The Londoner

The Indian prime minister says the Naxalites are the gravest threat to India's internal security [AP] Hundreds of Maoist fighters in India's eastern Orissa state have attacked police stations in a district close to the provincial capital, killing 14 people and looting weapons, police and officials said. At least 1,000 pistols were stolen during the co-ordinated attacks on Friday in Nayagarh district, about 80kms from the city of Bhubaneswar. Rajesh Kumar, the Nayagarh police chief, said the attack lasted several hours. All but one of the dead were policemen and there was no word of casualties among the Maoists. Simultaneous attacks "About 500 armed rebels rushed to Nayagarh town in vehicles and attacked a police station, armoury and police training centre, hurled bombs in several places and looted huge quantity of arms and ammunitions," Kumar said. Another 12 policemen were wounded in the assaults. Gopal Chandra Nanda, Orissa's director general of police, sai

BHANUPRATAPUR FOREST RESERVE, India — The gray light of dawn broke over the bamboo forest as the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army prepared for a new day. With transistor radios tucked under their arms, the soldiers listened to the morning news and brushed their teeth. A few young recruits busied themselves making a remote-control detonator for explosives. The company commander, Gopanna Markam, patiently shaved. "We have made the people aware of how to change your life through armed struggle, not the ballot," said Mr. Markam, who is in his mid-40's, describing his troops' accomplishments. "This is a people's war, a protracted people's war." Mr. Markam's ragtag forces, who hew to Mao's script for a peasant revolution, fought a seemingly lost cause for so long, they were barely taken seriously beyond India's desperately wanting forest belt. But not anymore. Today the fighting that Mr. Markam has quietly nurtured for 25 years looks incr

NEW DELHI, March 3 (UPI) -- India says incidents of Maoist violence in various parts of the country increased in 2007 compared with the previous year. Junior Interior Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said in a statement Monday there were 1,565 incidents and 696 causalities in 2001, compared with 1,509 incidents and 678 causalities in 2006. He said rebels have been targeting road and rail transport facilities and power-transmission facilities. Maoists are fighting to replace India's democratically elected government with a Maoist state. They are active in seven states across India and have made major inroads in two of those states: Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. © 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.

DANTEWADA, India (AFP) — Combining violence with rhetoric that appeals to the hundreds of millions living in poverty, India's Maoist rebels have left the government looking for an effective counter-insurgency strategy. The dilemma boils down to two options: strike the militants hard in their strongholds or address the abject poverty that has created fertile ground for the Naxals, as the Maoists are known. India says it is fighting on both fronts against what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the greatest threat to domestic security. But observers say it is making little headway on either. "The effective force actually engaging Naxals is not more than 1,800 to 2,000," said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management. The numbers are quickly diluted in the epicentre of the Maoist conflict -- a 40,000-square-kilometre (15,500 square mile) heavily forested region in central Chhattisgarh state. Police officials in the largely

By Biswajyoti Das Reuters Thursday, February 21, 2008 GUWAHATI, India: Elections in three small states in India's remote and revolt-racked northeast will provide another test for the ruling Congress party as it seeks to boost its shaky morale ahead of a national poll due next year. While the states are small and lack political weight nationally, elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland over the next few weeks will give Congress another sign of whether its popularity is falling across the country. Congress suffered defeats to the rival Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh last December. "The results of these smaller states will matter for the Congress," said Mahesh Rangarajan, a political analyst and history professor at Delhi University. "These elections are crucial for the Congress to boost its declining popularity, ahead of a series of coming elections in bigger states." Elections will be held on Febr