-The Times of India   The government has endorsed a recommendation of Parliament's standing committee to restrain judges from making baseless comments against constitutional and statutory bodies and their functionaries even in cases which don't concern them directly. The decision forms part of the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill that is to be discussed by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday. The government has also expanded the standing committee's recommendation that close relatives of judges...

Anna Hazare today appeared to betray an ambition to become the next Jaya Prakash Narayan if not a Mahatma Gandhi II, asking the Opposition to join his agitation if the UPA defeated the efforts to enact a strong Lokpal. He asked the Opposition to hit the streets and fill the jails, sounding a little like JP who had brought the Right and the Left together in his 1970s campaign against the...

One hopes that the hotly contested Lokpal Bill will reach its final denouement during the winter session of Parliament. In fact, the debate on corruption in Parliament and media has focused on the single demand for the establishment of an omnipotent institution of the lokpal with its powers of enforcing the citizen’s charter, establishing state-level lokayuktas and encompassing the bureaucracy from a peon to head of the department. It has...

Leaders of farmer groups are meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday to press for allowing FDI in retail. Leaders from four states with lion's share in India's farm GDP--Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka -- will be part of the delegation.  "We will give December 31 as deadline for implementation of FDI. After that we will begin a nationwide stir," said PV Chengal Reddy, who heads Confederation of Indian Farmers, a...

Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare made an impactful return to the "anshan-andolan (fasting-protest)" arena on Sunday, drawing an enthusiastic and youthful crowd to Jantar Mantar and rallying major non-Congress parties to his cause. Three months after his epic 13-day fast at Ramlila Maidan, the response to Anna's seven-hour protest is proof that the Gandhian has not lost traction with popular sentiment despite his now familiar anti-government announcements. He also succeeded in splitting...