Many Congress leaders feel that it was improper for Anna Hazare and his group to act as the sole conscience keepers of the civil society. The leaders are wondering if Anna Hazare’s letter to Sonia Gandhi, asking her to rein in Kapil Sibal and Digvijay Singh, was prompted by a perception that the Congress duo were expressing views on subjects the activists had monopolised on. Sibal had apparently sAid in an informal...

“I know in my heart that I never betrayed the people of this country” At 7 O'clock on a sultry Monday evening, human rights activist and paediatrician Binayak Sen walked out of the Raipur Central Jail and into the arms of his daughters Aparajita and Pranhita. “I know in my heart that I never betrayed the people of this country,” Dr. Sen sAid soon after he was released on bail,...

Investigation in the Hasan Ali case has reached a crucial stage with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) deciding to question Puducherry lieutenant governor Iqbal Singh and UP chief minister Mayawati's principal secretary Vijay Shankar Pandey in the $8 billion money-laundering probe. While summons were issued to Iqbal Singh on Friday, ED is likely to issue notice to Pandey in the next few days asking him to appear for questioning, sources sAid. Faced with...

700 million Indians have cell phones, but 638 million still don’t have access to proper sanitation. At this year’s South Asian Conference on Sanitation, social solutions to the problem were discussed, including “naming and shaming” and the CLTS programme which gets villagers to map the open areas where they defecate There can hardly be a bigger taboo than sanitation when it comes to the government, bureaucracy or even the people...

As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund convene for their annual Spring Meetings here, soaring food prices are high on the agenda, prompting some analysts to fast-forward to 2050 and the question of how to nourish the mid-century's estimated world population of 8.9 billion people – the majority of whom will live in developing countries. "More poor people are suffering and more people could become poor because of high and...