The 1985 Lokpal Bill destroyed the raison d'etre of the institution of an ombudsman, but all successive governments copied it. PUBLIC anger was understandably aroused over the gross delay by Parliament in the last 40 years to enact a Lokpal Bill and with the toothless one that the government sponsored. It is not widely known that the delay was aggravated by deception and fraud in 1985. It was, however, emulated by...

A LEAFY VILLAGE in Kerala, Pathanpara, never found access to India’s electricity grid. That is why for the last several years, this village has been generating its own electricity. Raju, a dhoti-clad cashew nut farmer, operates Pathanpara’s five kilowatt (KW) micro hydropower plant. He lives in the village and earns a salary of Rs 2,250, paid by the People’s Electricity Committee (PEC). The power generated is shared equally by the village,...

As many as 17 top officials representing the senior bureaucracy are believed to have amassed or misappropriated nearly Rs 603 crore between 2007 and 2010. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has submitted a list of the officials under investigation to the parliamentary committee on assurances. The CBI says these officers had misappropriated funds from the exchequer and entered into criminal conspiracies by making huge illegal financial transactions. The CBI says it...

UPA wants JPC to do the job BJP feels it has a better chance of indicting the government Congress men realise that a JPC report will be more to their advantage After a three-hour-long discussion here on Thursday, the Public Accounts Committee remained a divided house on the question whether it should finalise its findings in a report on the 2G spectrum allocation or leave the entire issue to the Joint Parliamentary Committee...

As the political drama surrounding the fast undertaken by social activist Anna Hazare made way for the 10-member drafting committee for a Lokpal Bill, the Bharatiya Janata Party's stance has changed slowly but surely from open support to the Hazare-led group to scepticism. Within a day of Mr. Hazare sitting on fast here, BJP president Nitin Gakari said the social activist's views on the Lokpal Bill were “reasonably correct” and his...