Egypt, Tunisia and now — Jantar Mantar. That’s what a gaggle of school students felt Anna Hazare’s protest site had become. “Tunisia, Egypt and now India,” said one banner. Teenager Ankita, who held aloft the Poster, said she could not hold herself back. “A revolution is on. And I wanted to pitch in,” said the Class XII student of a reputable city school. Schoolmate Ashish Parikh nodded. “It is the tipping point.” They were...

Lokpal will not have any power to either initiate action suo motu in any case or even receive complaints of corruption from general public. The general public will make complaints to the speaker of Lok Sabha or chairperson of Rajya Sabha. Only those complaints forwarded by Speaker of Lok Sabha/Chairperson of Rajya Sabha to Lokpal would be investigated by Lokpal. This not only severely restricts the functioning of Lokpal, it...

For 55-year-old Mohimuddin of Goroimari, which falls in the Chaygaon Assembly constituency in lower Assam's Kamrup district, the protection of minorities from undue harassment in the name of identification of foreigners was the prime issue until a few years ago. This time round, he is more worried about the backwardness of his village coupled with price hike. A poor peasant with seven mouths to feed, Mohimuddin says the prime demand of...

Climbing food prices across Asia, especially India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Laos, might slow down by at least five years the region’s efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), a UN ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) report has cautioned. The report says India is among the mostaffected countries. According to the report, the rising food prices prevented more than 19...

Rajasthan has failed its girl children on two counts. Not only has it failed to protect them, it has also been unsuccessful in educating them, according to the Census figures released on Monday. The child sex ratio (number of females for every 1,000 male children in 0-6 age group) has dropped sharply to 883 from 909 in 2001 and the state reports the lowest female literacy rate at 52.66%. Expressing concern...