Over seven lakh calls to a phone number set up to register the number of supporters for an anti-corruption movement. Schoolchildren who have swapped their cricketing heroes for a 78-year-old Gandhian who is fasting unto death. Cries castigating Manmohan Singh's effeteness being greeted by a roar in the swelling crowds. And a mostly-out-of work Uma Bharti scouting for a photo-op but barely managing one. At Jantar Mantar, the site of Anna...

72-year-old Hazare, who has lost 1.5 kg in the past three days, said there was no need for anyone to worry about his health as he can go with the fast for another seven days As his fast-unto-death on the Lokpal issue entered the third day, Gandhian Anna Hazare on Thursday stuck to the demand for a joint committee of civil society members and government representatives to draft a strong Lokpal...

The new Lokpal Bill panel will have equal representation from civil society, but it will remain an informal committee, the Union government told social activist Anna Hazare on Thursday, whose 'satyagraha' for a stringent anti-corruption legislation entered its third day. Hazare's supporters are disappointed there will be no formal notification issued on this committee which would have made it binding on the government to go by it. The deadlock, therefore, continues though...

Distribution of basic food grains and fuel at controlled prices every month through the Public Distribution System (PDS) could be the largest service provided by the Indian State, touching as it does over 65 million families through a network of nearly half a million retail shops. Given that the urban middle class has little stake in the health of the PDS, there have to be some compelling reasons for the...

Hazare is now fighting possibly the biggest battle of his life, by launching an indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi to press for an early enactment of a Lokpal Bill, legislation that would create public ombudsmen to investigate corruption charges against public servants Anna Hazare is a veteran of many battles—as a former soldier and then as a social activist who has forced at least half a dozen Maharashtra ministers to...