The anti-corruption movement is at the crossroads today. Where do we go from here? We are conscious that a wrong decision at this stage could prove disastrous for the movement. I met Anna in hospital two days back. Most of the time, I found him in deep thought. More than his physical ailment, he is suffering from a deep sense of being cheated. He is deeply hurt. When he went to...
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The saga of the lokpal Bill by Prashant Bhushan
The drama in the Rajya Sabha showed that the UPA government was not willing to go even by the will of Parliament. This gives rise to fundamental questions about the functioning of Indian democracy. The year 2011 will be remembered in India as the year of the campaign against corruption and for the Jan lokpal Bill. The campaign began in January 2011 in the backdrop of the publicity that accompanied the...
More »Aruna Roy, RTI activist interviewed by Pallavi Polanki
The lone Indian activist on the 2011 TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, Aruna Roy has been more successful than most, when it comes to getting the government’s attention. The Chennai-born former bureaucrat who was an instrumental force behind the revolutionary Right to Information Act has also been credited by the government for “incorporating strong citizen entitlements” in the ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). A constant...
More »Anna to rest, calls off poll campaign
-The Telegraph Anna Hazare will not campaign in the five election-bound states because of his poor health, aide Kiran Bedi said today. The Team Anna member said Hazare, 74, had been advised complete rest, and therefore he would not undertake the promised tour of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur, which are going to the polls from January 28 to March 3. “Anna is not going to campaign in the states. We...
More »Quota in lokpal will not solve unemployment in disadvantaged sections
-The Economic Times The enacting of the lokpal Bill has been deferred in the Rajya Sabha but that need not end the discussion on how focused the proposals are when it comes to tackling corruption. For instance, what exactly are the quotas in the lokpal meant to do? If out of an eight-or-nine-member lokpal, four or five should be from SCs, STs, OBCs, minorities and women, what is the message going...
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