-The Hindu Raipur: "The villagers gathered in one particular area for community dining, which is a ritual at this time of the year. It is part of the seed festival and there were no Maoists around. The forces opened fire without any provocation," said a local on condition of anonymity. Locals of Chhattisgarh's Edesmeta village - where at least nine persons were killed during a gun battle late on Friday purportedly between...

-The Hindu In the Bhullar case, the Supreme Court has created a category of ‘terrorists' among those sentenced to death without providing a constitutional basis for it Writing on extra-judicial killings in the Economic and Political Weekly in March 1996, K.G. Kannabiran narrated a very interesting anecdote from his experience on the Civil Rights Committee appointed by Jayaprakash Narayan to investigate fake encounters orchestrated during the Emergency against naxalites. While interacting with...

-The Times of India Jharkhand not only fared as the state with the highest incidence of Naxal violence in the first quarter of this year, but it also further consolidated its lead over Chhattisgarh with twice the incidents and thrice the deaths reported by the latter. According to the latest statistics of Red terror compiled by the Union home ministry, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar together account for over 80% of Left-wing extremist...

-The Hindu Gadchiroli: The villagers of Sindhesur village in Gadchiroli district , where seven people died during an encounter between police and the Maoists on Friday, alleged that the Maoists tried to use some of the villagers present at the spot as human shields. Two villagers of Sindhesur village Mukesh Hidko and Sukhdev Gawade died, apart from four Maoists and one police Jawan, in the cross firing between police and the Maoists...

-The Hindustan Times Far from the neatly trimmed lawns of India Gate that so often reverberate with cries for justice, far also from the corridors of power where ministries recently squabbled over the right age for consensual sex, lie 197 districts - yes 197, read the figure again - where children are regularly abused. In these districts -- all ridden by conflict -- words like illegal detention, arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, torture...