Sushma blasts PM & defends RSS role in stir SUSHMA Swaraj, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday of presenting a “ pack of lies” to Parliament on the Anna Hazare episode even as she mounted a strong defence of the BJP’s ideological mother, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( RSS), and its support to the Hazare- led movement. In an agitated speech, interrupted...

-The Times of India   The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed unhappiness over the progress of investigations into irregularities in the purchase of intelligence equipment and recruitments by the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which was set up in 2004 to provide crucial data on threats to the nation. A bench of Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik asked solicitor general R F Nariman about the status of the probe into...

-The Telegraph   The CPM and the BJP closed ranks today, with Sitaram Yechury heading to Sushma Swaraj’s chamber in Parliament to plot strategy on the government crackdown on Anna Hazare. General secretary Prakash Karat’s stringent anti-Congress line prevailed in the CPM, which has so far consciously avoided being seen with the “communal” BJP, and a reluctant Yechury followed party colleague Ramchandra Dome to Sushma’s room after the politburo issued a second statement...

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...

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...