Blood Cry Deepens with War Against Black Untouchables Escalates. Maoists Ready for Talks. Resistance Heroine Engaged in Political Mathematics!

Troubled galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 263

Palash Biswas

Maoist violence part of "wider gameplan", says CPI(M)

Press Trust of India - ‎17 minutes ago‎

New Delhi, Jun 20 (PTI) Condemning the Maoist violence against the Left cadre, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Saturday said these attacks were part of a "wider gameplan by powerful vested interests" to destroy the party in its bastion of ...

Paramilitary trooper dies in Lalgarh of heat stroke Hindu

Lalgarh Maoists ready for talks, asks Govt to suspend ops Indian Express

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Mamata calls Buddhadeb 'a bigger Maoist', threatens stir

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Kolkata: West Bengal's principal opposition party Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Saturday said Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee "is a bigger Maoist" and threatened a stir if allegations that her party had links with leftwing rebels were not withdrawn.
"We will wait for 48 hours. If nothing happens within that time, then we will hit the streets," Banerjee told mediapersons at her Kalighat residence.

"We don't support Maoists. If you search the chief minister's house, you will get Maoist literature. He is a bigger Maoist," the Trinamool chief said.

Banerjee also demanded Bhattacharjee's resignation for the atrocities committed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) cadres in various parts of the state.

"This chief minister should be sacked. He is wholly responsible for all the atrocities. He is the lead actor of all the atrocities across Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, Mangalkot and Keshpur," Banerjee said.

The railway minister also questioned why the state government took so much time to crack down on the Maoists.

"Why didn't you ban the Maoists in the state, when it is banned in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh?" she asked pointedly.

"I am condemning the atrocities, whoever is doing this. But who created the Maoists? Who has carried out atrocities against common people in the name of Maoists? The people who are arrested in Lalgarh are not Maoists," she thundered, denying her party's links with the rebels.

She alleged the CPI-M was trying to establish its sway in Lalgarh in the name of the operation. Neither the central nor the state government had apprised her party about the ongoing operation beforehand, she added.

"They didn't tell us anything about the operation that is going on for three days. We have not been informed by the state or the central government. Law and order is a state subject. It is their joint operation. I don't want to talk on this."

Asked about the Maoist leader Kishanji's comment that they participated in the Singur and Nandigram along with Trinamool, Banerjee said: "There were no Maoists during the Singur and Nandigram fights. I don't know any Kishanji. It is a drama created by the CPI-M. They are very good at creating new drama."

http://www.samaylive.com/news/mamata-calls-buddhadeb-a-bigger-maoist-threatens-stir/635632.html

SECURITY OPERATION GOES SLOW

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Maoists offer peace talks as troops enter Lalgarh

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Time Published on Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 10:24, Updated on Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 13:57 in India section

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RED ALERT: Policemen during an encounter with Maoists at Bhimpur, in west Midnapore.

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Trinamool moves away from Maoists

20 Jun 2009, 0255 hrs IST, Saugata Roy, TNN

KOLKATA: Things are not the same for railway minister Mamata Banerjee when it comes to realpolitik. Because, what was "fair" in Nandigram, is not

so for a party which is now a part of the Union government. So when Maoist strategist Koteswar Rao alias Kishanji urged upon Mamata to stop sending central forces against the people of Lalgarh, Banerjee dissociated her party from the "politics of individual killings".

Her colleague and Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Partha Chatterjee, dittoed his leader's view. "We are against individual killings. We want peace to return in the area. The trouble that broke out in Lalgarh is a manifestation of the public outrage against lack of development in the Jangalmahal. People of this area had been neglected for the past three decades, with a section of CPM leaders usurping the fruits of whatever development trickled in. Our party wants the tribals to get their due in terms of education, health and drinking water. We are keeping an eye on the development and will not spare the government if the ordinary people faces repression," Chatterjee said.

Chatterjee's concern over the plight of the tribals in Jangalmahal is genuine, given the lack of development in the forest areas of West Midnapore. The resentment had been growing since long with Chunibala Hansda's Jharkhand Party winning a considerable number of panchayats since the late Nineties. The Congress had an alliance with the Jharkhand Party (Chunibala), but the Trinamool Congress was nowhere in the scene. The Trinamool-BJP bike brigades once made an armed assault to gain political grounds among the defiant tribals, but could not make much headway.

Trinamool's honeymoon with the Maoists began in Nandigram after the carnage in March 2007. Even if the Trinamool leaders would concede to this marriage of convenience, a document of the CPI (Maoist) meeting held between March 26 and April 1, 2008 reveals: "Some people are trying to project the struggle in Nandigram as an unarmed mass movement. The fact is that the movement would not have survived for 11 months without armed resistance by the local militia. Some people are shying away from bringing this fact to the media." Referring to the villagers driven out of Khejuri by the CPM brigade, the report says: "Some of the Trinamool supporters gathered two dozens of weapons from outside. Initially, the Trinamool led the Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee. But we took over the leadership in the villages since July. Since then, we worked in tandem with Trinamool Congress and chalked out programmes."

In fact, the Maoist strategist told about his leading the armed resistance against the CPM marauders during the second attack in Nandigram in 2008. "We were doing fine. But at the end, we fell short of bullets and had to beat a retreat," Kishanji had told TOI in an interview.

Sailing on the rising discontent in the Jangalmahal, the Opposition, particularly the Trinamool leaders kept on fanning the violence from outside and revelled in the Maoist strikes against the CPM cadres. At the same time, whenever the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government hinted at the bonhomie between the Maoists and the Trinamool, the party took a dig at the CM saying the Maoists are offshoots of the CPM. "It is a battle between the haves and have nots within the CPM. We have no role in it," the Leader of the Opposition said. Instead, some leaders criticised chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of not banning the outfit.

"Trinamool's complicity with the Maoists is an open secret. The fact that the Trinamool Congress fought the government jointly with the Trinamool is evident from the booklet the police seized from a house they raided in Jadavpur where four students were living. This apart, Gorkha Jan Mukti (GJM) leader Roshan Giri, PCPA leader Chhatradhar Mahato and a section of Trinamool leaders from Kolkata had a joint meeting on February 29," said CPM state committee member Rabin Deb.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Trinamool-moves-away-from-Maoists/articleshow/4678373.cms

Trinamul worries over risk to image

CHARU SUDAN KASTURI AND BARUN GHOSH

A leaflet dropped from a copter, appealing to Lalgarh villagers not to fall prey to the Maoists' provocations and to approach the local administration with their grievances. (Amit Datta)

June 19: The participation of central forces in the Lalgarh crackdown and an open challenge from a Maoist leader for support has left the Trinamul Congress worried that its carefully crafted pro-poor image may receive a dent.

Any allegation of human rights abuse against tribals by forces sent by the Centre could push it on the back foot in Bengal, senior leaders said.

The party is also concerned that its strategy to differentiate between the Naxalites and ordinary tribals — Mamata Banerjee has asked the Bengal government to ban the CPI (Maoist) — could backfire.

These fears have arisen after a Maoist leader challenged Trinamul to choose between supporting "the people" and allowing central forces to par-ticipate in the Lalgarh assault. "If what Mamata Banerjee told rallies during the Nandigram struggle is true, she should take a stand and support the people," Maoist leader Koteshwar Rao said yesterday.

Union home minister P. Chidambaram today defended Trinamul, saying the allegations against it or the Congress of supporting the Maoists were "unfortunate" and incorrect. But his certificate may not be enough for Trinamul to wriggle out of CPM allegations that it is implicitly backing the Maoists.

During its opposition to the Tatas in Singur and the battles with the state government in Nandigram, the CPM had argued that "outsiders", including Maoists, were fomenting trouble. Trinamul had rejected the charge.

"Today, if we argue, like the CPM did, that the Maoists are outsiders and do not represent the concerns of the people, it could backfire on us," a Trinamul leader argued.

Lalgarh leader Chhatradhar Mahato today asked: "Why is Mamata Banerjee not being vocal about the use of central forces against us?"

Mamata today called back all her MPs to Bengal and sent Nandigram leader Sisir Adhikari to West Midnapore. She has assigned two jobs to the MPs: to counter the campaign linking her party with the Maoists and to keep her posted on whether "innocent tribals were being killed in Lalgarh.

Sources said she would not leave the state for the time being and was meeting officials at home for the railway budget to be presented on July 3.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090620/jsp/bengal/story_11136672.jsp

Tribals torch houses of CPI(M) leaders

Midnapore (PTI) Tribals on Saturday torched houses of two CPI(M) leaders at Baita area in West Midnapore district, police said.

The tribals under the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) set ablaze the house of Ranjit Giri at around 12 noon. They then damaged the house of another CPI(M) leader Atonu Giri located in the neighbourhood.

One person, identified as Haren Modi, was detained in this regard, police said.

Modi rejects amendments to Gujarat's anti-terror bill

New Delhi (PTI): Striking an aggressive posture, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday rejected the amendments suggested by the Centre to GUJCOC, saying it would amount to taking away the "teeth and nails" of the legislation.

"The amendments suggested by the Centre amount to taking away the teeth and nails of the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Act (GUJCOC)," he told reporters on the sidelines of the BJP National Executive meeting here.

Mr. Modi said if necessary, the Gujarat government would take the GUCOC Bill back to state assembly.

He said Bill was passed by the assembly on the basis of guidelines from the Centre to combat organised crime.

The Union Cabinet on Friday returned the controversial GUJCOC Bill passed by the Gujarat Assembly to the state, saying that without three key amendments it could not be sent for Presidential assent.

One of the amendments being suggested to the state government is that the provision that confession before a police officer will be admissible should be dropped.

Mr. Modi criticised the UPA government for "failing" to take a decision on the bill in its entire five-year term.

He contended that the GUJCOC was a "xerox copy" of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act which has been in force in the western state.

Congress says state anti-terror laws should be on UAPA pattern

New Delhi (PTI) The Congress on Saturday defended the decision of the UPA government to return the anti-terror law of the Gujarat government, GUJCOC, saying it was necessary to strike a balance between a tough law and civil liberties.

"There has to be a balance between the toughness of a law and the civil liberties of the people. It was felt that there could be excesses and civil liberties could be curbed," party spokesman Manish Tewari told PTI.

The Union Cabinet had on Friday returned the controversial GUJCOC Bill passed by the Gujarat Assembly to the state, saying that without three key amendments it could not be sent for Presidential assent.

One suggestion was to scrap the provision that confession before a police officer will be admissible before court.

Mr. Tewari said after the UPA government amended the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, new anti-terror acts in the states should be on the pattern of the UAPA enacted last year after the Mumbai attacks.

"All state acts which come into existence after the enactment of the UAPA should conform to the ground norm," he added.

An Appeal to the International Community

from

the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP)

Raise their Voice against State repression in Lalgarh, West Bengal, India

The CRPP hereby wish to draw the attention of the international community to the plight of the adivasi people in one corner of the State of West Bengal, India. That area is called Lalgarh--an integral part of Jangal Mahal i.e., Forest area and situated in the West Medinipur district of West Bengal. The tribal people of India had always been the victims of anti-people policies of the ruling classes, be that during colonial times or during the period following the 'transfer of power' to friendly hands in 1947. Forest lands were being systematically cleared to make room for agricultural lands for revenue earning. Vast stretches of land were converted into reserved areas by evicting adivasis from their land and habitats on a massive scale. In the recent times, the central and state governments have initiated the land-grab movements so as to facilitate the loot and plunder of the country's natural and mineral resources by the foreign MNCs.

At a place called Salboni within the same district and somewhat far from Lalgarh, a Special Economic Zone was to be created by the big business house of the Jindals on 5,000 acres of land. In November 2008, immediately after the inauguration of the said SEZ project, the convoy of the WB chief minister, that of one central minister and of Jindal was attacked with landmines by the Maoist insurgents as a result of which some policemen got injured. What followed was police repression of the most brutal kind. Village houses were raided at dawn when people were still asleep, people were arrested, women were humiliated and beaten with rifle butts on all parts of the body and the eyes and molested. One woman lost her left eye as a result of police cruelty. One pregnant wife, whose husband was picked up, was forcibly dragged out of her home and then thrown on the road and beaten up. Schools students returning home after attending a village cultural performance and a retired school and others were picked up and detained illegally on mere suspicion of being involved in the mine explosion. These atrocities were committed in Lalgarh and Binpur areas—far from the site of the mine explosion.

The people of Lalgarh, however, refused to be cowed down by such terror. They formed the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities and demanded public apology from the police and compensation for the damage done to the people. They dug roads, felled trees on the roads, formed village committees and this just struggle for dignity and against state brutality has spread to other parts of Jangal Mahal embracing as many as 1,100 villages, if not more, in the three adjoining districts at present. The People's Committee formed village committees, women's branches, youth branches and have carried on development work in the form of the setting up of health centres for free medical care of the poor. They raised demands concerning initiated a total social boycott of the police, raised blockades and check-posts preventing the entry of police and the CPI (M) goons.

After the Lok Sabha elections held recently, and the formation of a Congress-led government at the centre, the central government is all set to send more para-military forces to help the 'left-front' government suppress this just struggle of the people. The central and state forces are being accompanied by CPI (M) led goons who had already set up Salwa Judum-type reactionary organizations to suppress the Lalgarh people's, as they had done in Nandigram earlier. The CPM-sponsored hermads/goons had already attacked many villages controlled by the People's Committee, killed some members, wounded others and burnt a large number of houses. They are bent upon making genocides in the Jangal Mahal area with the backing of the state and central forces. Very recently, when a cultural team from Jangal Mahal went a place called Chakulia in the neighbouring state of Jharkhand to mobilize people to participate in a women's rally scheduled to take place on 5 June, many of them were arrested and molested in the police station and sent to jail. When the committee members proceeded towards the police station to seek release of the political prisoners, they were prevented from doing so by a massive mobilization of state forces and the use of tear-gas shells against the precisionists. The situation is really very critical and needs immediate intervention by the international community.

The CRPP urges upon the international community to raise their voice against the brutality done by the Indian ruling classes to the people of Jangal Mahal to nip their just struggle in the bud by putting pressure on the government of India through various means. The struggle being waged by the people of Lalgarh, nay of Jangal Mahal, is a just struggle and we urge upon you to stand by its side to the best of your ability.

Gursharan Singh Amit Bhattacharyya SAR Geelani Rona Wilson

President Secretary General Vice-President Media Secretary

Postscript:

As reports last came in, the central government has kept its 'Cobra' force—a commando force of the notorious 'Greyhound' type--ready on the Jharkhand-WB border. Helicopter surveys have been going on and the state is preparing for a massive crackdown with the para-military forces and the state police forces to crush this just struggle of the people in pools of blood. Needless to state, they will be joined by the notorious CPI(M) goons. Nobody knows how many people will fall down dead in the battle ahead, how many people will receive bullet wounds and get disabled for life in the process, how many children would lose their parents, and how many women would be humiliated in their just and heroic struggle for justice and dignity.

TOO LATE, TOO SLOW

There may be some irony in a government that proudly upholds the red flag sending a police force to suppress a rebellion in a place called Lalgarh or red fort. That expedition, from all accounts, is not meeting with any remarkable success. After nearly 24 hours, not a single area is free of insurgents. Clearly, the situation is quite outside the control of the state government. The latter has only itself to blame for its present sorry plight. Insurgency in Lalgarh has had a prolonged gestation. With all the intelligence at its disposal, the government of West Bengal, by design or otherwise, did nothing to abort the growth or to address the issues that have allowed so-called Maoists to strike roots in the most deprived parts of the state of West Bengal. The chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, like Nero of old, has sat back and has allowed Lalgarh to burn.

It is impossible to comprehend this inactivity on the part of a chief minister who belongs to the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Mr Bhattacharjee's loyalty to his party and to communism is above question. It would not be unfair to him and to the CPI(M) to suggest that his role models are those who occupy a hallowed place in the pantheon of international communism — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong. The records of these 'heroes' in suppressing rebellion should be instructive reading for Mr Bhattacharjee — not that he is unaware of this history. To cite a few instances. Lenin had no hesitation in ordering the troops in 1921 to attack the rebellious Kronstadt sailors who at one time had been the most steadfast supporters of the Bolsheviks. Stalin, during the great terror of 1937-38, liquidated some two million people; he also had Leon Trotsky, his great rival and critic, pursued across continents to have him eliminated in Mexico. Mao's use of violence during the Cultural Revolution in China and at other times has become part of revolutionary lore. Mr Bhattacharjee is a claimant to a rich legacy. That he hesitates and procrastinates has more to do with lack of courage and political will than with pangs of conscience. Even his predecessor in West Bengal did not hesitate to kill thousands in Marichjhampi. Mr Bhattacharjee rather enjoys the mantle of governance but without the attendant responsibilities. Hence the bizarre paradox of a communist leader behaving like a bleeding-heart liberal.

The problem is that not even a liberal head of government can afford to dawdle in the face of an insurgency. It is imperative on the part of a government to establish its authority over the territory under its jurisdiction. The quicker it does so, the more effective is its authority. The government has allowed the situation to grow into alarming proportions instead of curbing it when it was small. Having begun the counter-attack, belatedly, it should not drag its feet. If necessary it should take the help of the army.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090620/jsp/opinion/story_11133705.jsp

'Civic society' dons statement armour again

OUR BUREAU

June 19: The Lalgarh violence has divided Left academics and commentators 1,500km away in Delhi, one group criticising the Maoists for murdering CPM activists and the other opposing the government operation to recapture the territory.

In Bengal too, a group of academics and artists who had protested against the Left after Nandigram have appealed to both sides to avoid violence and offered to help "create an environment of peaceful talks at the preliminary stage".

In Delhi, historians Sumit and Tanika Sarkar and columnists Achin Vanaik, Sumit Chakravartty and Praful Bidwai today issued a statement calling the security forces' offensive in Lalgarh "unacceptable".

"We are profoundly disturbed by the massive central and state armed police operation in Lalgarh-Jangalmahal in West Bengal.… The operation is taking an unacceptable toll of civilian life and safety," their statement says.

Yesterday, another set of Left-leaning academics had demanded the Centre offer "full and effective support to the state government in tackling the situation".

This group includes historian Irfan Habib, economists Prabhat and Utsa Patnaik and Jayati Ghose, author Githa Hariharan, painter Shamshad Hussain and theatre artiste M.K. Raina.

They have echoed the CPM allegation that state Opposition parties are supporting the Maoists and voiced concern at the "organised" post-poll attacks on CPM supporters.

The other camp has also condemned Maoist violence but argued that the police-paramilitary offensive is ill-conceived. "This was launched without exploring a negotiated settlement of genuine popular grievances and by blurring the crucial distinction between violent Maoists and peace-minded civilians," its statement says.

This group had criticised the Bengal government also over the Nandigram violence in 2007.

The split among Delhi "intellectuals" over Lalgarh mirrors a similar division in Bengal after Nandigram, when one group of buddhijibis — academics, writers and artists, mostly with Left sympathies — had for the first time organised an anti-CPM march through Calcutta.

The CPM had replied with a march by scholars and artists supporting it, who came to be mockingly known as buddhajibis — a play on chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's name.

Bengal's buddhijibis today appealed to the Centre and the state "not to unleash brute force" in Lalgarh, and to the "organisers and participants of this movement… to eschew violence at all cost".

"In spite of the rationality and ethics behind the mass uprising… wanton acts of violence committed under grave provocation would detract (from) the moral foundation of this popular and legitimate movement," the Civic Society of West Bengal said.

The statement was issued on behalf of Mahasweta Devi, Tarun Sanyal, Debabrata Bandyopadhyay, Sunanda Sanyal, Shuvaprasanna, Jogen Chowdhury, Goutam Ghose, Joy Goswami, Samir Aich, Shipra Bhattacharya, Amiya Chowdhury, Samar Bagchi, Kalyan Rudra, Chaitali Dutta, Bhaskar Gupta, Ashokendu Sengupta, Anup Bandyopadhyay, Sujoy Basu and others.

They warned that a "bloodbath" may impact the whole of central India's tribal belt and cause "a general tribal uprising comparable with the Santhal rebellion of 1856-58."

Painter Shuvaprasanna told The Telegraph: "The Left won in Lalgarh which means they are important there; they shouldn't exploit the police and army to work things to their advantage."

Playwright Bratya Basu blamed the state, saying the tribals "have lived even without food" and wondering "where the money for their development gets channelled".

Theatre director Dolly Basu, not formally with the Civic Society, said: "We need to look at what has driven the Maoists to do this. Just dialogue would not help now; any talk has to be backed up with concrete solutions (to) the villagers' problems."

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090620/jsp/bengal/story_11136375.jsp

Top 10 challenges for India to achieve 2050 potential
Comment Mail to friend ECONOMICTIMES.COM Various studies have shown that India could be 40 times bigger by 2050. To achieve this potential, however, the nation needs to implement many changes. In one of its latest papers, Goldman Sachs outlines ten crucial steps that India must take in order to achieve its full potential. "In our latest annual update to our Growth Environment Scores (GES), India scores below the other three BRIC nations, and is currently ranked 110 out of a set of 181 countries assigned GES scores. If India were able to undertake the necessary reforms, it could raise its growth potential by as much as 2.8% per annum, placing it in a very strong position to deliver the impressive growth we outlined," it says. Here are the 10 things for India, as outlined by Goldman Sachs, to achieve its 2050 potential: Next >>

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/4666960.cms

Lalgarh operation: First hand report

20 Jun 2009, 1750 hrs IST, Tamal Sengupta, ET Bureau

PINDRAKHALI: Maoists drew first blood, triggering a landmine blast at Pirakata market around 8.30 pm on Friday evening in which the Domkal

More Pictures

sub-divisional police officer's (SDPO) jeep was blown off and three police personnel got critically injured. Throughout the day, Maoists and their sympathisers kept the huge security presence in the area guessing about what their next move might be. So successful were they in their plans, that security personnel remained camped at Bhimpur throughout the day with Lalgarh lying just about 10 kms ahead.

Around 10 pm, Maoists blasted a culvert at Pindrakhali, between Pirakata and Bhimpur and the very spot where Team ET along with about 30 media personnel got stranded in a cross-fire earlier in the afternoon. At 10.30 pm, the Maoists were reported to have opened fire with some medium artillery weapons on Lalgarh police station, where a number of policemen have been kept under seige for a few weeks now.

This is supposed to be a crack army type operation. And yet, it was inexplicable why security forces under the command of Praveen Kumar, DIG Midnapore Range, and Manoj Varma, SP, West Midnapore remained glued to Bhimpur, giving Maoists some vital time to recoup. No information was passed on to media, but it was pretty clear that the security field command wasn't too sure about engaging trained Maoist guerillas with sophisticated weaponry in the 6 kms of dense forest, known locally as Jhikita jungles, that lay between Bhimpur and Lalgarh.

What was even more ironical was the fact that after progressing to Bhimpur from Pirakata on Thursday at a rapid pace, the security forces did not quite think of keeping the stretch they had already traversed, properly sanitised. This turned out to be a monumental blunder, because Maoists and their sympathisers re-grouped at the security forces' rear and threatened to cut off the line of retreat. It was a very clever move on part of the Maoists, but it perhaps should have been anticipated nonetheless.

What happened therefore was pretty alarming even for the media. Since the road from Pirakata to Bhimpur lay unattended, resistance groups found ample time to dig up the stretch at various points and plant landmines. Hearing about this, a section of forces from Bhimpur rushed back just after noon towards Pirakata to assess the damage, followed by media.

At Pirakhuli and Pindrakhali, they met with a hail of bullets from resistance groups, who lay low among the grass on either side of the road or among the line of trees just beyond, sniping at the security personnel who were on the main road and therefore quite easy targets. The security forces fired back, but largely at an unseen enemy which had the advantage of knowing the terrain so well that they could afford to stay largely out of sight and yet do the damage.

As bullets flew thick and fast, the media team got trapped and were chased by a section of the state police, which suddenly got belligerent and started targetting anyone with a camera. Team ET, along with others of the media, were forced by security forces around 3 pm to sit huddled on the open fields close to Kuldiha Primary School at Pindrakali, some 6 kms from Pirakata.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/PoliticsNation/Lalgarh-operation-First-hand-report/articleshow/4680636.cms

Dealing with Lalgarh

20 Jun 2009, 0052 hrs IST, ET Bureau

ith the state police and central forces starting the operation against Maoists in Lalgarh in West Bengal, the first and most immediate priority

now must be to ensure as low a loss of life and property as possible. With some estimates putting the number of armed Maoists in the hundreds, hiding amidst a rural population of around 40,000, the state and Centre have a real task at hand to avoid a potential carnage.

That said, it is indeed ironic that one of the main problems in the area, that of the state having retreated and abdicated its responsibility, will now be compounded by the state now intervening by using force. Many areas in the west Midnapore region, having been excluded from the patronage network that defines the CPI(M) regime, were simply left out of the developmental ambit.

Add to that events like the harsh police crackdown after last year's assassination attempt on chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and an already bad situation took a turn for the worse as Lalgarh's tribals responded by launching an agitation. To that end, the core question isn't whether the Police Santrosh Birodhi Janashadharaner Committee or the People's Committee against Police Atrocities is led, infiltrated or supported by Maoists.

The question, rather, is whether the state, per se, can correct its skewed, non-inclusive developmental vision which leaves out entire sections of society. The Maoists, as they have in Lalgarh, will simply step in where the state retreats, instigating the idea among the dispossessed that the state just can't work. Fighting this extremism, clearly, is simply not a question of restoring law and order alone.

On another level, current events also mark a high point in West Bengal's culture of savage political violence. Deployed by various groups, including the Left, the methods are now being used by the likes of the Trinamool. But two wrongs hardly make a right. The spate of attacks on CPI(M) members, must, therefore be condemned and stopped.

The Centre, on its part, seemed to have an initial reaction of looking the other way when things took a turn for the worse in Lalgarh. Given the challenge it symbolises, Lalgarh needs to be dealt with carefully, at multiple levels; beyond restoring law and order.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Dealing-with-Lalgarh/articleshow/4678302.cms

Maoist violence

IANS

Lalgarh: Maoists hold out against forces

2009-06-20 01:01:00
Last Updated: 2009-06-20 01:14:33

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Lalgarh: Maoist rebels put up stiff resistance to the advancing security forces in Lalgarh, carrying out surprise attacks and engaging them in heavy gunbattles on the second day of a massive operation launched by the West Bengal government to free the area of the leftwing radicals.

Two security personnel were injured in a landmine blast.

The state government used surveillance helicopters to watch over rebel movement in the area and also air-dropped leaflets written in Bengali and the tribal Alchiki script, asking people of Lalgarh not to fall into the Maoists' trap to use women and children as human shields.

A landmine blast occurred in the evening at Pirakata bazaar, an area reclaimed by the forces from the rebels Thursday. Two policemen in a vehicle that hit the landmine were injured. "Both suffered splinter injuries in the low-intensity blast," an official said.

COBRA team to move in after villagers' evacuation

After a relatively easy day on Thursday, the central and state security personnel who had set up camp near West Midnapore district's Jhitka jungle - believed to be a Maoist den - were somewhat taken aback when the Maoists rushed in from the paddy fields to an area where the forces had halted on Thursday night and started firing.

As the firing began, the forces immediately started retracing their steps for a couple of kilometres, to Pirrhakhuli - where they were attacked by another group of well-armed Maoists, accompanied by about 100 members of their associate People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA). Attacked from the rear, the police seemed trapped, as the Jhitka jungle is also believed to be heavily mined.

The rebels fired from the paddy fields, and some nearby houses for about an hour before fleeing, said Inspector General of state police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia. "It was long range fire. I have not received any report of casualties," he said.

Seven arrests were made from Goaltor in the same district, Kanojia said.

Some journalists saw Maoists planting mines at Koima, an area reclaimed by the security forces on Thursday night.

The security forces have been advancing from four directions towards Lalgarh, 200 km from Kolkata, where the Maoist guerrillas have been active in organising a tribal movement alongside the tribal body PCAPA.

Securing Lalgarh could take time: Chidambaram

Apart from the main contingent at Bhimpur, three other teams are moving from Jhargam and Goaltor in West Midnapore district and Sarenga in Bankura.

The group which started from Sarenga police station, faced a stiff challenge at Kargil More of Pingboni, where the Maoists tried to obstruct them by digging roads, burning a road bridge and felling a large number of trees.

The security forces also had to contend with a human wall at Sarenga and used tear gas and batons to break the wall of protestors.

The Sarenga offensive was halted for the day and the forces are waiting for reinforcements.

In Kolkata, Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen claimed that some top Maoists leaders including their politburo member Kishanjee alias K Koteshwar Rao may have fled Lalgarh.

Sen also told reporters that the state government had asked the centre for more forces.

IAF choppers drop leaflets over Lalgar h

The top bureaucrat, briefing mediapersons after day-long meetings of a core group set up to monitor the security operations, parried a question on how long the operation will continue, saying "We have not set any target".

In New Delhi, Home Minister P Chidambaram said that the West Bengal government should ban the Left extremist outfit, Communist Party of India-Maoist, which has declared the state's Lalgarh area a 'liberated zone'.

"No one can understand why the Communist Party of India-Maoist has not been banned (by West Bengal)," he told reporters after a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"We are dealing with a situation in which a militant organisation is challenging the writ of the civil administration. We are engaged in an operation to re-establish the civil authority," Chidambaram maintained.

Lalgarh has been on the boil since last November when a landmine exploded on the route of the convoy of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and then central ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitin Prasada.

Buddhadeb offers talks with Lalgarh tribals

Complaining of police atrocities after the blast, the angry tribals launched an agitation virtually cutting off the area from the rest of the district.

During the last few days, the agitators have torched CPI-M offices, driven away the party's supporters and forced the police to leave, thereby establishing a virtual free zone.

Maoists have been active in the three western districts of the state - West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia. They also backed the Trinamool-sponsored movement against the state government's bid to establish a chemical hub at Nandigram in East Midnapore district.

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?a=jgubbjcabjf&title=_Maoists_hold_out_against_forces_on_day_2_of_Lalgarh_operation&?vsv=TopHP1

Weak monsoon casts shadow over D-Street

20 Jun 2009, 1339 hrs IST, Partha Sinha, TNN

MUMBAI: A clear blue sky in June is slowly emerging to be a cause of concern for Dalal Street. A number of broking houses have already put their

Pick stocks on fundamentals
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investors on alert: We could expect weakness in the market and additional pain on the fiscal front in case the monsoon is substantially below normal, which in turn could affect agricultural output.

And what is adding to these concerns is the chance of El Nino, a global weather-related phenomenon that usually leads to a draught-like situation in India. So at this point the question that a section of the market players is asking: '' Can the Street discount the drizzles and support the threemonth old bull run?''

Going by the latest monsoon update received from the India Meteorological Department (Met), till June 17, the amount of rainfall that the whole country received was about 54% less than the 10-year average for the corresponding period. Also, for the week ended June 17, of the 36 Met divisions in India, up to 28 received deficient or scanty rainfall during the period, a research note from Emkay Global Financial said.

Although earlier this week top Met officials maintained that India will receive about 96% of the long-term average rainfall, not many are willing to take a bet on the same. '' The delay in the onset of the monsoon and rising El Nino risks has revived memories of the market selloff during the drought of 2002,'' a report from CLSA, one of the largest foreign brokerages in India, wrote on Thursday.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Weak-monsoon-casts-shadow-over-D-Street-/articleshow/4679887.cms

Premium cars to tank up on cheap fuel 20 Jun 2009, 0037 hrs IST, Chanchal Pal Chauhan, ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: Soon, there will be a number of premium cars running on cheaper gas fuels like CNG and LPG, which slashes the running cost of these

Fiat Grande Punto | Maruti Ritz | Hyundai i20

vehicles by half. Toyota Corolla, Maruti SX4, Skoda Octavia and General Motors' Chevrolet Aveo are set to come in compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) versions soon, according to company executives.

Until now, such alternative fuel options were mostly restricted to compact cars like Maruti 800, GM Spark, Hyundai Santro and i10, all driving good sales.

CNG and LPG offer almost 50% lower running cost over conventional fossil fuels like petrol and diesel. With running costs becoming a big concern for customers, carmakers are now looking to extend the benefit of cheaper and greener fuel to mid-size cars. "We are working with different fuel options to lower emissions without compromising power of the vehicle," said IV Rao, who heads the research and development division of Maruti Suzuki.

Skoda Auto, which has launched Octavia on natural gas in Spain and other European markets, is considering the gas-based fuel options for India. The company is keen to bring into India the Greenline technology that uses 10% less fuel than the other traditional 1.9 TDI models due to a few subtle eco-tweaks of the engine, a Skoda Auto official said.

Toyota Kirloskar, which recently launched the CNG version of Innova, is now testing the natural gas-powered Corolla, a company executive said. GM, which launched Optra CNG back in 2006, is now considering more eco-friendly vehicles running on bio-diesel besides the CNG version of Aveo.

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"We have drawn a full-fledged plan to reap the benefits of eco-friendly and efficient gas-based fuels for our cars," said P Balendra, GM's vice-president for corporate affairs. "We are expanding our portfolio in bio-diesel fuel too." These carmakers are encouraged by the success of Hyundai Accent's CNG version. "Accent revived after the gas variant was launched and saw sales zooming in cities like Delhi, Agra, Mumbai and Ahmedabad where CNG is available," a senior executive of Hyundai Motor India told ET.
The move is part of the carmakers' bid to revive the sale of mid-sized cars, which dropped 3% year-on-year to 36,410 cars during April and May. Besides gas-based fuel technology, carmakers have also come together to develop alternative fuel hybrid vehicles for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

India's largest auto company Tata Motors, top carmaker Maruti Suzuki and utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra are working together to develop a hybrid technology for their vehicles under the National Hybrid Propulsion Programme of the government.

The trio will venture into developing lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicle technologies and other necessary
components required for launching hybrid vehicles. While M&M will showcase its Scorpio hybrid during the Commonwealth Games, Tata Motors will come up with its already developed concepts of Indica Vista EV and the Indica EV electrical vehicles.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Now-premium-cars-set-to-become-more-affordable/articleshow/4678278.cms


After virtual pool, it's salary cuts for Satyamites With the co agreeing to credit only basic salary, the pressure of EMIs is mounting on Satyam staff as basic pay is not enough to cover EMI. Satyam calls back 380 staff from virtual pool According to sources, nearly, 380 employees, who were on the virtual pool, were asked to join back the company. Satyam to put 10,000 staff on 'virtual pool' The Satyam Computers board that met on Thursday in Hyderabad cleared the proposal for implementing the virtual pool programme to send close to 10,000 employees on a sabbatical. Govt to put Satyam case on fast track Serious Fraud Investigation Office has been asked to put the prosecution on fast track, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Salman Khurshid said. Court extends Raju's remand by 14 days The remand of Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju and seven others accused in the multi-crore accounting fraud in the IT firm was further extended by 14 days by a local court here on Wednesday. Satyam Computers still losing clients Two US-based clients of Satyam along with another banking sector client have terminated their contracts with the scam-hit IT firm. SFIO to soon initiate prosecution in Satyam case The government is likely to soon give its nod to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) for initiating prosecution against the persons involved in the Rs 7,800 crore-accounting fraud at Satyam Computer Services. SEBI chief for quick punishment for Satyam fraudsters Securities and Exchange Board of India Chairman C B Bhave on Thursday said punishment should be quick for the perpetrators of fraud at IT firm Satyam Computer. Court rejects bail pleas of Raju brothers A local court here on Wednesday dismissed the bail pleas of Satyam Computer's founder Chairman B Ramalinga Raju, his brother and former MD Rama Raju and former CFO Vadlamani Srinivas. Four top officials leaving Satyam Four top guns are on their way out of the scam-hit IT major Satyam and buzz is that many senior functionaries of the firm will soon follow suit. Decoding the Satyam buy Satyam, Upaid get chance to try out-of-court settlement Satyam Computer Services and UK-based mobile solutions company Upaid have been offered a chance to settle their dispute out-of-court. Rajus, Srinivas move higher court for bail The court will hear arguments on the bail applications of Ramalinga Raju and Vadlamani tomorrow. Consumer forum rejects plea on compensation in Satyam case Consumer forum refused to hear Satyam investors' petition seeking a compensation of Rs 4,987.5 cr, saying it is not equipped to deal with such cases. Satyam investors seek Rs 5000 cr compensation over share crash Around three lakh Satyam shareholders lost their money when Satyam shares crashed to Rs 11.50 in January 2009. Satyam's rise, fall and resurrection Satyam no more a worthy rival of Infosys! Scam-hit Satyam Computer seems to have lost its place among the competitors of its rival IT service provider Infosys.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickieslist/3981495.cms

Air India seeks employees' help in 'fight for survival'

20 Jun 2009, 1938 hrs IST, IANS
MUMBAI: A day after Air India asked its top executives to forgo their salary for July, the chairman and managing director of the state-run

Top 15 global airlines
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carrier, Arvind Jadhav, Saturday appealed to all staff to "rise up to the challenge" and help the airline in its "fight for survival".

In a letter to each employee, Jadhav has said that in view of the global crisis, all airlines have been experiencing low fares, poor load factors, drop in premium travel, decline in cargo load and low yields.

Despite the hardships in the industry, Air india has not taken any harsh steps like pay cuts and job cuts so far, Jadhav pointed out.

"Employees have been receiving their wages, salaries every month even when people in the industry have lost jobs or seen emoluments take a dip. We should consider ourselves fortunate that we have been insulated from the adverse impact of the economic meltdown so far," Jadhav said.

His letter comes at a time when the employees of the carrier have called for an indefinite strike from July 1 if the management delays their salaries.

The company, struggling to cope with a cash crunch, had earlier announced that it will defer its employees' salaries of June by two weeks. It has also asked the top executives above general manager level to forego their compensation for July.

"As loans from financial institutions at high interest rates cannot be availed of endlessly to meet working capital expenditure, the time has come for us to face the moment of truth. This is an hour of crisis for us all and it is a fight for survival," Jadhav said.

The company has already requested the government to infuse funds by way of equity and soft loans and is hopeful that it would come soon, he added.

Jadhav also warned of the impact of suggestions for disinvestment or privatisation of Air India.

He urged each and every employee to "rise up to the challenge" and demonstrate their ability to overcome the crisis and emerge with flying colours.

Jadhav said the management was in dialogue with employees' unions to apprise them of the difficult financial situation confronting the aviation industry and the airline in particular.

Obama "ready to fight" for new financial agency

20 Jun 2009, 1617 hrs IST, REUTERS
ASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said on Saturday he is "ready to fight" for a tough new agency to protect consumers from risky loans and

other financial products and lashed out at groups that might stand in the way.

"These interests argue against reform even as millions of people are facing the consequences of this crisis in their own lives," Obama said in a weekly radio address.

"These interests defend business-as-usual even though we know that it was business-as-usual that allowed this crisis to take place."

Obama said opponents were already "mobilizing" against his proposal earlier this week to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency as part of the most sweeping set of financial regulatory reforms since the 1930s.

The new agency, which Congress would have to approve, would have the power to write rules and design or ban financial products. It could also examine firms and impose fines and other penalties on almost any institution that offers products such as home loans or credit cards.

Critics argue that the new agency would stifle financial product innovation, boost the cost of regulatory compliance and cause prices for consumers to rise.

"It's going to create exactly the type of duplication, second-guessing and layering that we feared," David Hirschman, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets, said earlier this week.

Obama said the proposed agency was badly needed to help consumers make sense of complex financial instruments and to keep loan companies honest.

"Today, folks signing up for a mortgage, student loan, or credit card face a bewildering array of incomprehensible options. Companies compete not by offering better products, but more complicated ones -- with more fine print and hidden terms," Obama said.

"The American people sent me to Washington to stand up for their interests. And while I'm not spoiling for a fight, I'm ready for one."

Senior lawmakers have said they expect to pass financial reform regulation by the end of the year.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, at a Senate hearing on Thursday, faced the most opposition to Obama's proposal to give the Federal Reserve new powers to police broad risks in the economy.

Some lawmakers believe the central bank failed to halt practices that led to the global financial crisis.

Giving the Federal Reserve more authority "is like a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.


House rents up by around 25% in major cities The high cost of properties and slackening supply of houses have fuelled rentals in Delhi, say industry officials. DLF not to sell core assets as credit begins to flow DLF promoters had sold a 9.9% stake in the past month to raise Rs 3,980 crore, which has put the company in a comfortable position. Indian real estate back on the radar of NRIs and PIOs Global property investments are making a comeback, searching for Indian HNIs, who would be willing to buy property abroad. Property investment: Land or apartment Allotment of low-cost flats under JNNURM on the anvil With the elections over, the much-awaited allotment of low-cost flats constructed here under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for the poor is likely to kick off within the next two months. States, PEs queue up for Nano homes Tata Housing Development is in talks with various state govts for developing affordable housing projects. The houses are priced at around Rs 4 lakh. NRIs lift the spirits of realty sector Even after demand for flats up to Rs 30 lakh and 40 lakh and above really hit a new low, there are still ready buyers for independent houses. Investors warm up to realty, once again After a near 16-month hiatus, strategic investors are again warming up to real estate sector. NBCC flats to cost 30-50% lower than private developers NBCC has decided to offer flats at prices much below the current market prices offered by private developers. Affordable housing: The buzzword in realty Private Equity firms are intrested in investing in affordable housing projects ranging from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh across India. It's a good time to buy property overseas Brokers claim realty prices in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, San Francisco and California have dropped by more than 40%. Land investment I Buying house? Quote price Taxman says DLF diverted funds, questions role of auditors The I-T authorities have slapped a tax liability of Rs 300-400 crore on realty leader DLF. UPA-2 breathes hope into realty The clear mandate for a second term to a more stable Manmohan Singh govt has roused the expectations of the realty sector. It's still dream home as rates hover near highs Latest data shows rise in prices softened in the second half of 2008, but they didn't really decline in Delhi & Mumbai. Land as investment I Buying house? Quote price Office rentals to fall 20% in 2009; realty to recover in 2010 Realty consultant Jones Lang LaSalle said office rentals in Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune are expected to decline between 30% and 40%. Tata group launches low-cost housing programme Tata Housing Development Co launched a low cost housing project under the banner 'Shubh Griha', offering property in the price band of Rs 3.9 lakh to Rs 6.7 lakh per unit across the country.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickieslist/4207320.cms


Will recession hit Warren Buffett lunch? Warren Buffett is again raising money for charity by auctioning a chance to dine with him, which last year fetched a record $2.11 mn. Warren Buffett attacks bank stress tests Buffett said the government is taking the wrong approach in assessing banks by ignoring differences in lenders' business models. I won't buy newspapers 'at any price' today: Warren Buffett Warren Buffett may have sagely advice on investment in any number of fields, but one area he says he won't touch these days is the newspaper industry. Ajit Jain among candidates to replace Buffett: Report India-born Ajit Jain could be in race to replace billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett as CEO of Berkshire. Buffett makes good, bad bets \| Buffett on succession Buffett makes good bets, bad bets Even the most famous investor Warren Buffett doesn't get everything right. Buffett on succession, acquisitions Berkshire Hathaway has been preparing succession plans for 78-year-old Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway at a glance Berkshire Hathaway is a conglomerate holding co whose core biz is insurance. Warren Buffett at a glance Warren Buffett is world's second-richest person, and most-revered US capitalist. US government doing the right things: Buffett Berkshire's Class A stock lost 32% in 2008, and Berkshire's book value - assets minus liabilities - declined 9.6%, to $70,530 per share. Moody's strips Berkshire Hathaway of top rating The cut by Moody's comes 4 weeks after Fitch stripped Berkshire of its top rating. Gainers: BSE ( A, B ), NSE \| Losers: BSE ( A, B ), NSE I Stocks 52 Wk: High, Low Buffett's favourite banker to leave Goldman Goldman in particular has seen several senior bankers decamp, including media banker Joseph Ravitch, who earlier announced plans to leave. The Buffett Way: Time for a Rethink? The value investing style championed by Berkshire Hathaway chief Warren Buffett often excels in bear markets, but not this time. Is the strategy still sound? Berkshire may lose "AAA" S&P rating In 2008 profit of Berkshire fell 62% and its net worth fell 9.6%, the worst year since Buffett took over in 1965. Buffett paid compensation of $491,000 in 2008 Berkshire said Buffett's 2008 salary was $100,000, the same amount he has taken for a quarter century. AIG asked Buffett for help before US rescue AIG was first bailed out by the Fed with a $85 bn credit line shortly after investment bank Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickieslist/4081661.cms

Analysis: Obama offers split verdict on economy

20 Jun 2009, 2003 hrs IST, AGENCIES

WASHINGTON: It's a difficult balancing act for President Barack Obama and his economic policymakers.

Where some economists see "green shoots" of a recovery others see only yellow weeds of continuing recession. It's hard to know for sure whether things are getting better or worse with the US economy.

President Harry S Truman whimsically asked for a "one-handed economist." He complained that "all my economists say, `on the one hand ... on the other hand."'

That's pretty much the dilemma that Obama and his policymakers now face.

With consumer spending accounting for more than two-thirds of the US economy, Obama is mindful that reviving it depends a lot on restoring confidence. So he's been trying to put the most positive spin on any signs of improvement, as have leaders in other recession-wracked countries.

"It's safe to say we have stepped back from the brink, that there is some calm that didn't exist before," Obama said recently about what already is the longest recession since World War II.

On the other hand, there's a clear danger. Sound too cheery and people lose confidence in your judgment, especially if their own eyes see a bleaker picture.

Ease up on government stimulus spending too soon and the recovery could be snuffed out. Talk by some Group of Eight finance ministers about stimulus exit strategies briefly spooked international stock markets. But keep stimulus spending going too long and you end up with huge deficits and soaring inflation.

Polls show people in the United States increasingly are concerned about the government's record levels of debt, a sour legacy for future generations.

So Obama has talked up and talked down the economy. At the same time.

"Even as we've made progress, we know that the road to prosperity remains long and it remains difficult," he told a Chicago audience this past week as he promoted his health care overhaul. It's an effort that Obama says will help the economy in the long run, but one that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says could top $1 trillion over 10 years.

The daily numbers don't help much. On the one hand, some statistics suggest the recession's fury is easing. Not only are fewer jobs being lost, but there are signs that stability is returning to housing and manufacturing. Even with recent declines, stocks are up about 30 per cent from their March lows.

On the other hand, the economy is continuing to shed tens of thousands of jobs a month and the unemployment rate may soon exceed 10 per cent. Housing values still are falling. Consumers keep spending cautiously. Even though 10 top banks won Treasury Department approval to repay $68 billion of bailout money, hundreds of billions of dollars in bad debt clogs the balance sheets of many banks. Gasoline prices are rising again.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 6 million jobs.

"We are still in a recession. The risks are still to the downside. The coast isn't clear," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com.

While Zandi thinks the recession probably will end this year, he sees an extended period of slow growth and continued high unemployment, as do many economists.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Naxal veterans slam Lalgarh misadventure

19 Jun 2009, 0315 hrs IST, Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey , TNN

KOLKATA: It's been just over three decades since the Naxalite uprising, but old-timers haven't forgotten the heady whiff of revolution. So,
parallels are being drawn with the Lalgarh movement just as the Maoists have rattled the CPM government, the Naxalites, back in the '60s and '70s, had put the Congress government in a fix. There are similarities in the two operations.

But yesteryear Naxalites don't think so. In fact, they brand the Lalgarh offensive a "misadventure".

Many feel the time was not suitable for an armed offensive. According to them, it was the time for a democratic movement through which the masses could have been mobilised and demands placed. As the Left Front's losses in the Lok Sabha elections show, change is in the air. Had the democratic movement failed to get a better deal for the tribals, only then would an armed struggle be imperative.

At this stage, it would just see innocent lives sacrificed without managing to get a fair deal for the masses, they feel.

One of the most well-known faces of the Naxalite movement, Kanu Sanyal, felt that from the very beginning, the Lalgarh movement lacked the character of a mass uprising. This is the main difference with the Naxalite movement, which started off with farmers capturing land. The struggle revolved around keeping the land away from the state or the rich landowner. "Our agenda was fixed. We led the farmers from the forefront and were ready to die. So many of us got caught and killed, but it was for the cause of a revolution. But the Maoists are egging on the tribals of Lalgarh from the rear. When the state machinery strikes, they have their retreat route ready. Do you call this a revolution?" Sanyal asked.

He still lives in Naxalbari in Darjeeling district and has been keenly following the developments in Lalgarh. "I had expected them to at least come up with a charter of demands for the people. Instead, they have always played on the emotions of the tribals by calling them a class. During the Naxalite movement we just had two classes the rich and the poor we didn't create such caste divides." All that the Maoists had done for the tribals was create a small armed group that would fight police while they themselves beat a retreat. The unarmed masses would be left to die, he feared.

Another well-known Naxalite leader, Purnendu Basu, feels the Maoists are not good strategists. "They are using helpless tribals as bait to increase their influence. Several Naxalite leaders like Santosh Rana, Pradip Banerjee and Aditya Kisku, have been trying for the past year to visit them and start a dialogue. It would have actually helped the Maoists as these three leaders had led the struggle in the same zone in the 70s and could have shared their experiences and seen that there were no excesses," Basu added.

Azizul Haq is upset with the way in which the Maoist movement is progressing in Lalgarh. "Listen to their leader Kishanji's interviews. He has himself said that Maoists helped oust Trinamool from Keshpur while he is now trying to oust CPM from Lalgarh. Are they hired goons or leaders of a mass movement?" Haq asked.

He also questioned the new-found friendship between Maoists and Trinamool. "How can a movement like this find a friend in Trinamool that represents the remnants of feudalism? A party that has a leader who was the publicity officer in Voice of America against the Nicaragua struggle (Kabir Suman) will help Maoists in their pro-people struggle?" Haq asked cynically.

He felt that the state operation at Lalgarh is nothing but big drama, which will help them escape. It might also see Maoist leaders take refuge in Trinamool leaders' homes initially and establish themselves elsewhere.
http://naxalwatch.blogspot.com/2009/06/naxal-veterans-slam-lalgarh.html

Naxals trigger twin blasts, force cops to redraw plan

20 Jun 2009, 0512 hrs IST, Caesar Mondal & Jayanta Gupta, TNN

LALGARH: The battle that everyone expected since the beginning of Lalgarh operation erupted just as the sun was setting on Friday. Maoists fired

on central forces in Kuldiha — one of the areas cleared by police the previous day.

Two hours later, an IED blast hit the Domkal SDPO's car in Pirakata, critically injuring three policemen. A culvert was blown up in Nimtala. And around 9pm, gunfire was heard near Lalgarh police station. The Maoists have drawn first blood.

What surprised police was that all the attacks occurred in areas that security forces had swept through on Thursday. It was a classic case of an attacking army moving faster than the generals expected. The forces covered 12 km on day 1, but found their lines stretched thin. No force was deployed in the 7-km stretch between Pirakata and Pirakhali, which had been taken over by security forces on Thursday.

With the twin attacks, the Maoists have forced police to redraw the battle plan, commit forces to new areas and redeploy units. The guerrillas now aim to cut off forces advancing from Pirakata from those stationed at Bhimpur. Roads have been dug up at various points, blocked with trees and even mines are believed to have been laid.

Another contingent of central forces has started moving from the Sarenga end (a forest area between Goaltore and Ranibandh) towards the West Midnapore border. This road leads to Lalgarh and is diagonally opposite the one from Pirakata along which another contingent is moving towards Lalgarh. After Thursday's rapid-march operation, security forces seemed to hold back a little on Friday. They started advancing from Pirrakhali at 6am. After marching for about an hour, they came to a halt at Bhimpur. Minesweepers and detectors were used to locate explosives. But the operation was suddenly suspended and the forces moved into Bhimpur High School where they stayed put for the next six hours.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Naxals-trigger-twin-blasts-force-cops-to-redraw-plan/articleshow/4677815.cms

Mamata leading violence from behind, says Brinda Special Correspondent Photo: R.V. Moorthy

Voicing protest: CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat during a demonstration in New Delhi on Thursday against Maoist attacks on CPI (M) cadres in Lalgarh.

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday accused the Trinamool Congress of leading an "unholy alliance" with the Maoists in West Bengal to destabilise the Left Front government.

"The Trinamool Congress is trying to destabilise the pro-poor Left government by unleashing terror in connivance with the Maoist forces in parts of West Bengal," Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat said here.

Addressing party workers at a protest rally, she charged the Trinamool chief with leading the violence from behind the scene. The Maoists and those with the Trinamool were killing CPI(M) workers and conspiring to disrupt the law and order situation in the State. She said that so far 53 party workers had been killed in the attacks, and accused that the main Opposition party was behind it.

In an editorial in the latest edition of party organ People's Democracy, the party said that unlike in Nandigram, where Maoists claimed they were behind it all, this time it was openly acknowledged that the violence unleashed in Lalgarh was by the Maoists and the Trinamool Congress and the others were following their "leader." "Clearly, the objective here is to destabilise the elected State government through Maoist violence."

Stating that it was gross abuse of parliamentary democracy that those who had taken oath under the Constitution to serve as Ministers in the Central government, were themselves leading and participating in the most "unconstitutional and illegal orgy of violence" resulting in large-scale loss of human life and destruction of property.

"The Congress party heading the Central government far from being uncomfortable is an accomplice in this gross violation of the Indian Constitution," the editorial noted and said that such a state of anarchy and designed unleashing of violence could not be tolerated in any civil society.

The party said the Central and State governments must act urgently in coordination and in the interests of the country and its constitutional scheme of things and immediately restore normality in areas affected by violence.

Lalgarh shadow over politburo meet 20 Jun 2009, 0726 hrs IST, ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: The Lalgarh situation has not spiralled out of control like the one in Nandigram — this was the sub-text of the message West Bengal

Marxists broadcasted on the sidelines of a crucial CPM politburo meeting on Friday.

The meeting saw the CPM's West Bengal unit presenting a report to the politburo on the Maoist rebellion in Lalgarh and the steps taken by the state government so far. The meeting, called to review the causes for the CPM's poll reverses in the general elections, also discussed the party's electoral performance and the reasons the drubbing in both West Bengal and Kerala. Though there was a general discussion on factionalism in Kerala caused by the V S Achuthanandan-Pinarayi Vijayan rivalry, ways to resolve the explosive situation in the Kerala unit in the aftermath of state secretary Vijayan being charged in SNC Lavalin scam is likely to be taken up in a separate another PB meeting, sources indicated.

With CPM charging its rivals, the Trinamool Congress (and Congress to some extent), of "aiding and abetting" the Maoist rebellion in West Bengal's Lalgarh in order to "destabilise" the state government, the party prepared ground for claiming a high moral ground in the event of a Nandigram-type opposition onslaught. However, this seemed unlikely as the security forces undertook a joint operation on Maoist-controlled areas which involved both state police and Central forces. The state government's bid to seek the assistance of the Centre, where Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee is a Cabinet minister, instead of moving into the troubled areas first and the statement of CPI (Maoist) leader Kishenji — that the Trinamool should support it in Lalgarh as quid-pro-quo for its support to the party in Nandigram — seemed to have completed CPM's firefighting exercise on the issue for the moment.

The Lalgarh issue has assumed do-or-die proportions for the state CPM represented by chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. He had to face harsh criticism from within the party and the Left Front for mishandling land acquisition in Nandigram and Singur, seen as a prime cause for the party's electoral drubbing.

CPM state secretary Biman Bose, a politburo member, told reporters that the "gameplan"of CPM's opponents was revealed by the Maoist leaders seeking Trinamool's help in Lalgarh. "The game plan is by Trinamool Congress and their rainbow alliances. That has been proved by the Maoists saying "we helped them in Nandigram and now we seek the help of them (TC) in Lalgarh". He also added that there was no internal feud in the party's Bengal unit. Both the Trinamool and Congress have rebutted CPM's statements.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Lalgarh-shadow-over-politburo-meet/articleshow/4679030.cms

Deepa demands all-party meeting on Lalgarh

SILIGURI, 19 JUNE: Congress Raiganj MP Mrs Deepa Das Munshi today demanded that the state government should immediately convene an all-party meeting on the Lalgarh turmoil.
"We have been asking the chief minister for this since quite sometime now and today I am iterating the demand again. The all-party meeting should be convened immediately to discuss the the Lalgarh issue in details," Mrs Das Munshi said.
Even after putting it on record that the ongoing police and paramilitary action at Lalgarh was "needed" to regain administrative control over the area, the Congress MP added that there was also the need to go deep into the genesis of turmoil.
"Lalgarh is the result of a three-decade long exploitation of the tribal people by the Left Front government in the state and police action will bring about short-term success alone. If the state is really serious about eradicating the menace, the grievances of the tribals will have to be addressed as a priority," Mrs Das Munshi said.
The Raiganj MP further added that the state administration must also reach out to the tribal people in the Dooars or else it too can turn out to be another Lalgarh.
Mrs Das Munshi, who is in Siliguri to campaign for the 28 June panchayat polls here, also informed that she has put forward several suggestions to railway minister Ms Mamata Banerjee towards improving the rail services in north Bengal.

special article

Bumpy ride in politics
Why Mayawati, Lalu And BJP Have Faltered
Amulya Ganguli
IN one of the brief clips which appeared on television during the run-up to the polls, a young journalist claimed that Mayawati would be one of those who would play a crucial role in the formation of the next government. In the event, she did not live up to these expectations. What was worth noting, however, was that ever since Mayawati's success in the UP assembly elections, the assessments of her political prowess had tended to be romantic in the sense that they were not very realistic.
A major factor which was ignored was that the fortunes of a political party normally tended to follow an undulating course rather than a straight line. True, sometimes the ups and downs can be widely separated ~ in Lalu Prasad's case, the interval was 15 years, in West Bengal it's been more than 30. But the fluctuations are inevitable. Yet, in Mayawati's case, her 2007 success was seen by political commentators to lead straight upwards. She herself thought so. Hence, the talk about her becoming the Prime Minister.
Lucknow to Delhi
There was also perhaps a sentimental element born of upper caste angst in these predictions as if destiny had chosen her as a means of recompense for all the indignities which her community had suffered through the centuries. There were the inevitable comparisons, therefore, with Barack Obama. If these balloons have now been punctured, the fault is not hers so much as of her starry-eyed backers. Their first mistake was the fatuity of the comparison. For all her feistiness, Mayawati evidently lacks Obama's charisma and intellect. To expect her political juggernaut, therefore, to roll on unchecked from Lucknow to Delhi was naive.
There was an element of cynicism as well in these grandiose hopes in the sense that a fractured mandate was expected to create conditions where the number of MPs in her party would assume crucial importance. However, if these calculations went awry, the reason was the electorate's eminent good sense. It was they, rather than the analysts, who saw through the hollowness of her pretensions, apparently because of the signs of megalomania which she displayed by her extravagant birthday bashes and penchant for building statues of herself.
The earlier optimistic evaluation of Mayawati's future was based on the untenable conviction about the durability of her so-called rainbow coalition of Dalits and Brahmins in UP. It was seen as a magic mantra which would spread her influence all over the country. Yet, it should have been obvious from the start that the Dalit-Brahmin alliance would be less viable than the Congress's earlier Brahmin-Dalit-Muslim alliance since the upper castes would resent the loss of their dominance under Mayawati. In the Congress's formulation, the upper castes held the upper hand. In any case, such opportunistic tie-ups tend to crack after some time, as has happened with Lalu Prasad's MY (Muslim-Yadav) combination. It hasn't taken long, therefore, for Mayawati's rainbow to vanish.
Mayawati is not the only one in recent years who has failed to deceive the voters long enough to achieve her objective. As mentioned before, Lalu Prasad was another such person even if it took a decade and a half for the people of Bihar to wake up to his false promises and another five years to bring him crashing down to earth. His latest tally of four seats compared to 22 in 2004 shows how wildly a party's prospects can fluctuate. In the cases of both Mayawati and Lalu Prasad, the political trick was to inflate the self-esteem of their core groups of supporters without any intention of building on their backing by focussing on the administration. Only a self-defeating lack of vision, probably born of a limited education, can explain such a failure.
It was almost as if they wanted the Yadavs (in Lalu Prasad's case) and Dalits (in Mayawati's case) to remain backward so that they could continue to exploit their grievances. Backwardness apparently became a badge of honour for them just as rudeness became the distinguishing feature of Communists, vide Ashok Mitra's celebrated comment about being a Communist, not a gentleman. Since gentlemanliness was associated with the bourgeoisie, it was to be shunned.
Living conditions
Similarly, favourable living conditions, including decent educational and health facilities, had so long been associated with the upper castes that their absence was seen as something of which the backward castes and Dalits need not be ashamed of. It is much like the Gujjars demanding Scheduled Tribe status by highlighting their primitive social traits and lack of education.
But if Lalu Prasad and Mayawati have found out that raising hopes of a higher social status by ending discrimination against the backward castes and Dalits was not enough to win votes after a time, the BJP has discovered that its ruse of harping on Muslim appeasement would not work for ever. The BJP tried to rewrite history by depicting Hindu-Muslim relations as a long period of confrontation going back to the medieval ages while promising a new era of dominance by the majority community. Like Mayawati, the BJP leaders, too, saw a straight upward line of political advancement. But it didn't take long for the voters to realize that they were being taken for a ride and that the party's sole interest was in advancing its own cause by sowing seeds of communal discord.
If the BJP's upward line has been reversed, the Congress's revival shows that the opposite can also happen for two reasons. First, the electorate's disenchantment with one party can make it turn to its opponent. Secondly, a new generation can grow up which is unaware of the latter's earlier sins.
In the Congress's case, it has largely succeeded in overcoming the stigmas of corruption, exemplified by the Bofors scam, and cynicism, as in the Shah Bano episode, not only because the voters do not seem to care, but also because the follies of others like casteism and communalism have become more starkly obvious.
The writer is a former Assistant Editor, The Statesman.

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=258377

Tribals wake up to their rights

MALLARPUR, 19 JUNE: Even as the state government is gearing up to launch an operation to flush out the Maoist-led tribal menace in Lalgarh, the tribals of the area are trying to make the most of the government facilities they are entitled to.
The youth of Birbhum's 20 villages in Rampurhat block I area, all members of a Mallarpur based NGO, Naisubha, have taken up this initiative of making tribal villagers aware of the government provisions. This is for the first time that a government programme, in collaboration with different NGOs, has been started within these tribal villages under Kathogarah and Masra gram panchayat areas .
The young tribals are working to bring an awareness among the villagers about different government facilities like ST certificate, old-age pension, Janani Surakhsha Yojna and others schemes that the government provides specially for the tribals. "The tribals of these areas have been victims of starvation simply because they were not aware of particular government facilities," said Mr Bahadur Soren, a tribal youth working in Masra gram panchayat area. The villagers admitted that if not for the awareness camps organised by the youths, they would not have known of these facilities.
Meanwhile, the state government with the help of the NGOs, has decided to launch a programme called West Bengal Civil Society Support Programme (WBCSP) to make these villagers aware of the government facilities.
"We have received government assistance to carry out these awareness camps and programmes in tribal villages. The SDO of Rampurhat assured us that the government will be organising a programme where many villagers would be given ST certificates. The district controller has also decided to organise a camp to distribute ration cards to the villagers," said Mr Sadhan Sinha, secretary, Naisubha.

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=22&theme=&usrsess=1&id=258531

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Regained, lost, regained…
Forces caught in repeat battles

SUJAN DUTTA

People with bows and arrows run to block state police in Goaltore, from where a road leads to Lalgarh, on Friday. The police are trying to open another flank at Goaltore which lies to the north of Pirakata from where the first wave of security forces launched the operation on Thursday. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Malida (West Midnapore), June 19: A light machine gun is mounted on a tripod and the soldier from the Border Security Force takes position behind it as his section of 30 men creeps across the fallow farmland on the road to Lalgarh here this afternoon.

Cries ululate in a chorus across the field. Through the sights of the machine gun, are hundreds of villagers — too numerous and too far away to be counted. The cries rise and fall as the crowd comes closer and then retreats as the soldiers advance.

The battle of Malida will be fought before the road to Lalgarh is taken.

This was the road taken by the security forces last afternoon as they marched, lathi-charged and tear-gassed their way to Bhimpur, about 5km from here. The first barricade — the "human shield" as the government said of the Maoists — was put up here. It was no match for the might of the state forces.

But in 24 hours, Malida has struck back. The road to Bhimpur, where the security forces are setting up a major staging post for the mission, has been cut again. Rocks have been placed on the road. It is three hours since the road was barricaded and the battle started.

On the road this side of the barricade towards Pirakata are two companies of the Border Security Force, inducted from Murshidabad, Alpha Company of the Central Reserve Police Force's 50th battalion inducted from Sindri, a busload of India Reserve police, three carloads of Calcutta's Police Rapid Action Force, two busloads of West Bengal Armed Police and about 15 utility vehicles carrying the officers of each of the forces.

They carry Insas rifles, carbines, RPG7 shoulder-firing rockets, light machine guns. They are reinforcements heading to Bhimpur to relieve or to add muscle to the offensive that began yesterday.

They were told the road was clear, that it was secured. This is the route that all supplies and reinforcements, all rolling stock to the Bhimpur staging post will take. Yet, in less than 24 hours, the security forces have lost control over it.

They regained it after sundown. But to secure it, the government will have to press in more forces, conduct road-opening parties, and sanitise the fields to the north and south of the road that runs east to west.

Each of these tasks will take up more troops and more time. The reinforcements — the contingent that was stuck between Pirakata and Malida this afternoon — were not expecting to do battle so soon.

If the battle at Malida today is an indication of the nature of the operations in Lalgarh, Bengal could be staring at a long hard period of insurgency and counter-insurgency missions here.

Central forces run the risk of being converted into armies of occupation for indefinite periods of time if they get bogged down. Bengal already had 11 companies of CRPF in parts of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore for well over three years. Lalgarh could turn out to be an extension of the militarised zone in Bengal unless dramatic and surprising action gives the offensive a different direction.

Multiple approaches by the security forces — from the Bankura side and also from west of Lalgarh — may open such an opportunity.

But on day two, there is a slowdown and a re-emergence of an opposition in Malida where the security forces thought there was none.

"We were going to our location," said a BSF trooper — he did not want to be identified. He is not sure if his location will be Bhimpur. "We were in Kharagpur and were told to proceed along this road and the Bengal police is to tell us where we have to set up camp".

He points to two trucks loaded with BSF paraphernalia — camp cots, bedding rolls, tarpaulin, tents, ammunition boxes. But now he is here, waiting for his section of 30 men drawn from the two companies in this contingent. The companies have drawn troops from at least three battalions — 105, 90 and 191. The section is fanning out now.

Brigadier Ponwar, the director of the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare School in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, that trains state forces in counter-Naxalite operations, says the BSF is "probably the most disciplined of the paramilitary forces". This is not the BSF's task.

The troops that are here are supposed to be on guard on the Bangladesh border in Malda-Murshidabad but Bengal is finding new borders being drawn inland.

The BSF men in the fields going after the villagers — there really cannot be that many Maoists though the police gathered on the road here insist they all are — are fanning out now. The villagers are gathered in groups in a clump of trees and bush.

From the road, they can be discerned only because they are in a crowd and then they let out the ululating cries.

The villagers are not within firing range of the BSF troopers. The advance party has gone about 1,000 yards into the field. The villagers are at least 2,500 yards away. "This afternoon some five or six shots rang out," says the BSF soldier on the road watching, his colleagues along with the rest of the party that is heading towards Bhimpur but is now stalled.

"And then the police leading us (the convoy) came and told us there is a barricade. We would have been in the camp by now," he says.

Brigadier Ponwar says the security forces should lay such a siege of Lalgarh that no Maoist who is inside can come out and no "undesirable element" can get in.

As of this moment, when the sun is about to set on the second day after the operations in Lalgarh were launched, a contingent of heavily armed police and paramilitary cannot get into Bhimpur. The barricade here means that those in Bhimpur where the staging post is being set up cannot come out till it is cleared.

The BSF advance party creeps about 10 paces and then the men lie down on the field. In the distance the villagers retreat, vanish and suddenly they are there again in sight, several hundred heads bobbing above the brush. A loud explosion breaks the stalemate and the villagers flee.

A friendly BSF soldier on the road sniggers. "That's a smoke bomb to scare them away," he says.

There is no tear gas being fired here. Up ahead constables of Bengal police are still trying to clear the road of stones and rocks that were piled up. The road vanishes into a forest turning darker by the minute as the sun sets. The cries ululate again.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090620/jsp/frontpage/story_11136654.jsp

Outlaw Maoists, prods PC
-'State has done nothing since blast'

NISHIT DHOLABHAI

Policemen rest at Bhimpur Santhal High School. Picture by Amit Datta

New Delhi, June 19: Union home minister P. Chidambaram today charged the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government with dereliction in tackling the Naxalite menace and exhorted the state government to ban the outfit.

"Since the chief minister was attacked on November 2 last year, the state government has done nothing," Chidambaram told The Telegraph on the eve of his meeting with Bhattacharjee. "It is inexplicable why Bengal has not banned the Maoist party. We feel it should be banned in Bengal as it is banned in other states."

Under the unlawful activities (prevention) act, Naxalite groups and all their front organisations are banned by the Centre and by all states affected by Naxalite violence. However, Bengal has dithered even after a near-fatal attack on the motorcade of the chief minister and then Union steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan. Since law and order is a state subject, it is not obligatory for states to follow the Centre.

A home department official in Calcutta said the Bengal government wants to fight Maoists "politically".

A CPM state committee leader added: "We believe dialogue and not ban should be the process of seeking solutions in a democracy. If the state bans Maoists, how will we defend our stand against such action when Indira Gandhi clamped Emergency and banned many organisations?"

The CPM has blamed the Trinamul Congress for being hand-in-glove with the Maoists. But Chidambaram stood by the UPA ally at a media briefing on cabinet proceedings. He said it was wrong to insinuate that "the CPI(Maoist) are supported either by the Trinamul Congress or the Congress.... I have seen Mamataji condemn Maoist violence on television".

Chidambaram advocated a more comprehensive strategy to tackle Maoists, hinting at a larger effort that would go beyond Lalgarh. "These cannot be ad hoc measures, there has to be a comprehensive plan," he said.

He also cautioned against expectations of a quick flushout in Lalgarh. "This will take time," he stressed. But he also hinted that it was well possible that as security forces proceeded, armed Maoists may stage a tactical withdrawal.

At the same time, the home minister endorsed Bhattacharjee's appeal to the Naxalites to come to the talks table. "The CM told me he had made an appeal to Maoist leaders and tribal leaders that the state government is willing to talk. I endorse that appeal. The central government would be happy to facilitate such talks," he told reporters.

There is little likelihood, though, that a dialogue is on the cards. Talks with Maoists have failed in Andhra Pradesh and security strategists believe they used the time to regroup.

Chidambaram later dismissed too much speculation on a possible dialogue: "I am not saying there will be a dialogue with Kishanji or someone but we are saying the tribal leaders (who support Maoists) can talk."

Chidambaram advised caution in the use of words such as "war" to describe the Lalgarh operation. "A government does not go to war with its own people. These are Indians and they have grievances, in a democracy there are established ways of seeking redress, taking to arms is not one of them. But the word 'war' should not be used," he said in answer to a question.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090620/jsp/bengal/story_11136486.jsp

US aircraft to take off from Mumbai airport soon

Hindu - ‎8 minutes ago‎

Mumbai (PTI): A Kandahar-bound US military cargo aircraft, which was forced to land at the international airport here after it intruded into Indian airspace, has been given clearance and would take off on Saturday night, airport officials said.

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Maoist violence part of "wider gameplan", says CPI(M)

Press Trust of India - ‎17 minutes ago‎

Paramilitary trooper dies in Lalgarh of heat stroke Hindu

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Indian Express

Difference between what BJP says and does: Congress

Hindu - ‎9 minutes ago‎

New Delhi (PTI) The Congress on Saturday said there was difference between what the BJP said and performed and accused the main Opposition party of being neither committed to Hindutva nor the guiding principles of the country.

Video: Growing dissent in BJP?

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Accused NCP MP Padamsingh Patil in jail till July 4

Times of India - ‎2 hours ago‎

20 Jun 2009, 1846 hrs IST, PTI MUMBAI: A Maharashtra court on Saturday granted judicial custody till July 4 to suspended NCP MP Padamsingh Patil for his alleged involvement in the 2006 murder of his cousin and Congress leader Pavan Raje Nimbalkar.

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Thaindian.com

Modi peeved with Centre for rejecting terror Bill

IBNLive.com - ‎1 hour ago‎

New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday accused the Centre of being unfair by returning his government's Bill which has stringent clauses against organised crime and terrorism.

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Shutdown in Kashmir, protests women's deaths

Hindustan Times - ‎4 hours ago‎

Aijaz Hussain, AP Thousands of troops patrolled the streets of Kashmir as businesses, schools and government offices closed in protest on Saturday as locals continued to accuse Indian soldiers of raping and killing two young women last month.

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Terror, peace process with Pak can't go simultaneously: BJP

Hindu - ‎2 hours ago‎

New Delhi (PTI) In the backdrop of a recent meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, the BJP on Saturday told the government that terror attacks and the peace process with the neighbouring country cannot go ...

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A batch of 1935 Amarnath pilgrims leaves Jammu for holy shrine

Sify - ‎3 hours ago‎

After initial weather related hindrances, a fresh batch of 1935 pilgrims left Jammu on Saturday for its onward journey to the holy Amarnath cave shrine in Kashmir.

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TRS leaders out to placare Chandrasekhar Rao

Indian Express - ‎7 hours ago‎

Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) leaders are making desperate attempts to placate K Chandrasekhar Rao to withdraw his resignation as party president.

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Black flags greet foreign secretary Menon in Nepal, four held

Times of India - ‎7 hours ago‎

KATHMANDU: Indian foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon, on a two-day visit to Nepal on Saturday to give fresh impetus to the obstructed peace process and foster better ties with the new government, faced protests at the Kathmandu airport on his arrival ...

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UPA wins two Rajya Sabha seats from Jharkhand

Times of India - ‎1 hour ago‎

RANCHI: Jharkhand's ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Saturday won in by-elections both Rajya Sabha seats from the state, beating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

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US has no intention to send troops to Pakistan: Obama

Press Trust of India - ‎9 hours ago‎

Washington, Jun 20 (PTI) US President Barack Obama today said that his administration has no intention to send American troops to Pakistan amid growing speculation that Washington could be preparing to help Islamabad as its army steps up the offensive ...

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Congress activists celebrate Rahul's b'day

Express Buzz - ‎8 hours ago‎

HYDERABAD: The State Congress Committee, Mahila Congress and National Students Union of India celebrated the 40th birthday of Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary and son of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, across the State today.

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On Rahul's birthday, Congress reaches out to the Dalits

Hindu - ‎18 hours ago‎

LUCKNOW: The Congressmen in Uttar Pradesh reached out to the Dalits through social gatherings and feasts on party leader Rahul Gandhi's birthday on Friday, in a bid to create a dent in the traditional support base of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

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Two cabbies sent to police remand for British girl's rape

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Oz Immigration Minister meets Indian students

Indian Express - ‎14 hours ago‎

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IAS officer caught with pants down, suspended

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BHOPAL: An IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh government was suspended on Friday after a male colleague accused him of seeking sexual favours.

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No link with Maoists: Trinamool

Hindu - Ananya Dutta - ‎11 hours ago‎

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BJP-Akali rift out in the open again

Hindu - Sarabjit Pandher - ‎18 hours ago‎

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No ULFA presence on our soil: Bhutan

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