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...

“Both government and Naxals are sincere about the peace process” Time-frames — whether the seven-day deadline set on October 15 by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for maoists in the State's Jangalmahal region to lay down arms and sit for negotiations or the month-long truce offered earlier by the left wing extremists in return for suspension of joint security operations against them — could always be extended and kept flexible if the...

Amid a deadline set by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to maoists to disarm themselves and come for negotiations, there was an exchange of fire on Tuesday between security forces and left wing extremists at a village in the Bankisol-Aluberia area in Paschim Medinipur district. There were reports that Akash, secretary of the State committee of the Communist Party of India (maoist), was among those who escaped. “We received a tip-off...

Former special advisor for Internal Security to the Prime Minister and present governor of West Bengal Mayankote Kelath Narayanan dubbed chief minister Mamata Banerjee's seven day deadline to the maoist to lay down arms as a "generous offer." On arrival in Darjeeling on Monday, Narayanan, talking to the media stated, "This is the part of the strategy to get the maoists to the table. The CM's earlier peace proposal seems to...

-The Hindu   West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should clarify whether her earlier utterances that there were no maoists in the State were “correct or wrong,” said Biman Bose, chairman of the State's Left Front Committee here on Sunday, a day after she set a seven-day deadline for the extremists in the Jangalmahal region on her offer of talks on condition that they give up their arms. “They [the Trinamool Congress] had...