Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has come out in support of the former Law Minister and co-chairman of the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, Shanti Bhushan, and his advocate-son Prashant Bhushan, saying their integrity is “absolutely beyond doubt.” On Monday, Mr. Kumar said the case of the surreptitious compact disc, which allegedly contains a conversation between Mr. Shanti Bhushan, the former Samajwadi Party general secretary, Amar Singh, and the former Uttar Pradesh...

Itself the outcome of a bottom-up movement, the Jan Lokpal bill ironically proposes a centralised framework against graft. Without checks and balances. There was never any doubt that India needs a strong Lokpal Act. The protest has paved the way for its enactment. With the exultation over the anti-corruption campaign’s ‘victory’ quieting down, it’s time to take stock. Nuanced arguments—and indeed substance—have to recover lost ground to take the discourse...

Do we, the Indian middle class, see the corruption within us? I was too busy being corrupt to join Anna Hazare’s camp last week. For four days, I heard nothing but stories of our Tahrir Square-like revolution against the corrupt unfurling right under our noses in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. But it was school admission time and I had some serious palm-greasing, document-fudging, string-pulling, weight-throwing and tout-chasing to do. I had...

For over a year, travelling to various parts of the country, activist and prime mover of the Jan Lokpal Bill, Arvind Kejriwal, has been repeating the same story over and over again, on the anti-corruption structures we have currently. Last month, at a huge gathering of RTI activists in Shillong, Meghalaya, he explained. “When an official acts as a whistle-blower and complains against his boss, a senior officer, the Central...

An activist promoting the Right to Information Act in Maharashtra has been attacked with a sword. He is in hospital. Popat Barge was attacked in the Satara district on Sunday night, possibly in retaliation for his attempts to use the RTI to check on illegal construction. Mr Barge is a member of Anna Hazare's organization against corruption - Bhrastachar Virodhi Jan Andolan (The People's Movement Against corruption). ...