-The Telegraph   The Supreme Court today diluted its July order asking the Centre and states to stop using special police officers in their war against Naxalites or other internal terror, clarifying it would now be confined only to Chhattisgarh. The Centre had urged the top court to clarify or modify its July 5, 2011, order saying it would “hamper” internal security measures in states and lead to “chaos”. Besides Chhattisgarh, there are SPOs...

The UPA government has decided to allow cash payment of wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in a desperate bid to increase demand for jobs that had gone down due to delayed payment of remuneration. Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh on Monday made the announcement stating that the facility would be allowed in all the 60 left wing extremist (LWE) affected districts where...

-PTI   Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh today said that had the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act been implemented properly, the naxal menace would not have become so big in Chhattisgarh and other places. Talking to reporters after his tour of the naxal-affected areas of the state, Ramesh said that PESA was brought in in 1996 to strengthen panchayats of scheduled areas, but it was not enforced in the right...

The United Progressive Alliance government on Monday chalked out its first multi-winged operation to tackle the problem of Naxalism through development programmes, implemented under the protection of Central security forces. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh finalised the action plan for Saranda forest area in Jharkhand, considered to be the second stronghold of the Maoists in the country, with Deputy Chief Minister Sudesh Mahto at a meeting attended by officials...

Admitting that the growth of Naxalism was as much because of failure of the Union Government as for a variety of other reasons, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has underlined the need for a renewed sense of urgency to address problems afflicting the masses through a stratagem hinged on synergy of security forces and implementing agencies. Delivering the annual Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture here on “Tirupati to Pashupati: Some reflections...