-The Hindu     The killings of Mahendra Karma and his colleagues call not for retributive violence but for a deeper reflection on the discontent among the tribals of central India and their dispossession In the summer of 2006, I had a long conversation with Mahendra Karma, the Chhattisgarh Congress leader who was killed in a terror attack by the Naxalites last week. I was not alone - with me were five other members...

-The Telegraph Hyderabad: As rights groups accused the anti-Maoist militia Salwa Judum of atrocities on Chhattisgarh's villagers, its founder Mahendra Karma kept insisting his only aim was to "liberate" the tribals from the rebels' tyranny and propaganda. The future of the government-backed vigilante group, which still survives unofficially despite a Supreme Court order to disband it, now looks bleak after the Maoists killed Congress tribal leader Karma yesterday. The Salwa Judum (whose name...

-The Hindu Kolkata: Soni Sori, the tribal school teacher accused of acting as a courier between Essar Steel and the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist), and Lingaram Kodopi, activist-journalist trained in Delhi, have been acquitted in one more crucial case by a Dantewada court. Fifteen others, including activists of various mainstream political parties, were also acquitted. Among them were Congress leader Vijay Sodi, CPI leader Lala Ram Kunjam and a panchayat...

-The Economic Times Young IAS officer Omprakash Choudhary has won the Prime Minister's award for excellence in public administration for his stellar work in education in Chattisgarh's Dantewada district, the scene of country's worst Naxal insurgency. The 31-year-old officer of the 2005 batch was among the youngest recipients ever to receive the award on Sunday, which happens to be Civil Services Day in Delhi. "Dantewada district is my first posting as a...

-The Hindu Raipur: While various national women's organisations decried an attempt to make Soni Sori, the tribal school teacher accused of acting as a courier between Essar Steel and outlawed Maoists, undergo a "psychiatric evaluation" as a "sinister ploy" by the Chhattisgarh government, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has given a clean chit to the State government on the treatment meted out to the tribal school teacher. Last week, Ms....