-The Economic Times When the voting stops on August 19, the scorecard, which is currently 9-0, may well read 12-0. An emphatic and embarrassing rejection of state and corporate plans to mine bauxite atop the Niyam Dongar hilltop in the Kalahandi district of Odisha. Twelve tribal villages that call this mountain range home have, in all likelihood, secured their religious rights over the hill and its natural resources, including 72 million...

-The Indian Express   How Chhattisgarh became a sanctuary, and then a laboratory, for naxals Some time ago, Chhattisgarh hit the headlines because of a Maoist attack on state Congress leaders, in which V.C. Shukla and Mahendra Karma died. Since then, the Congress has accused the BJP government of a conspiracy, and some BJP leaders have accused former chief minister Ajit Jogi of being part of a conspiracy himself. Politicising this tragic episode...

-The Hindu A large section of Indian voters appear distinctly uncomfortable with the way the Indian state deals with issues of internal security, particularly the issue of the Maoist insurgency. While they recognise it as the ‘greatest threat', there is a clear disapproval for an approach based on deploying only security forces in large numbers. The CNN IBN-The Hindu Election Tracker survey, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies...

-The Indian Express The recent conviction of eight persons for spreading naxalism in urban areas of Chhattisgarh again underlines a paradox in the functioning of investigation and prosecution wings of the police. Though the state has consistently topped the chart of Maoist violence across the country, it is yet to secure a single conviction in assault cases. In fact, all the accused even in a high-profile incident like the Tadmetla ambush,...

-The Times of India MENDHARI (GADCHIROLI): The picturesque little hamlet of Mendhari, around 90-km from Gadchiroli town, was considered by the naxalites as a safe haven. The tranquillity here had remained undisputed until Sunday when, for the first time, the villagers witnessed a lopsided bloodbath in which six women rebels were killed in police firing. The villagers, who claimed to have been thrashed by the C-60 commandos too, told TOI that four...