India's Maoists have spread north-east, gaining a foothold in the strategically located states bordering China and Burma, officials and analysts say. The Maoists are filling the void created by dwindling ethnic insurgent groups like the Ulfa, an Institute for Conflict Management (ICM) report says. One key Assam official told the BBC that boys thought to have gone south for jobs had instead joined the rebels. The Maoists have become squeezed in their traditional...

A Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court on Wednesday reserved order till December 1 on the appointment of an agency for a fresh probe into the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. Since the State government did not press for handing over the case to the State police, the probe was now open to being assigned to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the National Investigation Agency, a reconstituted Special Investigation Team...

The report of the Gujarat High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team that probed the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, make it clear that the so-called “encounter specialists” of the Gujarat police handled the post-encounter situation very shoddily. Perhaps driven by over-confidence, or may be lack of experience then, the police did not bother much to cover their footprints and the blunders it left behind made it easy for the investigating officers to...

My attention was drawn to “An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of West Bengal” which was signed by thirty members of the civil society of Kolkata and Delhi. What disturbed me was the tone and tenor of the language used in the letter in denouncing Ms Mamata Banerjee’s bold initiative in inviting the Maoists of Junglemahal for a dialogue after “ceasefire”. May I ask with all humility who among the...

-IANS   An eerie silence welcomes me as I walk down the row of houses, not a soul in sight. I know that from every tiny window in these little brick-walled units, watchful, suspicious eyes follow my every move. They are assessing me, wondering if I am friend or foe. But then, in these thickly forested parts, the lines of distinction blurred many years ago. And their life could depend on the accuracy...