-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The outlawed CPI-Maoist are using the 'none-of-the-above' (NOTA) option for voters, allowed by the Supreme Court, to buttress their assembly election boycott call in Chhattisgarh. According to reports, the rebels have been conducting training camps with dummy EVMs for villagers in Bastar to familiarize them with the NOTA option if they decide to vote. Such camps have been spotted in villages in Sukma, Dantewada, bordering Andhra...

-The Indian Express The recent conviction of eight persons for spreading Naxalism in urban areas of Chhattisgarh again underlines a paradox in the functioning of investigation and prosecution wings of the police. Though the state has consistently topped the chart of Maoist violence across the country, it is yet to secure a single conviction in assault cases. In fact, all the accused even in a high-profile incident like the Tadmetla ambush,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Wednesday sought a reply from Delhi government on a petition accusing it of failing to provide free books and Uniforms to students belonging to economically weaker sections in unaided private schools which is in violation of right to education. Issuing notice to the Delhi government and its education department, a division bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice Jayant Nath...

-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   Neha Khator narrates the story of an NGO that transformed a backward village into a bustling city, with funds, of course, but also by fostering a sense of duty in its residents. Vimla Kanwar, a 70-year-old widow, had a problem. After her husband, a handloom yarn spinner, died of cancer, the officials at the Khadi Gram Udyog took away his charkha. Concerned about finding a means of survival at her...