A group of people, with placards showing Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, staged a demonstration in Delhi a few days ago against Anna Hazare's proposals on the Lokpal and the methods used by his team. More often than not, Dalits look with suspicion on any attempt to tamper with the Constitution. Team Anna has, however, suggested that its Lokpal bill would benefit Dalits more than anyone else. This led me to look...

I have been asked by my many friends to give my views on the recent ongoing movement against the corruption and Jan Lokpal Bill. Here in this article, I would like to present a young Dalit’s view to this bill and this recent movement. I may disappoint many of you especially those who think that bringing Lokpal Bill will solve the problem of corruption from India (yes, we rank very...

The key to Anna's appeal lies in his status as a detached, almost bewildered outsider in the world of FDI inflows, stock indices and GDP growth numbers. If two years ago, someone had predicted that the next popular leader who would catch the imagination of the middle class and become the spearhead of an unlikely protest movement spanning a large part of urban India would be a 73-year-old largely unknown man,...

-The Hindu   As the public support for Anna Hazare's fast swells by the day, the United Progressive Alliance government's reaction is a bewildering mix of dithering, denial, moral confusion, and fear. On the face of it, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that there was a “lot of scope for give-and-take,” and the opening of backroom channels to talk to Mr. Hazare, may suggest flexibility and conciliation. But if the back-of-the-mind calculation...

-The Indian Express   Having lost around 50 per cent male weavers to migration and schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the carpet industry in Bhadohi and surrounding areas now wants women to be trained as weavers. “Women weavers are more likely to stay put at homes, whether they are married or unmarried. So training them would be good investment,” said secretary All-India Carpet Manufacturers Association, Abdul Hazi. The...