As long as the present generation of the powerful, whether the rulers in Washington or in New Delhi, persists with the practice of depending on its armed infrastructure to lord over the political space and establish hegemony over civil society, and fails to learn that such a policy invariably escalates a cycle of violence, the language of discourse in the relationship of the powerful and the powerless will be dominated by violence. In India today, how can there be a non-violent resolution of the major confl icts that are plaguing our society?

To understand people’s perceptions about the functioning of their representatives in the legislature, DAKSH, a civil society organisation in Karnataka, conducted a survey in October and November 2009 across 218 legislative assembly constituencies. The results from the survey reflect a stark gap between people’s expectations and their perceptions of the performances of the representatives. A summary of the report.

A milestone in gender power-sharing has been passed, but the “quota-in-quota” has to be addressed. (Editorial)

The Anna agitation is as much about the redistribution of power as the demand of the civil society activists for an effective Lokpal.

There are many problems with the Lokpal Bill 2011, the most serious being the lack of independence to the anti-corruption wing of the Central Bureau of Investigation. There have been problems as well with the civil society approach to the negotiations with the government. Civil society should now put down the non-negotiable demand of a Lokpal with full control over investigation and prosecution, and for one law to operate nationally.

The Lokpal Bill deals with the issue of autonomy of investigation in anti-corruption cases with half-measures. (Editorial)

The debate on the design of the Lokpal has been premised on the questionable assumption that what is needed to combat corruption is a powerful national institution to prosecute and convict the corrupt, but the debate has not drawn on the experience with the existing institutional models, namely the Lokayuktas in the states. An empirical analysis of the performance of the Lokayukta in Karnataka between 1995 and 2011 suggests that any anti-corruption agency, no matter how powerful, that is oriented towards criminal conviction is bound to fail in the absence of judicial reforms.

Graft is a major issue in people’s lives, but it is unlikely to figure in voter choice in the assembly elections. (Editorial)