Pressure mounts on Anna Hazare to tone down

The fasting activist whose campaign for strict anti-corruption legislation has galvanised millions of Indians faced growing pressure on Sunday to show more flexibility amid signs that an embattled government was abandoning its hardline stance. Anna Hazare, a 74-year-old self-styled Gandhian activist, was on his sixth day of fasting at an open ground in the capital. He says the hunger strike, which involves not eating but drinking water, will continue until the government passes his tough anti-graft bill. But his insistence that the government introduce his anti-corruption bill on Tuesday and pass it by the end of this month sparked criticism that his group was dictating policy to an elected parliament. One of India's foremost civil rights organisations, the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), said it would introduce its own anti-graft bill.