Irom Sharmila Chanu and Anna Hazare have one thing in common – the ability to fast indefinitely for what they perceive is right. But the similarities end there. She has been on a political fast for 11 years but her silent resilience moves you when you realize the sheer magnitude of what she is single-handedly trying to achieve. Far from the glare of studio lights of television channels and tangled wires of...

There can be little question that the news media, print as well as television, have contributed significantly to bringing the issue of corruption to political India's centre stage. The focus on the corruption of elections through ‘cash for votes' comes in tandem with the proactive intervention by the Election Commission of India during the April-May elections to State Assemblies. There can also be little doubt that the U.S. Embassy Cables,...

It is not often that a social security programme the size of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS - New Delhi has spent Rs 40,000 crore on it in 2010/11 alone - faces an existential moment. But, April 2011 will present one such crossroad: the end of the term of a bureaucrat widely acknowledged as the prime mover behind the five-year old scheme. Brought in six years ago to the Centre from her parent...

Union Finance Minister Pranab MukherJEE’s son Avijit MukherJEE, who is contesting from Nalhati in Birbhum district as a Congress candidate in the West Bengal assembly elections, has assets worth more than Rs 5 crore jointly with his wife. Avijit who filed his nomination on Tuesday stated in his affidavits that he had movable assets worth Rs 58.2 lakh. These include a Maruti 800 car, an army Mahindra JEEp and a revolver...

On fast for over a decade, demanding repeal of AFSPA Irom Sharmila, who has been on a fast-unto-death since November 2, 2000 demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), 1958, has charged the Government of India with adopting “double standards.” She pointed out that the Centre had yielded to the demands of social activist Anna Hazare on the Lokpal Bill after he had been on hunger strike...