Social activist Anna Hazare's hunger strike in New Delhi demanding changes in the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill entered the second day on Wednesday. The anti-corruption campaign began has now been joined by thousands of people with more than 150 people joining Hazare’s fast-onto-death at the Jantar Mantar. Almost 5,000 people from all walks of life have gathered at Jantar Mantar to show their support for Hazare. Social activists and people in 400...

Advocating larger consultations on the Lokpal Bill, National Advisory Council (NAC) members Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander on Tuesday said there was need for wider and more geographically spread discussion than had been done before. The statement came on a day when social activist Anna Hazare went on fast in support of a stringent Lokpal Bill. The NAC working group on transparency, accountability and governance headed by Aruna Roy, which met...

As Anna Hazare’s fast entered its second day today, the first cracks in his coalition surfaced with criticism over provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill and the method being used by activists to try and push it through. Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde (retd), part of the group that finalised the activists’ version of the Bill, acknowledged he had “objections” to certain clauses. “I would not like to say much else. While...

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...

Cash transfer as substitute for state service provision is a dangerous recipe for callously anti-poor and corrupt governance. THE staggering number of recent articles, papers and books on the virtues of giving cash in place of public services to the poor has created an impression that a sort of epidemic has broken out. Economists, policymakers, bureaucrats and newspaper commentators are all infected by it and are in turn infecting others. The central...