Admitting that there was "growing feeling" amongst people that present systems were ineffective in dealing with corruption, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said he hoped to bring the more stringent anti-graft Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill in the monsoon session of parliament. Addressing bureaucrats of the country at a function here, Manmohan Singh stressed that his government was accelerating its efforts to create a systemic response to curb graft practices in India. "Our...

In an effort to encourage individuals to help feed tens of thousands of hungry children across the world, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has created a social media platform through which people can share their favourite meals by making donations to the agency. The Internet portal, WeFeedback, engages supporters through an online “Feedback Calculator” that helps them to work out how many children they could feed if they donated...

Irom Sharmila Chanu and Anna Hazare have one thing in common – the ability to fast indefinitely for what they perceive is right. But the similarities end there. She has been on a political fast for 11 years but her silent resilience moves you when you realize the sheer magnitude of what she is single-handedly trying to achieve. Far from the glare of studio lights of television channels and tangled wires of...

In a bid to weed out frauds, the government has decided that all its employees should have the Aadhar Unique Identification Number (UID) to draw their salary. Maharashtra will be the first state in the country to implement the system. The UID will have demographic and biometric information of an individual. The government, which has nearly 37 lakh staffers, hopes that the system will stop corruption among unscrupulous employees, who have...

Given the scale of corruption in India, the constitution of a Jan Lokpal will be a welcome initiative. But the proposed Lokpal has the makings of a super-monster. After 42 years of hesitation and uncertainty, an institutional mechanism to deal with the all-pervasive incidence of corruption in India is in sight. What apparently moved the state machinery was the agitation spearheaded by Anna Hazare, which drew spontaneous support primarily in the...