Anna Hazare's campaign may lead to a new Lokpal Bill, but it has legitimised middle-class vigilantism and other kinds of civil society Mobilisation. NOW that Anna Hazare has declared victory, it is time to take stock of one of the most powerful recent Mobilisations of people in India, focussed on influencing policy or lawmaking processes. The victory, however, is largely symbolic. The original demand of the movement, carefully built around Hazare's...

-The Economic Times   The CBI, which had on Saturday registered a case under section 302 of the IPC in the murder of Bhopal-based RTI activist Shehla Masood, is expected to question, among others, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Vijay and party MLA Dhruv Narayan Singh, as part of its investigation. The investigating agency's Bhopal unit, which had taken over the case after the Centre forwarded to it a request to that...

Ankaji Bhai Gangar, a 49-year-old subsistence farmer, stood in line in this remote village until, for the first time in his life, he squinted into the soft glow of a computer screen. His name, year of birth and address were recorded. A worker guided Mr. Gangar’s rough fingers to the glowing green surface of a scanner to record his fingerprints. He peered into an iris scanner shaped like binoculars that...

'We want to pressure the government and assert our rights as citizens.' Arvind Kejriwal received the Magsaysay award in the Emergent leadership category in 2006. A mere five years later, he has far surpassed that milestone, winning acclaim and notice for the way he conceived and crafted Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement. He talks to Vidya Subrahmaniam about the Jan Lokpal campaign, what it accomplished and why it often became controversial. The scale...

The finance ministry has asked the telecom department not to entrust state-owned BSNL with the Rs 20,000-crore project to build a nationalbroadband network to take high-speed internet to the hinterlands. It has recommended that a special purpose vehicle (SPV), consisting of many Mobile phone companies, be entrusted with implementing this project, while adding that all stakeholders should be chosen through a transparent and competitive bidding process. The telecom department had identified...