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...

The year 2011 saw the highest number of cases disposed of in recent years, with more than 79,000 cases cleared under the leadership of Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia. In his Law Day address, Justice Kapadia rejected the allegation made in certain quarters about the huge pendency of cases and said: “There is a backlog of cases. However, it is not as big as is sought to be projected.” Seventy-four...

-PTI The agriculture sector performed exceedingly well in 2011, with record grain production of over 240 million tonnes giving enough leeway for the government to lift a ban on exports of wheat and non-basmati rice and introduce the food security bill in Parliament. Farmers’ long-standing demand for crop loans at a 4% rate of interest was met during the year, although with a rider that the facility would be available to...

-The Times of India   The query filed under the Right To Information Act (RTI) in August was quite clear but even after four months, there seems to be no hope of getting a reply to it. And even information commissioners are aware of the hurdles the applicants have to face. The applicant wanted to know if there was any Airports Authority of India (AAI) rule that prohibited an employee from discussing with...

The Supreme Court has rejected a five-decade-old perception built on the basis of several reports of Commissions of Inquiry that during communal violence the police were generally biased against minority community and arrested the victims instead of the assailants. "No one can perhaps dispute that in certain cases such aberrations may have taken place. But, we do not think that such instances are enough to denounce or condemn the entire force,...