Anna Hazare refused to answer questions on the anti-corruption movement today as he left hospital after an eight-day stay. However, many of his long-time associates said they used the time in hospital to advise him to make a course correction, particularly as regards India Against Corruption and its “100 per cent RSS leanings”. Hazare, they added, has been listening, particularly on the need to shed the movement’s pronounced anti-Congress agenda. “IAC is...

Farmers in Maharashtra flock to 
a new breed of aggressive leaders Its name in Marathi means edge of the hill, but Dongarkada has no hill or mountain in its vicinity. What the village in Maharashtra's Hingoli district has is a cooperative sugar factory controlled by Congress leader Ashok Chavan. Though the Adarsh Housing Society scam rocked the state and forced him to resign as chief minister, the village remains loyal to...

-The Hindu Anti-Kudankulam nuclear power plant Activists have come out with a new proposal for finding solution to the impasse by suggesting that the nuclear plant can be converted in to a thermal plant through technical modifications. Stating that they are aware of the precarious power situation in the country and the need for more power generation, the Activists said that they are determined to oppose nuclear power tooth and nail but...

Days after chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy wished to see every police station in the state work like a corporate office and the complainant received warmly, a Right to Information (RTI) Activist on Friday was nearly subjected to the third degree treatment by inspector K Srinivas Rao after he walked into Kukatpally police station, and only timely intervention by higher-ups saved him from being arrested and slapped with false cases....

-The Hoot The brutally fatal silencing of three journalists along with the sharp rise in censorship of content in online media and the increasing cases of defamation marked the deterioration of the climate for free speech across India in 2011. Attacks on journalists continued to be high, with 24 recorded instances even as writers, journalists and lawyers bore the brunt of the intolerance of vigilante groups to dissenting opinion. The Free Speech...