In its election manifesto for the 2009 general elections, Congress had promised that it would ensure that allocations made under the Special Components Plan (SCP) for scheduled castes and the Tribal Sub-Plan for scheduled tribes are in accordance with their proportion in the total population. These two crucial schemes ensure that a proportion of all plan spending has to go towards the most marginalized and deprived sections of Indian society...

Away from the gaze of the media and the judiciary, the Adivasis of Bastar are paying a heavy price … for just being there.  An operation is underway in Central India, but no one really knows what it is. Variously described as a media myth, a comprehensive hearts and minds strategy, and an all-out offensive by paramilitary forces and the state forces along the borders of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh...

A United Nations report titled The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples says the indigenous people and tribes worldwide are facing extinction and exploitation due to threats of displacement and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources. It takes note of the displacement of thousands of families of the Santhal Adivasis in the Indian State of Jharkhand as a result of extraction of minerals, without proper compensation or economic security. The...

A THREE-HOUR motorcycle ride from the border with Andhra Pradesh’s Khammam district and the thick jungles of Chhattisgarh close in. This is remote terrain — villages are spread out over several kilometres; distances measured by the hours taken to walk from one village to another. Schools, hospitals and motorable paths are not even imagined. This is also a self-declared Maoist stronghold. Outside every village stand red concrete columns 25 feet...

Analysts have documented in some detail the constraints facing the government: the countryside is vast; the forests help protect the militants; the adivasi population in particular supports them; the hit-and-run tactics of the Maoists keep the security forces off balance; the increasing unification of the various factions makes the movement formidable and not easy to divide and conquer; its access to money and guns is growing as is its political...