A caveat: Is the Lokpal the right authority to investigate judges? Legal luminaries think otherwise. Five Points Of Contention Pro-Lokpal Bill activists want the higher judiciary to come under the purview of the new law. Jurists think otherwise. Point: Nowhere in the world is there an ombudsman to whom the entire higher judiciary is made accountable Counterpoint: The Lokpal Bill must ensure powers to probe corruption charges against SC and HC judges Independence of...

What does it take to get the government to fight corruption? One answer could be: a medical facility with an air-conditioned Intensive Care Unit, a team of 60 doctors, a media centre, 1,300 toilets, seven large screens to pipe live action, television sets, and a storage facility of 100,000 litres of water. This is some of the infrastructure behind Baba Ramdev’s fast that starts on 4 June at New Delhi’s Ramlila grounds. Ramdev...

The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...

Renu Devi is scared. The Planning Commission’s new definition of poverty will eject her from the set of below-poverty-line households, and her family will lose the right to 25kg rice and wheat a month at Rs 5 per kilo. The plan panel has fixed a cut-off of Rs 675 and Rs 870 as the monthly per head expenditure, in rural and urban areas respectively, for a family to qualify as poor....

The National Advisory Council's (NAC) idea about a uniformland acquisition policy - with the government being responsible for all public purpose transfer of tracts - has not found all-round support. There are no differences on safeguarding the rights of farmers and landowners. But experts say the most essential aspect is to put in place a powerful institutional mechanism for conflict resolution that will also supervise the process of acquisition. In the...