First such verdict by Election Commission The Election Commission delivered a historic verdict on Thursday by disqualifying Uttar Pradesh MLA Umlesh Yadav from contesting again for three years for not including in her official accounts of expenditure the amount she spent on advertisements in two Hindi dailies that were masquerading as news items. Umlesh Yadav is the wife of liquor baron and billionaire strongman D.P. Yadav and mother of Vikas Yadav, the...

-The Times of India   Team Anna on Tuesday attacked political parties on the issue of corruption. It said that it is campaigning against Congress because it is in power and in a position to bring a strong Jan Lokpal, which will curb corruption across the country. Addressing a public meeting, team Anna members Arvind Kejriwal, said, "Uttar Pradesh has been facing the brunt of corruption for last several decades. The face of...

-The Telegraph   Union law minister Salman Khurshid today said the Lokpal will be a constitutional authority and that this will not delay the bill. “Is it going to delay Lokpal’s creation? My answer is no, there will be no delay and we will work hard to ensure there’s no delay. We cannot say with absolute certainty that it will be passed in Parliament at this time, on this day,” Khurshid said, but...

-The Hindustan Times   A slipper was hurled at Anna Hazare aide Arvind Kejriwal at a function in Lucknow on Tuesday — exactly a week after Prashant Bhushan, another Team Anna member, had been thrashed in his chamber in the Supreme Court for seeking a plebiscite in Kashmir. The black flag-waving, saffron kurta-clad attacker, Jitendra Pathak of Jalaun district in Bundelkhand, about 200 km north of Lucknow, attacked Kejriwal when he was about...

IT IS one of the inspirational legends of Indian journalism that James Hickey, founder and editor of the Bengal Gazette — this country’s first newspaper, with its first edition going back to January 1780 — was a fearless seeker of the truth, taken to court and imprisoned by Warren Hastings, then governor-general. Reality is a little different. Hickey’s paper was often a gossipy, yellow rag. It thought nothing of publishing scurrilous...