Latest news with #LeftWingExtremism
Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Bastar inches closer to gaining ‘Maoist-free' tag
In a notification dated March 2025, the Union home ministry has reclassified Bastar district in the Bastar division of Chattissgarh as a 'district of legacy and trust' from its previous classification as a district affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE). The notification, which HT has seen, came into effect on April 1. The Bastar division comprises seven district including Bastar, Kanker, Konadagaon, Narayanpur, Sukma, Bijapur and Dantewada. Hindustan Times reported in December that the home ministry could consider removing Baster and Konadagaon from the list of districts affected by LWE. Konadagaon has also been re-categorised as a district of legacy and trust. 'This re-categorization, part of a broader LWE review by the Centre, places Bastar district among 28 districts across India where Maoist activity has significantly declined but where continued vigilance and sustained developmental and operational focus are still required. However, this marks a critical step toward declaring Bastar entirely free of Maoist influence,' a senior officer of Chhattisgarh police said. Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range), Sundarraj P, emphasized the strategic progress made in the region. 'The recent re-categorization underlines a significant shift in the LWE landscape of the Bastar Range, particularly with Bastar and Kondagaon now identified as 'districts of legacy'. This means that Maoist activities have come down to a great extent. Our focus will now be on consolidating peace through consistent anti-Naxal operations, development projects, and community engagement.' Sundarraj also explained the home ministry's new framework which 'classifies 18 LWE-affected districts nationwide into three equal categories: Most Affected, Other Affected, and Districts of Concern, with six districts in each.' Within the Bastar Range, Sukma, Bijapur, Narayanpur, and Kanker continue to be listed among the Most Affected LWE districts, while Dantewada is placed in the Other Affected category. The recent encounter in which 29 Maoists were killed happened at Kanker. 'Bastar and Kondagaon's shift to the legacy category reflects not just a decrease in violence but also an increasing presence of civil governance and infrastructure development,' Sundarraj added.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Turning point for Chhattisgarh: Bastar & Kondagaon shed Maoist-affected tag
Raipur: Bastar — once synonymous with the rise of Maoist insurgency — and Kondagaon have been removed from the list of Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected districts by the ministry of home affairs (MHA), marking a turning point in Chhattisgarh's mission to shed the baggage of Naxalism. his comes a week after Maoist general secretary Basavaraju was gunned down, along with 27 other Maoists, in neighbouring Narayanpur district. Bastar and Kondagaon have now been sub-categorized as 'districts of legacy and thrust', which means Maoist activities have come down to a great extent but still need sustained vigilance and developmental / operational focus. Other districts of Bastar division — Sukma, Bijapur, Narayanpur and Kanker — are still categorized as 'most affected LWE districts' while Dantewada is identified among 'other LWE districts'. Dhamtari, Kabirdham, Khairagarh-Chhuikhadan-Gandai and Rajnandgaon have also been sub-categorized under 'legacy and thrust districts'. Bastar and Kondagaon were once counted among the hotbeds of Maoist insurgency, but incidents of violence have dropped significantly in recent years. The lone encounter in Kondagaon in nearly five years was on April 16 when two senior Maoist commanders were gunned down. Both districts saw good voting in the 2023 assembly polls -- Bastar 84.6% and Kondagaon 81.7%. Speaking to TOI, Bastar range IG P Sundarraj said, 'Kondagaon and Bastar are among 30 districts across the country now brought under 'districts of legacy and thrust' category. This indeed removes Bastar and Kondagaon from the category of LWE-affected regions but it should be understood as the districts with significantly reduced Maoist activities that need development and vigilance on the operational front.' In the recent notification issued by MHA, 18 districts in the country are identified as 'LWE-affected', 'other LWE-affected' or 'districts of concern', including six in Chhattisgarh. 'It is worth mentioning that due to effective anti-Naxal operations in recent months, we have seen remarkable and positive outcomes in the overall LWE scenario in Bastar Range. Categorization of Kondagaon and Bastar as 'districts of legacy' is a significant step closer to being Maoist-free. In the forthcoming months, all our efforts would be focused on ensuring Naxal menace is totally finished off in the entire Bastar Range,' Sundarraj told TOI. The re-categorization underlines a shift in the LWE landscape of Bastar Range, particularly with Kondagaon and Bastar transitioning towards Naxal-free status. With sustained efforts in both security and development domains, the region is moving decisively toward complete elimination of LWE. The coming months will be critical in translating these gains into permanent peace and inclusive governance, IG added. Sources said that no formal disbursement of central financial aid has been made by MHA for the fiscal yet. Bastar has been receiving grants from Centre under LWE schemes, aimed at infrastructure development and counter-insurgency efforts.
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Will anti-Naxal drive pave way for mining giants?
The shadowy civil war of the Indian paramilitary forces against Left Wing Extremism (LWE) has caught the news pages in recent days. Police spokespersons have claimed significant victories in encounters with the rebels. In operations around the Karreguttalu Hills, at the in the junction of Chhatisgarh and Telangana, 31 Naxalites were gunned down last month. More recently, government forces have eliminated Basavaraju, a top leader of the banned CPI (Maoist). The campaign to eliminate left extremism in what is called the 'Red Corridor' running through the tribal belts extending from Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district through Bastar and Chhatisgarh, and to Jharkhand in the East, has 'neutralized' 380 insurgents since January 2014, says a 10th April government release. The target, according to the press release, is to 'completely eliminate Naxalism by 31st March 2026, since Naxalism is seen as the biggest obstacle in the development of remote areas and tribal villages.' Is the government campaign aimed at 'finishing off' the extremists, or are the larger goals to open up central India's mineral and natural resources for exploitation? Or both? It is ironic that, in a parallel development, the Ministry of Environment has granted in-principle permission to clear 937 hectares of forest land and the felling of 1.23 lakh trees to pave the way for Lloyd Metals' beneficiation plant in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district. The company was granted a mining lease in 2007, but mining operations have been stalled in the face of Maoist attacks, and protests by local communities over tribal and forest rights. It is no surprise, with the insurgents now on the back foot, the Maharashtra government has pushed ahead with the formation of the Gadchiroli District Mining Authority.
Indian Express
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Daily Briefing: A death in Abujhmad
Good morning, The clock's ticking on the 90-day pause before the Donald Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs kick in. India is staring at a steep 26 per cent duty, while a 10 per cent baseline tariff remains in place for all countries. The good news is that India is set to avert the former. India and the US will likely sign an interim trade deal announcing the concession by July 8. Moreover, according to reports, trade negotiations are expected to materialise in three tranches. However, the 10 per cent baseline tariff will likely remain in place. On that note, let's get to today's edition. In a significant breakthrough for India's internal security forces, 27 Maoists were killed in a recent encounter in the Abujhmad area of Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur. Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), was among the casualties. The death of the 70-year-old insurgent leader is considered a significant setback for the outlawed group, as he served as a critical link between its northern and southern commands. The history: Security forces recently ramped up their fight against Left Wing Extremism (LWE). The movement traces its origins to the 1967 peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal. What began as a grassroots rebellion in the Siliguri district evolved into one of India's most persistent internal security challenges. At its peak in the mid-2000s, the Maoist insurgency spanned large swathes of eastern, western, and central India. The man: Basavaraju's path to extremism began far from the jungles—on the college campus. Once the students' union president at the Regional Engineering College in Warangal, he had a promising start, even representing the country as a national-level volleyball player. But he would soon join CPI (ML) People's War, and in 1985, he went underground. When the CPI (ML) merged with the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in 2004, he emerged as the CPI(M)'s second-in-command. In 2018, he succeeded the elusive leader Ganapathy as the outfit's top commander. Basavaraju is believed to have engineered some of the most audacious and brutal attacks in the history of the Maoist movement. My colleague, Deeptiman Tiwary, chronicles this transformation of Basavaraju. Read. Three months ago, Tuhin Kanta Pandey took over as the chief of the markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). His most important task would perhaps be to dispel the 'conflict of interest' narrative surrounding the post after the controversial three-year term of his predecessor, Madhabi Puri Buch, who was facing allegations of links to the Adani Group. Buch has denied the charges. But Pandey admits to The Indian Express that there was 'virtually no public disclosure' for those at the helm when he took over. Read his interview. Cut! Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the Film and Television Institute, Arunachal Pradesh (FTI AP), eight years ago. The school is only the third such in the country, after the prestigious Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata, and the Pune-based Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). However, as the first batch of students entered FTI AP this March, they discovered the institute was far from ready to welcome them. The zealot: There is much more to Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir's elevation to Field Marshal than martial grandeur. Columnist Amitabh Mattoo argues that it hides the 'chronic political, institutional, and ideological breakdown' of the country. Switching gears: One of the oldest automakers in the world and Japan's second-largest, Honda Motor Co., is pivoting from electric vehicles (EVs) towards hybrids. The company insists that its ambitious electrification goal (30% of vehicle sales) remains in place but 'pushed back in time'. Honda's move is part of a larger, global trend amid high costs and waning sales for EVs. There's barely any shock value to Trump's showdown with other Presidents after his public spat with embattled Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this year. On Wednesday, Trump's meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa went off track as the former brought out purported images and videos of white farmers being 'executed'. While Ramaphosa admitted that his country had a crime problem, he argued that it wasn't specific to one race. Before you go, tune in to today's episode of the '3 Things' podcast, where we discuss the two fatal tiger attacks in Ranthambhore, the cool and wet summer of 2025, and Banu Mushtaq's literary win. That's all for today, folks! Until tomorrow, Sonal Gupta Sonal Gupta is a senior sub-editor on the news desk. She runs The Indian Express's weekly climate newsletter, Icebreaker. Apart from this, her interests range from politics and world affairs to art and culture and AI. She also curates the Morning Expresso, a daily briefing of top stories of the day, which won gold in the 'best newsletter' category at the WAN-IFRA South Asian Digital Media Awards 2023. ... Read More
Time of India
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Forces to remain in affected areas beyond March 2026 to prevent Maoists' return, engage with locals
Security forces have drawn up a new plan to "hold and dominate" LWE-affected areas till at least 2027, a year beyond the Centre's deadline of ending the menace by March next year, and engage with locals through various government schemes to prevent the resurgence of Naxals or their ideology. Top officials of the security establishment told PTI in Chhattisgarh, where the core of anti-Naxal operations is concentrated, that while they were "confident" of meeting the March 2026 deadline, they had been asked to initiate steps so that an "everlasting" peace could be achieved. "The job of the security forces does not end with the March 2026 deadline. We have to ensure that all LWE ( Left Wing Extremism )-affected areas are kept dominated so that the Naxals and their ideology do not make a comeback," a top security officer said. The central security forces, with about 1.5 lakh personnel deployed for anti-Naxal operations in various states, will continue to undertake preventive patrols to check for possible Maoist regrouping and trace hidden improvised explosive devices (IEDs) till at least 2027 so that nothing is left to chance, a second senior officer said. 5 5 Next Stay Playback speed 1x Normal Back 0.25x 0.5x 1x Normal 1.5x 2x 5 5 / Skip Ads by Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like If You Eat Ginger Everyday for 1 Month This is What Happens Tips and Tricks Undo The history of insurgency and extremist movements shows that they can make a comeback if the gains made are not consolidated. Hence, a plan beyond 2026 has been prepared, he further said. "The removal of central security forces from LWE-affected areas will be a very slow and gradual process that may be initiated in 2027 once state police forces are ready to fully take over the job," the second officer added. Live Events The Union home ministry has directed the central forces working in this theatre to "create space" in the more than 400 newly-created forward operations bases (FOBs) across various states for organising camps related to health and vaccination, education and for preparing Aadhaar and various government documents. These activities are already being undertaken in a few FOBs and they will be expanded on a "large scale" once the armed cadres and their movement is completely neutralised by March 2026, the second officer said. Central forces such as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF) and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and their FOBs in Chhattisgarh have been asked to install handpumps, mobile towers and ration shops in their camps so that the state government can start functioning from these bases before they create their independent infrastructure, the officials said. In Chhattisgarh, the security forces will now move "deeper" into the "largely uncharted" regions of Abujhmaad and Indravati National Park following the recent "success" of Operation Black Forest in and around the Korgotalu hills on the border with Telangana. Led by the CRPF, the forces claimed that while they killed 31 Naxals from the topmost armed cadre of the outlawed CPI (Maoist), many of the senior ones were either killed or injured and their "invincibility" was demolished. "The Korgotalu hills operation has given us the edge to bust more such regions that the Naxals use as a hideout. The year 2025 will see specific operations where forces will make inroads into the Bastar region and along the borders of Chhattisgarh with Telangana, Maharashtra and Odisha," a senior CRPF officer said. There is also a plan to hold special recruitment rallies for central and state government jobs in some FOBs after March 2026 so that locals and the world at large know all is normal in these areas once known for violence and death, the officials said. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has asserted that the LWE menace -- one of India's biggest internal security challenges, apart from terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and insurgency in the northeast -- would see its end by next March. According to central government data released on Saturday, the number of 'LWE-affected districts' fell from 126 to 90 in April 2018, 70 in July 2021 and 38 in April 2024. Of the total, the number of 'most-affected districts' fell from 12 to six -- four in Chhattisgarh (Bijapur, Kanker, Narayanpur and Sukma), one in Jharkhand (West Singhbhum), and one in Maharashtra (Gadchiroli). The data showed that incidents of Naxal violence had come down to 374 in 2024, a reduction of 81 per cent from 1,936 in 2010. The total number of deaths (civilians and security forces) had also fallen by 85 per cent from 1,005 in 2010 to 150 in 2024, it showed.
