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Showing posts from June 22, 2008

Top Naxal leaders now have faces

From: Hindustan Times They are two of India's most wanted and between them they command up to 20,000 trained Maoist guerrillas with a presence in nearly 200 districts of the country. For years Ganapathi, the general secretary of the feared Communist Party of India (Maoist) and his deputy Kishenda, a politburo member, were faceless. Today, Hindustan Times brings them to the public for the first time. The Maoists, described by PM Manmohan Singh as the country's single-biggest security challenge, are accused of hundreds of killings, kidnapping and looting in the vast swathes they control. Home Ministry says they were responsible for the killing of 418 civilians and 214 security personnel in 2007. In 2006, the numbers were 501 and 133 respectively. Ganapathi and Kishenda have been living secret lives for decades, though not always in the huge expanse of jungles under their complete control. Police in different states have ha

Field Marshal Manekshaw, hero of 1971 war, is dead

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Former Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw seen in 2004 New Delhi - One of India's greatest war heroes, field marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, died Friday, the Defence Ministry said. He was 94. Manekshaw died from a progressive lung disease at the military hospital in the southern Indian town of Wellington, the ministry said in a statement. 'He had developed acute bronchopneumonia with associated complications, and his condition had been serious for the past four days,' the statement said. Born on April 3, 1914, Manekshaw was commissioned into the Indian army in 1934 when the country was under British rule. Manekshaw became chief of Indian Army in 1969 and crafted what is considered India's greatest military victory in the 1971 India-Pakistan war, which led to the creation of Bangladesh. Manekshaw, whose military career spanned four decades and five wars, was conferred the rank of field marshal in 1973, one of only two Indian generals to have risen

PM's daughter takes on Marxist view of history

19 Jun 2008, 0128 hrs IST, Mohua Chatterjee,TNN NEW DELHI: Just when PM Manmohan Singh has taken on his communist partners over the nuclear deal, his daughter, professor Upinder Singh, has come up with a book which challenges the Marxist version of ancient Indian history . While praising Marxist historians for uncovering the history of non-elite groups and other contributions, Singh disagrees with them for their reliance on unilinear historical models derived from western historical and anthropological works. She also delves extensively into ancient India's cultural past — art, literature, religion and philosophy — in sharp contrast to Marxist historians who focused on "social and economic interpretations". Singh, however, is not one to discard the Marxist approach altogether. "Being a student of history in the 1970s, I am a product of the shift from the nationalist to the Marxist view and so I have drawn from both," the DU historian told TOI,

India's most wanted....

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From : www.rediff.com May 13 was an important day in India's fight against terror. Nine low-intensity blasts went off in the tourist city of Jaipur, killing 62 people. Places of worship and crowded areas were targeted. It was the day when India changed the questions it usually asks after a terrorist attack. No more why, how or who. From now on, it will only be 'when and where next?' The nature of terrorism has changed over the past three decades. Concentrated in the Valley for the better part of the 1980s, it moved to big cities -- particularly Mumbai in the 1990s. Since the turn of the millennium, it began trickling down to the smaller cities. As India searches for a way to combat this wave of terror -- which agencies believe is being orchestrated by the Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence -- here is a look at the country's top ten most wanted men. The 10 names, by itself, neatly define terrorism in India: Some outfits born from India's bloodiest phase of vi

History of Naxalism

Courtesy: hindustan Times Telangana Struggle: By July 1948, 2,500 villages in the south were organised into 'communes' as part of a peasant movement which came to be known as Telangana Struggle. Simultaneously the famous Andhra Thesis for the first time demanded that 'Indian revolution' follow the Chinese path of protracted people's war. In June 1948, a leftist ideological document 'Andhra Letter' laid down a revolutionary strategy based on Mao Tsetung's New Democracy. 1964 CPM splits from united CPI and decides to participate in elections, postponing armed struggle over revolutionary policies to a day when revolutionary situation prevailed in the country. 1965-66 Communist leader Charu Majumdar wrote various articles based on Marx-Lenin-Mao thought during the period, which later came to be known as 'Historic Eight Documents' and formed the basis of naxalite movement. · First civil liberties organisation was formed with Telugu poet Sri Sri a