Voices against Anna Hazare, so far inaudible in the course of his high-decibel campaign, are getting louder. A section of civil society activists, Dalit leaders and some legal experts are gearing up to counter the Hazare wave. Their gripe: Hazare’s movement is teetering on the edge of “fascism”. Udit Raj, a Dalit heavyweight and head of the All-India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, will storm India Gate on August 24 with followers to...

Until about a year ago, the number of Indians who knew the name of Kisan Baburao Hazare, popularly known as Anna Hazare, ran into a few thousand -- small change in a country of a billion people. The former army driver was known for his peculiar experiments of social reform in a village in Maharashtra, in western India. He had received national awards for his social work. By the end of...

The Union Government has announced that it would bring the Lokpal Bill in the monsoon session of Parliament which is expected to pass it in the winter session. The all-party meeting held on the Lokpal issue damned the civil society and passed a one-line resolution: “The all-party meeting agreed that the government should bring before the next session of Parliament a strong and effective Lokpal Bill following established procedures.” The...

The Comptroller and Auditor General has hauled up the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh for spending much more than the initially sanctioned amounts on construction activities at the Chief Minister's two dream parks, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Parivartan Sthal and Kanshiram Smarak Sthal, in Lucknow. In a report tabled in the UP assembly on Friday, CAG also said that it was unable to ascertain the "correctness" of the expenditure made on erecting...

In the past six months, five-year-old Shivam has learnt a useful lesson, that perseverance is a great leveller - of shoes. Shivam is both the means and the end of his father's dream to give him a good life. Masseur Prem Pal Singh, 37, who left his UP hometown years ago, has seen enough of Dakshinpuri's poor lanes, and been pushed around often enough to know the value of education,...