Itself the outcome of a bottom-up movement, the Jan Lokpal bill ironically proposes a centralised framework against graft. Without checks and balances. There was never any doubt that India needs a strong Lokpal Act. The protest has paved the way for its enactment. With the exultation over the anti-corruption campaign’s ‘victory’ quieting down, it’s time to take stock. Nuanced arguments—and indeed substance—have to recover lost ground to take the discourse...

Though civil society has rejected the official Lokpal Bill with almost one voice, the confabulations in the run-up to Anna Hazare's hunger strike have brought out differences within activists on the alternative Jan Lokpal Bill. The differences had come to light at the two meetings held on April 3 and 4 to examine the provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill espoused by Hazare, who began his fast unto death on April...

The National Advisory Council (NAC) has now sketched out the “contours of a national food security bill”. The goal is worthy: “Protecting all children, women and men from hunger and food deprivation.” To some, the bill might appear utopian. The truth is worse. The bill reminds us of John Stuart Mill’s denunciation of a government policy of his day: “What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be...

At least 10 RTI applicants have been killed over the past two years, with many others facing threats in their bid to expose corruption On a Republic Day when India celebrated 61 years of justice, equality and liberty, Amar Nath Pandey says he encountered the darkest moment of his life. In late evening on 26 January, a lone assailant leaped from the folds of darkness in the street outside his house in...

Thirty-year-old Santa Meena, a tribal woman of Saru panchayat is probably unaware that a panel headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the Manmohan Singh-led government are struggling to arrive at the quantity of grain that BPL families should get under the Public Distribution System. All this mother of five knows is that she has to trudge 10 km from her hamlet to the ration shop in Saru (10 km from...