It's Sharad Pawar's old habit of indulging in corruption. Yes, I am levelling charges. Take me to court, I will prove the allegations," said activist Anna Hazare in New Delhi, as he began his fast unto death strike against corruption on Monday. Hazare's is campaigning for a compressive Lok Pal Bill to give wider powers to the ombudsman to check corruption attracted a huge crowd of over 3,000 people at Jantar...

The Lok Pal (anti-corruption body) Bill has generated widespread interest in the past few days. The Bill is an attempt by the government, under massive pressure due to corruption charges, to gain some of its lost ground. However, civil rights activists, including Anna Hazare, Swami Agnivesh, Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal, have termed the draft legislation as weak and demanded that fifty per cent of the members in the committee drafting...

Lokpal will not have any power to either initiate action suo motu in any case or even receive complaints of corruption from general public. The general public will make complaints to the speaker of Lok Sabha or chairperson of Rajya Sabha. Only those complaints forwarded by Speaker of Lok Sabha/Chairperson of Rajya Sabha to Lokpal would be investigated by Lokpal. This not only severely restricts the functioning of Lokpal, it...

In two hundred cities across India on Tuesday, thousands of college students, young executives and housewives joined a campaign that asks the government to enact an important new law to fight corruption. At the centre of the movement is respected social activist Anna Hazare who has begun a hunger strike that he says will not end till the government proves its commitment to the Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen's Ombudsman Bill). What...

For 55-year-old Mohimuddin of Goroimari, which falls in the Chaygaon Assembly constituency in lower Assam's Kamrup district, the protection of minorities from undue harassment in the name of identification of foreigners was the prime issue until a few years ago. This time round, he is more worried about the backwardness of his village coupled with price hike. A poor peasant with seven mouths to feed, Mohimuddin says the prime demand of...