-CNN-IBN As the Cabinet meets to decide on allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the multi-brand retail, it remains to be seen whether the Prime Minister will bite the bullet. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Left, UPA ally Trinamool Congress along with some Cabinet ministers Veerappa Moily and Mukul Wasnik have opposed it. While the BJP feels that FDI will lead to unemployment, the Left has said that it may lead...

-The Indian Express   Is the number 3 rank in the CPI (Maoist) hierarchy jinxed: Two top Naxal leaders – Kishenji and Azad – have been killed by the security forces while holding the same position. Kishenji, whose real name Molajula Koteswar Rao whose mother tongue is Telugu, the dreaded Maoist commander carrying Rs 19 lakh reward on his head, was the third-in-command in the Naxal top body – Politburo. Azad, whose real name is...

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...

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...

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday charged the United Progressive Alliance government with attempting to “tinker with” the parliamentary system to suit the United States and its companies by “diluting” the rules of the Nuclear Liability Act. Referring to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that the rules framed for the Act would sit in Parliament for 30 days, CPI(M) Rajya Sabha leader Sitaram Yechury said so far the Committee...