-Reuters KHAMMAM (India): It was a deal struck almost 40 years ago by a poor, illiterate Indian farmer, driven by desperation after a drought wiped out his crops and left his family close to starvation. The agreement: 10 acres of land, the size of four soccer pitches, for a mere 10 kg (22 lbs) of sorghum grains. "My father-in-law pawned the land for food," said Kowasalya Thati, lifting the hem of...

-The Deccan Chronicle Army units are currently undergoing jungle warfare training in naxal-affected Chhattisgarh, even as the Union government’s policy of not deploying the Army for anti-naxal operations anywhere in the country still remains in place. The jungle warfare training is currently on at the Narainpur Manoeuvre Range in South Chhattisgarh. In recent years, the Army has been boosting its presence in Chhattisgarh through plans — approved earlier by the Union...

The speed and determination with which the Tamil Nadu government has been slapping its citizens right, left and centre with colonial-era laws, it would seem as if a full-fledged war of independence is raging in the fishing villages of Idinthakarai and Kudankulam along the coast of Tamil Nadu. According to findings by a team led senior journalist Sam Rajappa, in just four months between September (when the protest movement against the...

-The Hindu The kidnap of a District Collector in Chhattisgarh even as the Odisha hostage crisis remains unresolved suggests the Maoists are looking at soft ways of escalating their ongoing war against the Indian state. This targeting of non-combatants, even if they are officials or representatives of the state, must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. That it directly refutes the Maoist claim to be battling for a higher purpose...

-IANS Chhattisgarh police were on Sunday yet to find a clue about Sukma district collector Alex Paul Menon, a day after he was abducted from a forested area at gun-point by Maoists while he was interacting with tribal farmers about their problems. Police officials posted in Sukma district searched certain parts of the forest area adjoining Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of Sunday to rescue the abducted 32-year-old collector. "But he...