Sections within civil society have reservations about Anna Hazare’s movement but the government’s failure to tap them may have lent credence to the impression that his group was speaking up for the entire nation. Although leaders like P. Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal have argued that no single group could claim to be the sole representative of civil society, the Centre has not seriously tried to open channels of communication with other...

As Anna Hazare was being whisked away in a SUV, a Rajouri Garden trader turned to the hassled cops, who had wrestled with him and thousands of others to ensure smooth passage for the activist's vehicle, and pleaded with folded hands "Thank you so much sir". Red-faced, the cops looked away. Delhi rediscovered Gandhigiri on Tuesday when the West is veering towards violent protests and their aggressive stifling. For instance, last...

NCM orders compensation for boys framed in Mecca Masjid blast case Four years after the Andhra Pradesh police picked up 21 Muslim boys and wrongly accused them of involvement in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast, there is finally some hope that they can resume normal life without the stigma of terrorism. The hope comes via the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), which recently made four key recommendations to the State government. A...

The (word) games we play to avoid dealing with the problems of some of the poorest Indians. It's strange season again in the corridors of planning and power — the run up to the 12th Five-Year Plan. This is when myriad Planning Commission committees review the (somewhat predictable) non-implementation of policies intended to benefit some of the poorest Indians, and recommend changes, only to repeat the exercise five years later. Forgive my...

The past couple of months have seen a renewed attack on the National Advisory Council (NAC). The NAC has been decried as an unconstitutional, undemocratic, “super-cabinet” where unaccountable “jholawalas” hatch harebrained schemes guaranteed to run the government aground. Another line of criticism has focused on the process of the formation of the NAC, its space within the Indian Constitution, and its capacity to influence policy. The two criticisms merge with...