On their “day of victory”, leaders of Anna Hazare’s movement faced nepotism charges over the inclusion of the father-son duo of lawyers Shanti and Prashant Bhushan in the joint drafting committee for the Lok Pal Bill. Many protesters refused to break their fast when Hazare broke his at 10.45am. They wanted to know why ex-cop Kiran Bedi wasn’t picked while both the Bhushans were in. “This is nepotism. Why is there no...

To say that no one has elected Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and the rest to speak for ordinary citizens is to say the obvious. The mostly middle-class people and the chatteratti (film stars, celebrity cops and so on) who have rallied to Mr Hazare’s cause remind one of the people who held hands and lit candles after the November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, saying, “Enough is enough”. TV stations...

Two companies based in Mumbai and Delhi have allegedly duped scores of farmers of more than 2,000 bigha of agricultural land spread across several villages near Phalodi town in Jodhpur district. In one case, the entire land of Mandali village measuring 632 bigha, belonging mostly to the Rebari tribe, has been sold. Though the district administration has ordered an inquiry, complicity of officials is not ruled out since the land was...

Many Indians eat poorly. Would a “right to food” help? “LOOK at this muck,” says 35-year-old Pamlesh Yadav, holding up a tin-plate of bilious-yellow grains, a mixture of wheat, rice and mung beans. “It literally sticks in the throat. The children won’t eat it, so we take it home and feed it to the cows.” Mrs Yadav has brought her children to a state-run nursery in Bhindusi village in rural Rajasthan. The...

National Advisory Council starts discussions on Lokpal Bill The Prime Minister's Office (PMO), late on Monday evening, issued an appeal to noted social worker Anna Hazare to abandon the hunger strike he had announced he would resort to, starting Tuesday, to force the government to accept his version of the Lokpal Bill. The appeal came a few hours after the National Advisory Council (NAC)'s Working Group on Transparency and Accountability met civil...