Ankaji Bhai Gangar, a 49-year-old subsistence farmer, stood in line in this remote village until, for the first time in his life, he squinted into the soft glow of a computer screen. His name, year of birth and address were recorded. A worker guided Mr. Gangar’s rough fingers to the glowing green surface of a scanner to record his fingerprints. He peered into an iris scanner shaped like binoculars that...

An anticorruption protest leader whose arrest on Tuesday morning reverberated across India, inciting outrage at the government, ended the day with a very different twist: He refused an offer to be released from jail. By late Tuesday, the scene outside Tihar Jail was playing on all-news channels across the country. More than 1,000 supporters waved flags and banners, chanting slogans, as the protest leader, Anna Hazare, rejected a police release order...

The protest leader Anna Hazare appeared to strike a deal with the police early Thursday morning that would enable him to leave a local jail and begin staging a hunger strike against corruption later in the day, according to a close aide and reports in the Indian news media. One of Mr. Hazare’s aides, Kiran Bedi, announced via Twitter that Mr. Hazare had accepted a police offer to limit any...

Anna Hazare's arrest has raised intricate legal questions about the fundamental right to assemble peacefully. At the same time another right is being questioned. According to the legal experts, police in most states are making illegal arrests due to complete ignorance that the procedure related to arrests was amended on November 1 last year. Police must now issue a notice of appearance before making an arrest of a cognizable offense. The...

After a four-decade battle, Indian lawmakers took the first formal step toward creating an independent anticorruption agency on Thursday, introducing a bill in Parliament that would appoint a powerful ombudsman, or Lokpal, to investigate wrongdoing by government officials. But the draft of the law, which exempts the prime minister, members of Parliament and many other officials from the Lokpal’s jurisdiction, was roundly rejected by many of the people who had...