Nearly four years after the celebrated doctor and activist Binayak Sen was arrested on charges of aiding the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and conspiring to overthrow the Indian state, the prosecution began its final arguments.The State of Chhattisgarh sought to prove that Piyush Guha, Binayak Sen and Narayan Sanyal had actively conspired to assist the urban operations of the CPI (Maoist), a guerrilla party committed to the overthrow...

A young woman carries a torn blouse and an undergarment and a lock of her hair in a clear plastic bag that rarely leaves her side. Kunjami Mangli (name changed) of the Bade Bidme panchayat in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district preserves these items as evidence of the events of the night of October 12. “Four uniformed policemen burst into my house at 2 a.m.,” said Mangli, speaking through a translator. “They ripped...

Centre pressures States to lift additional allocation The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has reiterated its demand for a universal public distribution system with a minimum allocation of 35 kg of grain at Rs. 2 a kg. A two-day meeting of the party's Polit Bureau, which concluded here on Tuesday, said the Central government had ignored the Supreme Court's directive to distribute, free of cost, the huge stocks of grain among the...

Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat has charged the Centre with formulating economic policies which had allegedly widened the divide between poor and rich. “In the last ten years, the poor became poorer and rich became richer due to the liberal economic policy of the UPA government. The women are the worst affected as they suffer from malnutrition and anaemia,” she said. While addressing Ganatantrik Nari Samiti, the...

The Supreme Court's directive to the Union government to distribute rotting grain to the poor free of cost was an “order” and the Bihar government must demand free grain from the Centre to alleviate the plight of the drought-hit people in the State, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said here on Thursday. Despite the Prime Minister's reservations, the Centre must comply with the court order of August...