Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, in an article on left-wing extremism (“From Tirupati to Pashupati?” The Hindu , October 14, 2011), observed candidly: “It is not the naxals who have created the ground conditions ripe for their ideology — it is the singular failure of successive governments both in the States and the Centre.” There lay the main cause of the festering sore of naxalism, often characterised as left-wing...

The first judgment in a 2002 riots case and the SIT report on the Ishrat Jahan killing go against the Gujarat government. THE verdict in a crucial and long-running case involving a massacre and the investigation report in another case, of alleged encounter killings, both delivered in November, give hope to victims of the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat that they will get justice, even if delayed. In the first case, the special...

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...

-The Hindu   Civil society groups have demanded an apology from the former Home Secretary of India, G.K. Pillai, for his “insensitive, sexist slandering” remarks on Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in a fake encounter in Gujarat in 2004. “Stung by the Special Investigation Team report, which concluded that Ishrat was executed in cold blood, Mr. Pillai — hard-pressed to defend his affidavit to the Supreme Court that Ishrat was a Lashkar operative...

The state government has sought technical advice and assistance on its proposed plan to carry out mass vaccination ahead of monsoon next year in Gaya and adjoining districts to stop outbreak of Japanese encephalitis and acute encephalitis syndrome. Sanjay Kumar, the secretary of the state health department, said the state was keen on going for a mass immunisation and regular immunisation for Japanese encephalitis as a preventive measure next year. “We...