The huge support for what Anna Hazare espoused came against the background of widespread corruption and government inaction. THE Anna Hazare mania that gripped large sections of society for five days from April 5, resulting in the government capitulating to his demand for including civil society activists in the committee for the drafting of an anti-corruption law, has baffled many people. The groundswell of support for his cause took the...

The law ministry has prepared a 10-point governance reforms agenda which envisages capping a bureaucrat's term to 20 years and seeks reforms in allocation of mining and land rights. The presentation made to key UPA functionaries, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi , says all new recruitments to central government jobs should be for 20 years and any extension beyond that would depend on the outcome of...

Do we, the Indian middle class, see the corruption within us? I was too busy being corrupt to join Anna Hazare’s camp last week. For four days, I heard nothing but stories of our Tahrir Square-like revolution against the corrupt unfurling right under our noses in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. But it was school admission time and I had some serious palm-greasing, document-fudging, string-pulling, weight-throwing and tout-chasing to do. I had...

He may be a sympathiser. That doesn't make him guilty of sedition: Judge The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to Dr. Binayak Sen, observing that no case of sedition was made out against the rights activist, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court in Chhattisgarh. A Bench of Justices H.S. Bedi and C.K. Prasad, after hearing senior counsel Ram Jethmalani for the petitioner and senior...

After the Supreme Court ordered the release of human rights activist Binayak Sen on bail, Sen's counsel and senior advocate Ram Jethmalani said the trial court was guided by the colonial concept of sedition and its judgment violated at least two Supreme Court judgments enunciating what constituted sedition. The bench picked up from where Jethmalani left. When Chhattisgarh's counsel and senior advocate U U Lalit attempted to justify the sedition charge...