-PTI   Union minister and a key member of the Lokpal bill drafting committee Kapil Sibal said that Team Hazare's version of the legislation was unacceptable, as some of its provisions were against the basic tenets of the Constitution. Addressing Congress workers, Sibal described "Team Anna" as "an unelected group with accountability to no one." He also said, jokingly, that Centre should have taken "inputs" from Vilasrao Deshmukh, who had the experience of dealing...

The Right to Education Act, which lacks a transformational vision, is geared to preparing foot soldiers for the global market. THE most encouraging and delightful news regarding school education in India since the pro-market reforms began in 1991 came from Erode district in Tamil Nadu recently. To be sure, it is neither about the World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) of the 1990s nor about the internationally funded and...

The basis of the Bill is not at all on the intervention of the Centre in any of the states. This was one section and even by this one section being there The National Advisory Council, led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, has dropped a controversial section in a draft legislation on communal violence that opponents have interpreted as placing too much authority on the federal government. “The basis of the Bill...

Capitalism is supposed to bring in modernity, which includes a secular Polity where ''babas'' and ''swamys'', qua ''babas'' and ''swamys'', have no role. Many have even defended neo-liberal reforms on the grounds that they hasten capitalist development and hence our march to modernity. The Left has always rejected this position. It has argued that in countries embarking late on capitalist development, the bourgeoisie allies itself with the feudal and semi-feudal...

Civil society” has dominated popular discussion for the last few months. It may be hard to recall how rare the use of the term was only some years back. In 2002, when I published a book analysing the role of civil society in preventing, dampening or inciting communal riots, I was asked in a television interview whether I was overstating the power of civil society vis-à-vis the state. And in...