-PTI   Facing allegations of financial misconduct, activist Arvind Kejriwal broke his silence on Tuesday daring the government to conduct a probe against him and other Team Anna members even as he questioned the motive behind the "smear campaign". Defending himself and Kiran Bedi, who is under attack for inflating her travel bills, Kejriwal said, "If someone paid the ticket examiner in Railway because he needed a ticket, so that person cannot question...

-PTI   Questions were raised on Sunday about the use of funds donated by the public to Team Anna with Swami Agnivesh alleging that money was deposited in the trust run by Arvind Kejriwal from which the names of major team members were missing, a claim dismissed as made “out of anger”. Besides Team Anna detractor Swami Agnivesh, another former member ‘Waterman’ Rajinder Singh also raised the issue urging Mr. Kejriwal to come...

-The Economic Times   The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) will soon have a dedicated cell to monitor election-related expenditure by political parties and Donations made to them. "A special cell is being created under CBDT to look at election funding," said a finance ministry official. The new cell will be headed by a commissioner rank officer of the I-T department and will monitor election-related expenditure and political funding and enforce...

Arvind Kejriwal is part of the brains trust behind the Anna Hazare movement, which has the potential to further undermine the Delhi order. The engineer-turned-civil servant-turned-RTI activist is now a mass campaigner for the Jan Lokpal bill and plans to expand the movement. He spoke to Saba Naqvi about his ideological convictions, faith in “the people”, dealings with the Aruna Roy-led National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) and...

Political parties are sourcing a major chunk of their funds from unidentified donors, according to their income-tax returns. Donors' lists and tax returns filed by the Congress, BJP, NCP and BSP for the past five years show they have not identified those who account for most of their funding. For instance, the Congress collected at least Rs 978 crore through sale of coupons in the five years till 2008-09, for which...