Garnering impressive support from the public, veteran anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare embarked on a fast-unto-death at Jantar Mantar here on Tuesday, demanding passing of the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted through a civil society initiative. He also rejected Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's appeal to call off the fast and engage in a discussion with a Sub-Committee of the Group of Ministers over the framing of the Lokpal Bill. Visits Rajghat Mr. Hazare first visited...

The Manmohan Singh government and the Congress leadership appear to have overcome initial jitters and hardened their stand on the campaign launched by social activists led by Anna Hazare who began a “fast-unto-death” at Delhi’s agitation hub Jantar Mantar this morning. The Congress suspects that the entire campaign has been hijacked by the RSS which, the party feels, is looking for ways to destabilise the government after some Sangh leaders were...

From the Prime Minister down, WikiLeaks has exposed the rotten state of the world's largest democracy for all to see. Food prices become intolerable for the poor. Protests against corruption paralyse Parliament. Then a series of American diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks exposes a brazenly mendacious and venal ruling class; the head of government adored by foreign business people and journalists loses his moral authority, turning into a lame duck. This...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) and civil society groups are clearly not happy with the government's draft of the Lokpal Bill, intended to check corruption in high places. But a public consultation, a day ahead of the discussions that the NAC's Working Group on Transparency and Accountability is due to have with government representatives and others, demonstrated how difficult it will be to get a consensus on a...

The All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) on Friday expressed deep concern at the Census 2011 revelation that the child sex ratio had dropped from 927 to 914 girls per thousand boys, confirming the worst apprehensions of those working to uphold women's rights. An AIDWA statement said the statistics once again raised serious questions about the direction of development which was leading to “growth” without social justice. The continuing devaluation of...