-The Economic Times   We condemn the killing of Shehla Masood, a public-spirited woman of Bhopal who used the Right to Information (RTI) Act extensively to expose Corruption and misgovernance on a range of issues. The state government must bring the culprits to book and investigate any possible links of the crime to public officials whose misconduct was under her investigation. This brings the number of RTI activists killed across the country so...

• Without a clear definition of ‘public purpose’, the land acquisition bill is meaningless • The bill’s definition of ‘fertile land’ can potentially harm the agriculture sector • Government’s role in defining land will create economic and political problems in future As Parliament debates this month it will, hopefully, move beyond issues of Corruption in high places to important economic legislation. Two such pieces of legislation are the land acquisition bill and...

Facing an impeachment motion, Calcutta High Court judge Soumitra Sen, who appeared before the Rajya Sabha today, claimed that he was being made the “sacrificial lamb to cleanse the judiciary”, and that the allegations of misconduct and misappropriation of funds against him were part of a predetermined move to remove him. Pointing a finger at former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan for recommending his impeachment, Sen said: “The real...

The ever-energetic Jairam Ramesh has unveiled a new land acquisition policy for discussion. He has taken on the difficult task of changing an old law whose implementation has led to a sorry mess in Nandigram, Singur and Noida, to mention only a few of the recent cases that have hit the headlines. India’s policy regime for managing land rights and land transactions is totally dysfunctional. Greedy politicians in state governments have...

Has India's battle against Corruption become a contest between the tyranny of virtue and the tyranny of the state, as some analysts put it? The police have arrested anti-Corruption campaigner Anna Hazare for pledging to go ahead with a hunger strike against a proposed new anti-Corruption law. After nine meetings with the government, Mr Hazare and his supporters cobbled together their version of the Lokpal (Citizen's Ombudsman) bill. He insists that this...