill. The NCPRI objected in particular to the ultimatums flowing from Ramlila Maidan — where Mr. Hazare is fasting...

The Gandhi topis, the non-violent crowds, the banners and other symbols of protest, including tonsuring of heads, meditating mendicants, patriotic songs and fervour and, of course, the fasts, are seen as a throwback to the days when the Mahatma exerted enormous and unquestioned moral authority over the ruling government, political leaders and the populace. Most references to the “revolution” started by Anna Hazare and his group, now immortalised as Team...

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...

Even as the correctness of the preventive custody of social activist Anna Hazare under Section 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code is being questioned, the Supreme Court has cautioned the police to invoke this provision only when there is an imminent danger to the peace or likelihood of breach of peace under Section 107 Cr.PC. Such a preventive arrest could be made only if it “appears to the police officer concerned...

-The Indian Express   Rajya Sabha has taken up an impeachment motion against a judge, and the solemnity of the exercise inevitably framed the backdrop against which the question of Justice Soumitra Sen’s continuance in the Calcutta high court will be decided. The requisite MPs’ petition that set up the process cited two allegations for inquiring into misbehaviour: that Sen had misappropriated money he received in his capacity as high court-appointed receiver,...