Some CRPF jawans in the Jungle Mahal have embarked on a new operation, but in classrooms. The force has started English coaching centres in half a dozen primary schools in the rebel-infested zone as part of its exercise to improve relations with villagers. The centres were opened on April 8 in six schools in Buripala, Pirakata, Patharkumkumi, Deuldanga and Satpati in Salboni and Jhitka in Lalgarh. A CRPF officer said since the situation...

-The Economic Times Last week's acquittal by the Patna High Court of all the accused in the Bathani Tola massacre of 1996 - in which 21 Dalits, including women and infants, were killed by members of an upper-caste/landlord militia called the Ranvir Sena, in this area of central Bihar - is shocking testimony to the ineptness, and worse, of the police and the administration in prosecuting the guilty. Given the fact that...

-IANS Chhattisgarh police were on Sunday yet to find a clue about Sukma district collector Alex Paul Menon, a day after he was abducted from a forested area at gun-point by maoists while he was interacting with tribal farmers about their problems. Police officials posted in Sukma district searched certain parts of the forest area adjoining Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of Sunday to rescue the abducted 32-year-old collector. "But he...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: Within hours after the maoists abducted Chhattisgarh's Sukma district collectorAlex Paul Menon, a large number of people gathered at the district headquarters in tribalBastar region and they gave a call for a bandh on Sunday, demanding release if the young IAS officer.  Local tribals, traders and other prominent people from the small town had a meeting late in the night where they decided to appeal to the...

-The Economist West Bengal’s populist chief minister is doing badly. Yet she typifies shifts in power in India BUYER’S remorse is common enough in the dusty markets of Kolkata, a delightful if crumbling great city, once known as Calcutta and still capital of the state of West Bengal. Those who buy cheap plastic goods or plaster-of-Paris busts of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengal’s cultural hero, may come to regret their haste. Likewise, many who...