-The Economic Times   We condemn the killing of Shehla Masood, a public-spirited woman of Bhopal who used the Right to Information (RTI) Act extensively to expose corruption and misgovernance on a range of issues. The state government must bring the culprits to book and investigate any possible links of the crime to public officials whose misconduct was under her investigation. This brings the number of RTI activists killed across the country so...

An anticorruption protest leader whose arrest on Tuesday morning reverberated across India, inciting outrage at the government, ended the day with a very different twist: He refused an offer to be released from jail. By late Tuesday, the scene outside Tihar Jail was playing on all-news channels across the country. More than 1,000 supporters waved flags and banners, chanting slogans, as the protest leader, Anna Hazare, rejected a police release order...

-The Business Standard   The controversy surrounding the arrest of Anna Hazare and his team has generated more heat than light about the issues at stake. Mr Hazare and his supporters not only insisted that their views be taken on board in drafting a Lok Pal Bill, but also demanded that only their version of the Bill be accepted and, in fact, placed in Parliament by the government. No government can accept such...

Anna Hazare's so-called "second freedom struggle" raises questions, one, about how long the protests can be sustained, and, two, on the merits of the protesters' demands and methods. But before that, Team Anna should be given credit for reviving long-somnolent mass politics in this country, something beyond the Opposition that has been reduced to activism on the idiot box. It shows how much anti-government political space had been abandoned by the...

The UP government has deepened the ongoing controversy over land acquisition in the state by bringing the Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development (amendment) Bill 2011 which was passed by the Assembly on Thursday. The bill seeks to remove a provision that gave landowners the right to ask for restoration of their acquired land if it was unused for five years. Section 17 of the UP Urban Planning and Development Act 1973...