What does it take to get the government to fight corruption? One answer could be: a medical facility with an air-conditioned Intensive Care Unit, a team of 60 doctors, a Media centre, 1,300 toilets, seven large screens to pipe live action, television sets, and a storage facility of 100,000 litres of water. This is some of the infrastructure behind Baba Ramdev’s fast that starts on 4 June at New Delhi’s Ramlila grounds. Ramdev...

The farmers' agitation in Uttar Pradesh brings into focus the indiscriminate acquisition of land by the state for corporate-led development. ON May 19, three days before the formal observation of the second anniversary of the United Progressive Alliance government, Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi made a categorical announcement that in the monsoon session of Parliament scheduled to begin in July the ruling coalition would bring in legislation that...

Governments can acquire land for “public purpose” while making sure that the displaced are compensated, relocated and rehabilitated. THE violent conflict over land acquisition in Uttar Pradesh and the persisting resistance to land acquisition for the Posco project in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa are merely recent instances that exemplify the growing stand-off between the Indian state and its people centred on land. On the one side are governments (both Central...

UPA government for excluding PM, higher judiciary and acts of MPs in Parliament from scrutiny The Joint Drafting Committee on the Lokpal Bill on Monday for the first time got bogged down by contentious issues. The UPA government opposed scrutiny by the Lokpal of the Prime Minister, the higher judiciary and acts of MPs inside Parliament — in the context of seeking cash for votes and for raising questions —...

Simmering differences between civil society members and government representatives spilled over on Monday after an attempt was made to bring the prime minister and the higher judiciary under the purview of the Lokpal Bill. In its fifth meeting on Monday, while government representatives—including senior Union ministers Pranab Mukherjee, Kapil Sibal, M.Veerappa Moily, P. Chidambaram and Salman Khursheed—expressed their reservations, civil society members said their demand was “non-negotiable” and threatened another agitation. While...