While his means maybe Gandhian, his demands are certainly not. If what we're watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you're likely to get: tick the box — (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is...

Frankly, whatever be your opinion on the Jan Lokpal Bill and on the radical tactics used by Anna Hazare, the sheer popular support for the agitation against the government's attempt to introduce a diluted anti-corruption law is astounding. That by itself has left cynical smarty-pants like myself, never mind arrogant dumby-pants in the ruling party, dumbstruck. The power of the mob - an abbreviation of the Latin 'mobile vulgus' or 'excitable...

-The United Nations   Funding disbursements from donor governments for the AIDS response in low- and middle-income countries dropped overall in 2010, mainly due to a reduction by the largest donor, the United States, the lead United Nations agency tackling the epidemic said today. According to an annual funding analysis carried out by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Kaiser Family Foundation, donor governments disbursed $6.9 billion in 2010...

Over the last few decades thenon-party volunteer organisations have been much more effective in Indian public space and more articulate in policy debates than the traditional Left parties. This essay, while recognising the manifold achievements of these organisations, reflects on the serious limitations of the activities of the voluntary sector and argues that when they usurp certain roles they can become a threat to representative democracy. [Pranab Bardhan (bardhan@econ.berkeley.edu) is at...

The audited balance sheets of the six largest political parties in India are hard to get and harder to decipher: they hide more than they reveal but are nonetheless worth close examination. Between them, the Congress, BJP, BSP, SP, NCP and CPM reported total income of Rs 1,046.76 crore for the year ending March 31, 2009. That was the year in which most of the funds for the 2009 Lok...