This “Activist” was quite different from the suit-wearing PIL litigant or the Left-leaning jholawala. In the run up to Anna Hazare’s first fast over an anti-corruption law in April, a communications company provided the technical support to a service in which, if mobile users called a toll-free number, they would then receive free alerts on the protests. The service was one of an array of technologies — from Twitter updates...

Speculations were rife over the motive behind the killing of Shehla Masood. Even as her family demanded a CBI inquiry into the incident, the police said that they were exploring all angles, including suicide. The Activist’s body was found on Tuesday in her car, parked in front of her house in Koh-e-fiza locality, hours before she was to lead a campaign in support of Anna Hazare. There were no eyewitnesses and...

-The Hindu   Strongly condemning the arrest of social Activist Anna Hazare in New Delhi on Tuesday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal said the Centre's action smacked of “dictatorial tendencies,” trying as it did to throttle the people's right to speak out against any issue. Demanding a “strong Jan Lokpal Bill” that would have the office of Prime Minister within its ambit, the party also insisted on instituting a...

Anna Hazare's so-called "second freedom struggle" raises questions, one, about how long the protests can be sustained, and, two, on the merits of the protesters' demands and methods. But before that, Team Anna should be given credit for reviving long-somnolent mass politics in this country, something beyond the Opposition that has been reduced to activism on the idiot box. It shows how much anti-government political space had been abandoned by the...

-The Economic Times   Stepping out to fight the media hullabaloo surrounding Team Anna's campaign against corruption, the government unleashed a counterblitzkrieg on Tuesday, using a media briefing - that went live on most news channels - to insist that one man alone could not hold Parliament to ransom on the Lokpal Bill. "Here is one man (Anna) who is saying that only my law should be enacted ...and if it is...