-The Indian Express The Bombay high court delivered a telling summary of all that’s wrong with Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption, as it refused their request for a discount on the rent of the MMRDA grounds in Mumbai, where they have planned a public fast over their dissatisfaction with the Lokpal bill. The court spoke up for the primacy of Parliament in clear, clinching terms. “We cannot allow parallel canvassing” when the...
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In the year and now by Ramachandra Guha
The Republic of India has a billion (and more) citizens who, at any given time, are involved in a thousand (and more) controversies. Knowing which controversy is the most significant is always hard, and often impossible, to judge. Even so, we can be fairly certain that 2011 will go down in Indian history as the year of the Great Lokpal Debate, just as 1962 was the year of the war...
More »Battle lines being drawn over minority sub-quota
-The Hindu The government's decision on a sub-quota of 4.5 per cent for minorities within the overall 27 per cent reservation for the backward classes promises to be the new trigger for a heated political discourse just ahead of several Assembly elections, including the all-important poll in Uttar Pradesh just a few months away. More than a decade ago, the V.P. Singh government ushered in the ‘Mandal revolution' in North India. It...
More »Support on streets drives up Lokpal Bill in the House by Smita Gupta
Women's groups may need to take lessons from Team Anna in campaigning for their quota bill Most MPs are opposed to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, just as they were opposed to the Women's Reservation Bill. But the Lokpal Bill stands a better chance of being enacted. Unlike the Women's Reservation Bill, which had no support on the streets, the anti-corruption law...
More »Consistent failure by all depts: CAG slams govt over Adarsh
-Express News Service Branding the Adarsh scam a “classic example of the fence eating the crops” and “how a select and powerful elite could collude to subvert rules and regulations for personal benefit” , the Comptroller and Auditor General has slammed the government and officials in its audit of the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society. The report, that was tabled in the Assembly on Friday, called the entire Adarsh episode a remarkable case...
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