The Jan Lokpal Bill should be modelled on the lines of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act. That's the firm belief of Lokayukta Justice Santosh N Hegde whose inclusion in the 10-member committee to draft the bill was suggested by Anna Hazare, the Gandhian who recently led the popular movement to include civil society in the process. Justice Hegde said the state Act has all the necessary elements to ensure success in the...

This is India’s Tahrir square, read one of the tweets soon after the CAMPAign against corruption succeeded last week and forced the government to accept the demands of social activist Anna Hazare to announce a committee for considering a new Lokpal Bill against corruption. After watching widespread public demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle-East countries to rid their countries of dictators, there was a frisson of excitement among our socially...

Anna Hazare made an odd statement. He explained that he would never seek to contest an election because he would lose — indeed, forfeiting his deposit, as the “ordinary voter does not have awareness. They cast their vote under the influence of Rs 100 or a bottle of liquor or a sari offered by candidates. They don’t understand the value of their vote.” The line between this disdain for the...

Any perceptive analyst of democracy will testify that there is no necessary relationship between democracy and a corruption-proof regime, or development, or political stability. If we were to evaluate democracy from the vantage point of the desired ends we expect it to realise, it would fare rather poorly when compared to authoritarian governments, say the one institutionalised in Singapore by its former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Yew transformed Singapore...

Social activist Anna Hazare, whose last week's fast forced the Centre to form a joint committee to draft the Lokpal Bill, on Monday asked Communications and HRD Minister Kapil Sibal to resign from the panel if he felt that it would be able to achieve nothing. Mr. Sibal reportedly said on Sunday that the Bill would not be able to solve problems related to education, health or civic issues. However, on...