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A Facile Conclusion

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This Indian Express page one anchor is a classic case exposing how little journalists know what is happening on the activism front At centre of stirs against graft, a body with RSS links, ex-babus I n the story referred to above, correspondent Manoj CG jumps to a facile conclusion based on random quotes without delving deep into the facts, that too more than a year since the events alluded to in the story transpired. While it is a fact that two members of India against Corruption  —  Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi  —  were among the empanelled speakers in Vivekananda International Foundation-hosted seminar on 1 and 2 April 2011, it was no way a bid to either shape the respective movements led by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev or bring the two civil society leaders together, much as the second is desired and has been a constant endeavour for the last two years on the part of many RSS  swayamsevak s. Following are the facts beyond what Manoj reports: The movement that has Hazare as

Against Or Allied To Corruption?

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How Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Co took the unassuming people of this country for a ride [ Click on the headline to hear Shambhu Dutt Sharma speak ] T he 5-8 April spectacle at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, was nothing but a corporate conspiracy of expending the energies of the Great Indian Huddle-and-Muddle Class, as mass mobilisation by Baba Ramdev and satyagraha by veteran Gandhian Shambhu Dutt Sharma was making them increasingly jittery. The unfolding of the events also suggests, at least in hindsight and going by the confessions of a drunk journalist, that the UPA Government was complicit in the act of trickery. When the pressure was building up : Baba Ramdev addressing a rally at Ramlila Maidan on 27 February 2011; the group went on to submit a memorandum containing 10 demands to the President To grab maximum eyeballs, the show was timed conveniently to fall between the end of the ICC World Cup tournament and the beginning of DLF-sponsored Indian Premier Leag