In a major Naxal attack, 12 Central Reserve Police Force personnel were on Tuesday killed and 28 others injured when the ultras triggered a landmine blast in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.
Environment minister warns of legal action if forest officials refuse transit passes.
A police sub-inspector, posted in naxal-infested Gadchiroli district, has been booked on charges of raping a 21-year-old wife of an Australian national working in an airline and extorting money from her, police said on Monday.
Heavy rains lashed Mumbai and its suburbs on Wednesday, causing flooding on roads and rail tracks and disrupting suburban train services as the south-west monsoon arrived in the city with a bang, while the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued an alert for more downpour.
Maoists have called for a 24-hour bandh in six states on September 30 to show their "solidarity with the protesting Kashmiris." The Maoists demanded "an immediate end to massacres by the forces in Kashmir, a complete withdrawal of all military and paramilitary forces, a repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, a plebiscite for Kashmiris and the release of all political prisoners."
'As casualties go, Maoism has been exacting a heavy price, and with a sickening regularity.' 'Yet, it is the other threat that hog all the limelight, the headlines and the TV studio debates,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Saibaba, who was on bail till December 31, gave himself up to jail authorities on Friday night, prison sources said on Saturday.
Maoists have planned to unleash an intense Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign across the country starting from February and Sunday's ambush of 15 policemen in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district may be just the first of a wave of devastating attacks, highly placed police officials in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh said.
There where nearly 15 guests staying in the hotel at the time of the mishap.
The high-pitch campaign ended on Sunday in Maharashtra for the October 13 assembly elections which saw Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena fighting for the same political space and the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party aiming a hat-trick.
The Maharashtra government, reeling under criticism over handling of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, has received another jolt with the widow of former Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare saying the state police force is ill-equipped to fight terrorists.
Hidma Madavi, who had a Rs 12 lakh reward on his head, was arrested without a single bullet being fired.
Naxals have called a bandh in Gadchiroli and Gondia districts of Maharashtra on July 15 to protest the killing of fellow women in recent encounters.
The UAV was in operation in Chhattisgarh for quite sometime and results are excellent, he said adding now as part of a strategy, the UAV will be positioned over eastern Maharashtra.
They were killed when the warehouse in which they were accommodated, gave way on Friday after heavy rains. The men, from SRPF Group IV, were participants in a anti-Naxalite operation in the district, they said.
The naxalites targeted the police vehicle carrying 17 personnel at Phulbondi.
The impact of the blast was so tremendous that it created a crater of about five to six feet width at the blast site and flung the police van carrying the STF personnel in the air.
Twelve persons of a marriage party, including four women, were killed when Naxalites triggered a landmine blast on Tuesday at Halewara near Kasansur forest in Gadchiroli district of south-eastern Maharashtra, police said.\n\n
With mercury soaring in Maharashtra and the onset of monsoon still a fortnight away, as many as 1,998 villages and 2,607 hamlets are reeling under acute water shortage where about 2,358 tankers are being used to supply drinking water.
Police claimed to have killed "five or six" naxalites, including a deputy commander, in an encounter in Gadchiroli district and recovered from their possession arms, ammunition and naxal literature.
The SC refused to stay a criminal contempt notice issued by the Bombay HC against author Arundhati Roy for an article questioning the incarceration of DU professor G N Saibaba.
A group of 34 newly elected members of the legislative assembly of Bharatiya Janata Party from Vidarbha on Monday left for Mumbai in a chartered flight to attend a key meeting of the party.
Naxals looted six automatic weapons -- two AK-47s and as many INSAS and self loading rifles -- of the deceased personnel.
The government said that last year the death of children in the five districts of Thane, Nandurbar, Nasik, Amravati and Gadchiroli was 1837 during the same time.
The GPS will monitor the movement of buses, its speed, number of passengers, vacant seats, stoppages, etc.
Incidentally, the state government had recently rejected the findings of a report compiled by the couple about malnutrition deaths in tribal areas.
Launching a blistering attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party over the "India Shining" campaign, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the balloon of Gujarat's development model will burst.
The security forces did not suffer any casualty in the encounter.
The alliance won 41 of the 48 seats leaving the Congress-NCP combine with just 5 seats.
'Our only child. A Communist.' 'There was an encounter by the police inside this room, five years ago. He was shot in one arm, but managed to escape.' 'Missing since then. May Jesus keep him alive.' A revealing excerpt from Asim Mukhopadhyay's Half Man: A Novel On The Naxal Movement.
'Sridhar had the ability to paint a vision, for an activist faced with the toughest personal problems so as to see a way out by combining one's personal desires with the needs of the movement.' Arun Ferreira remembers his fallen comrade Sridhar Srinivasan.
Urging youngsters who have been radicalised to give up violence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said they should shun guns and get a plough in its place to transform their lives.
"You have been extremely unfair to the accused, especially looking at his medical condition. If material witnesses have been examined, then there is no point in putting him in jail," the bench said to the police.
Maharashtra Police on Thursday questioned Delhi University professor G N Saibaba for his alleged links with Maoists, the second time in three months.
Describing the Bharatiya Janata Party's stand on separate statehood for Vidarbha akin to "protectors becoming perpetrators", the Shiv Sena on Wednesday reminded its former ally of the resounding mandate it got in Vidarbha and said the vote was in favour of development and not for a separate statehood.
Individual banks should break away from the industry pact and have their own settlements with the unions, recommends Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'People accused of mass murder and worse are let out on medical grounds.' 'Saibaba is now 100% handicapped, and has committed no murder, yet he is not allowed to come out.'
'The Naxals started firing indiscriminately.' 'The whole jungle echoed with the sound of bullets.' 'The only thing I heard from that side was 'Chhodna kisi ko nahi (don't let anyone escape)'.'
'In the history of Maharashtra this is the first case in which all the persons chargesheeted were all convicted under all the sections they were charged with, and sentenced to life.'
Fadnavis had gone to Latur in Marathwada region when the mishap occurred.
