The Youth Congress has a question: why can some company not buy the potatoes that Punjab’s farmers are throwing on the streets and sell them in Kerala where the crop’s price is as high as Rs 18 a kg? The answer, for the outfit being groomed under the guidance of Rahul Gandhi, is foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail. That’s the message from the monthly Youth Congress newsletter, which has now been...

Though Anna Hazare gets much of the credit for focusing the national spotlight on corruption, India was only too aware of the problem even before his agitation. According to a Pew Research poll in October 2010 (six months before Hazare emerged on the national scene), 98 per cent of Indians indicate corrupt political leaders as a “very big” or a “moderately big” problem. Hazare’s campaign did not attune Indians to...

-PTI Asserting that Team Anna’s proposal to campaign against the Congress in the Assembly Elections in five states raised questions of “propriety and ethics”, Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi on Sunday said anything that came in the way of free and fair Elections was not acceptable. “We don’t have any problem because in a democracy they have a right to oppose or support anybody. It should not be in violation of...

-The Indian Express   The Election Commission ponders the “novel challenge” posed by Anna Hazare and his team, which has vowed to campaign against the Congress in the five states that will hold Elections in the near future. According to Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi, this raises questions of “propriety and ethics”. The EC, he said, would watch carefully for any breach of the model code of conduct, for any hate speech...

-The Times of India Representative politics is not just about Elections. It's also about visions and issues that mould political consciousness: A lesson that has been powerfully driven home by Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption movement. No doubt, the nationwide popular groundswell, witnessed over the last few months, has changed the rules of contemporary engagement between the political classes and the civil society. The crucial Lokpal debate, beginning inParliament on Tuesday,...