In the current hullabaloo about the lok pal bill and the Anna agitation, one question has frequently been raised, both by protagonists of the Congress and the government and by constitutionalists and legal experts: however laudable the goals of Anna and his supporters, aren’t the methods adopted by them illegitimate? Doesn’t a fast unto death amount to blackmail of the legislature? Isn’t it an attempt by the unelected to usurp...

The audited balance sheets of the six largest political parties in India are hard to get and harder to decipher: they hide more than they reveal but are nonetheless worth close examination. Between them, the Congress, BJP, BSP, SP, NCP and CPM reported total income of Rs 1,046.76 crore for the year ending March 31, 2009. That was the year in which most of the funds for the 2009 Lok...

The Supreme Court has underlined the need for giving proper equipment, adequate protection and safety gears to sewer workers who enter manholes for clearing blocks. Expressing anguish over the manner in which they were treated by the employers, a Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly said: “Given the option, no one would like to enter the manhole of a sewerage system for cleaning purposes, but there are people who...

‘Law needed to monitor selection of party candidates' West Bengal ahead of other four States which contested Assembly elections Despite promises of women's participation, mere134 of 1,263 candidates women Thirty-five per cent of the MLAs elected in the recently concluded Assembly elections in West Bengal have criminal cases pending against them as against an average of 33 per cent of those in the four other States that underwent Assembly elections, according to the...

The West Bengal assembly tops the list of criminal candidates and it has 102 such MLAs. Most of these MLAs have criminal serious charges pending against them. Among the other three assemblies -- Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and Assam -- which have been analysed by the National  Election Watch, the richest assembly is (without a doubt) Tamil Nadu. The report on Kerala assembly is still awaited. It has 120 crorepati candidates in the...