dir="ltr">A recent vital piece of legislation relating to political funding went largely unnoticed in media and political circles. The Election and Other Related Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2003 (Bill No. 18 of 2003) was approved by both Houses of Parliament in August 2003, and became law in September with the assent of the President. In any other functioning democracy, such a law would have been hailed as a major reform, and dominated public discourse for months. The deafening silence on the subject in India is a sad reflection of the quality of public discourse.

dir="ltr">The arrest of Amarmani Tripathi, a former minister in UP, on charges of murdering Madhumita Shukla, and the unabashed defense of the accused by chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav exposed the crisis confronting our criminal justice system as never before. The behaviour of two successive governments led by bitter rivals – Mayavati and Mulayam Yadav – is identical in a criminal case involving their political colleague. Tripathi switched loyalties and joined the BSP faction which defected to Mulayam’s side.

dir="ltr">The recent bomb blasts in Mumbai, and the death and devastation that followed brought home to us once again the

We have witnessed momentous developments during this week. The heinous Mumbai blasts killing scores of people and injuring many more, the collapse of the BSP-BJP coalition in Uttar Pradesh, and the report of ASI on Ayodhya – all these are events which could have far-reaching impact on our polity and society for some time to come.

The recent strike of employees of Tamil Nadu state, the firm and decisive action by the government, the mature  and  sober  judicial  pronouncements  on  the issue, the  eventual capitulation  of  the  erring employees, and the  emergence  of an unlikely  hero in  Ms. Jayalaitha hold important lessons for our polity.Over the years, politics acquired a pejorative connotation in India. Most decent and honest citizens have begun to despise the political process and shun politics. This distaste soon expanded to rejection, and mindless and intemperate criticism of all political decision-making.

The acquittal of the accused in the notorious Best Bakery case has once again exposed the weakness of our criminal justice system.  Swaminathan Aiyar in these columns made a strong plea for stringent action against perjury in order to restore the sanctity of the judicial process.

Prime Minister Vajpayee’s China visit brought to the fore the inevitable comparisons between the economic performance of both nations. In some ways, this obsession with China over the years has become an important driver of change in India. In some quarters, the success of China is portrayed as evidence of the comparative advantage of authoritarian regimes over struggling democracies like India.

Throughout history, plundering the public exchequer for private gain has been the favourite pastime of unscrupulous crooks. No society, or no age is an exception to this. Sometimes such fraud is by misrepresentation and deceit, but often in collusion with officials entrusted with the responsibility of protecting public good.

Mumbai, India’s premier city, and the nation’s financial and industrial capital is going through a crisis. The population of the city is growing at 4.5 percent per annum. Predictably, most growth is by migration from poor, rural areas. In 1960, squatters were estimated to be less than 4 lakhs in a population of 4.5 million. By 1980, their number rose to 4.5 million in a population of 9 million. Greater Mumbai is now the sixth largest mega city in the world, with 16.4 million population.

The proposed National Judicial Commission (NJC) and amendments to contempt law raised serious debate on judicial accountability.