All real estate transactions will have to be reported to the country's anti- moneylaundering agency once the government amends a key law that seeks to curb black-money transactions. The government plans to amend the Prevention of Money Laundering Act , which will require property registrars to file data of transactions recorded by them with the Financial Intelligence Unit, or FIU, a finance ministry official said. "The scope of the (Prevention...

Any perceptive analyst of democracy will testify that there is no necessary relationship between democracy and a corruption-proof regime, or development, or political stability. If we were to evaluate democracy from the vantage point of the desired ends we expect it to realise, it would fare rather poorly when compared to authoritarian governments, say the one institutionalised in Singapore by its former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Yew transformed Singapore...

Anna Hazare trusts Narendra Modi on “development” but not the maturity of the Indian voter. Fresh from the Lok Pal “victory”, the social activist has said he will never contest an election as most Indian voters do not value their vote and sell it for money and liquor. “I will lose my deposit if I stand for elections.… The voter is not aware. Many of them cast their votes for a 100-rupee...

In fashionably liberal circles, Prashant Bhushan is an authentic modern hero, the people's advocate who uses the killer argument to avenge the aam admi on the bloodless battlefield of the Supreme Court. Among his lawyer peers, Bhushan is somewhat disdainfully seen as an "activist who takes up causes, not cases". Some politicians call him a "self-righteous" busybody with a penchant for the sensational storyline. Some others loathe the 55-year-old, who helped...

Low on economic progress, high on progressiveness. That sums up Darntoli, a tribal hamlet in Torpa block of Khunti district which clocked one of the highest sex ratios, 994 females for every 1,000 males in the 2011 Census, the provisional figures of which were released yesterday. According to 2001 Census, the figure was 971 females. The latest figures are much higher than the state average of 947 and the national average of...