Vishnu Medhkar (34) has filed a police complaint alleging that he was beaten up after seeking information about a Turbhe-based stone quarry workers' association under the Right To Information (RTI) Act. A resident of Turbhe, Vishnu claimed that he was thrashed on Saturday evening by three family members of a local Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporator, Amit Medhkar. "Between 6.45 pm and 7 pm, I was assaulted by Amit's father...

National Advisory Council starts discussions on Lokpal Bill The Prime Minister's Office (PMO), late on Monday evening, issued an appeal to noted social worker Anna Hazare to abandon the hunger strike he had announced he would resort to, starting Tuesday, to force the government to accept his version of the Lokpal Bill. The appeal came a few hours after the National Advisory Council (NAC)'s Working Group on Transparency and Accountability met civil...

Support came in from all sections of society here on Tuesday for Anna Hazare who is on an indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi for the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill. Social activists, organisations, business groups, students, housewives and people from all walks of society expressed solidarity by participating in various events organised for the day. ‘India Against Corruption' facilitated a day-long protest at Azad Maidan, which saw a...

The Manmohan Singh government and the Congress leadership appear to have overcome initial jitters and hardened their stand on the campaign launched by social activists led by Anna Hazare who began a “fast-unto-death” at Delhi’s agitation hub Jantar Mantar this morning. The Congress suspects that the entire campaign has been hijacked by the RSS which, the party feels, is looking for ways to destabilise the government after some Sangh leaders were...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) and civil society groups are clearly not happy with the government's draft of the Lokpal Bill, intended to check corruption in high places. But a public consultation, a day ahead of the discussions that the NAC's Working Group on Transparency and Accountability is due to have with government representatives and others, demonstrated how difficult it will be to get a consensus on a...