-The Indian Express Gadchiroli: A top Naxal leader who surrendered recently has said that the government’s twin strategy of security with development has begun to hurt the maoists, leaving the morale of their cadre affected. “The senior leadership of the party (CPI maoist) is worried over setbacks due to Operation Greenhunt and the various developmental works undertaken by the government in remote areas of districts like Gadchiroli,” Badarpu Mallaiyya alias Shekhar, the...

-The Indian Express Latehar: The villagers of Amwatikar, about 40 km from Latehar town, have alleged that security forces used their men, women and children as “human shields” and forced them to look for and recover the bodies of CRPF men killed in the encounter with maoists last week. Four villagers were killed and a fifth was injured when they were trying to recover the body of a CRPF personnel which had...

-International Federation of Journalists A report titled Journalism in India’s maoist Areas Face Multiple Challenges has been been released recently. To check the report please click here.  ...

-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 Hindu Relentless counter-insurgency operations taken up in all left-wing extremism-affected States seemed to have had the desired impact, as maoist violence registered a record low in 2012. The downward trend in violence in the last six-year period, could indicate the success of the security forces in pushing the maoist revolution into a strategic equilibrium stage. Another possibility could be an unannounced tactical retreat from some areas by maoists themselves to protect...