A Supreme Court-appointed panel has found large-scale illegal mining in Karnataka, particularly in the state's iron-ore rich Bellary district. The illegal activity was taking place in connivance with officials, the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) said in its report submitted to the court in New Delhi Friday. The CEC also found that between 2003 and 2010, over 30 million tonnes of iron ore had been exported from Karnataka without valid permits. As the CEC...

A few weeks ago, I received a call from Mayank Gandhi, Mumbai coordinator of ‘India Against Corruption’, invting me to be part of a panel in Mumbai to address a press conference on the then upcoming fast by Anna Hazare. “Your name has been suggested to me by Swami Agnivesh. We want Muslims like you, not fanatical Muslims. So please join us and suggest other Muslim names”, I was told. Great,...

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...

The promised power from the Jaitapur nuclear project may light up the area, but Nandkumar Raut already finds the future dark. “Almost every family in the village has a police case against at least one member,” said the farmer from Madban, the village closest to the project site in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district. Raut said he has at least three cases foisted on him — one barring him from entering his own village...

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...