-The Hindu JAGDALPUR: With semi-automatic weapons slung over their shoulders, these soldiers are more than just patrolling arterial village roads. They are in the midst of full-scale battles in which several people, mostly non-combatants, are getting killed. Forces have been mobilised in their thousands; dehydrated soldiers are getting evacuated by the Indian Air Force; Corpses are removed in huge tractors meant for transporting farm produce; and Maoists are intensifying coordination at...

-The Indian Express The audacity of the Latehar ambush, which ended with Maoists implanting explosive devices inside the Corpses of CRPF men, comes amid security forces’ claims that the rebels are a declining force. What was probably the cruellest ever assault on security forces came at a time police in several states were praising themselves for having contained Maoists. Over the last 14 months, Maoist violence had declined partly because they had...

-The Indian Express The rape victim’s family defies those who view the crime in terms of shame. It’s a moment to build on Congressman and Union minister Shashi Tharoor created a ripple when he suggested that the upcoming law on sexual assault be named after the young woman whose example has so radically jolted society. Now, her family, pursued by mediapersons on this matter, has said it would be an honour if...

-The Hindustan Times The country is once again dangerously adrift in a stormy sea of competitive hate politics. The signs are both ominous and familiar — the systematic creation of hatred against people because of their ethnicity or religion; rumours and hate propaganda choking the internet; the public moral justification of violence against targeted communities on grounds of ‘larger’ alleged wrongs; and weak-kneed State action against people and organisations which preach...

Indications are that many civilians were killed in the counterinsurgency operation In the early hours of Friday, about six hundred troopers from the Central Reserve Police Force and the Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) commando unit conducted an operation in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district in which 18 tribal villagers were killed and six CRPF troopers injured. Two suspected Maoists were killed in Sukma in an unrelated incident the same day. As per the...