Voting for 10 constituencies was held from 7 am to 3 pm in 10 seats and from 8 am to 5 pm in the rest 10 segments under a thick security blanket of police and paramilitary personnel in the Naxalite-hit Bastar division.
Police are trying to locate the man who they think wrote the letter as an act of mischief.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the NIA's application and ordered social activist Gautam Navlakha to be put under house arrest within 24-hours after shifting him from Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai.
Bharadwaj claimed a number of human rights lawyers, activists and organisations were deliberately named to cast a stigma over them, obstruct their work and incite hatred against them.
. The party's senior most leader and politburo member Azad alias Cherukuri Rajkumar has mysteriously gone missing and the organisation has alleged that Rajkumar was caught by the Special Investigations Bureau of Andhra Pradesh police and his life was under grave threat.
The Congress slammed Ravi Shankar Prasad, accusing him of distorting, twisting and lying "with a straight face".
'Those giving voice to the voiceless should be welcomed, not punished.' 'Yes, I paid a price -- 10 years in jail -- but it wasn't only me who did so. There are many paying the price.'
Tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, who went underground after the anti-Maoist operation began in Lalgarh, on Wednesday dared the government to arrest him and said the administration was scared to do it. "I have not fled anywhere. I am at Lalgarh only and if the administration wants to arrest me, let them come and arrest me," Mahato, the chief of People's Committee against Police Atrocities, which is widely believed to have links with the Maoists, said over phone.
'The time has come for all those believe in a democratic India to stand up and be counted and to make a choice.'
A Rashtriya Swayam Sevak leader, who was arrested in connection with anti-Christian riots last year, was gunned down by suspected Maoists in Orissa's communally sensitive Kandhamal district early on Thursday. Approximately 15 armed ultras struck Rudiguma village, about 145 km from Phulbani, in the wee hours of Thursday and shot dead Prabhat Panigrahi, who was staying at an RSS activist's house, police said. A massive combing operation has been launched to nab the assailants.
Maoist-chosen mediators discussed certain key demands of the rebels with hardcore Naxal leader Ganti Prasadam in Bhubaneswar on Monday, as negotiations for the release of the abducted Malkangiri district collector and a junior engineer reached a crucial stage.
It's a single phase polling in Mizoram while first phase of assembly elections is underway in Chhattisgarh.
Illegal weapons proliferation through the porous India-Myanmar border in the north-east has been a boon for the Maoists operating in the rest of the country. It has been disclosed by the Bharatiya Janata Party's national security cell convenor P Chandrasekhar following his situation review meeting with convenors of state BJP security cells in the north-east.
Ten villagers had gone from Ganglur relief camp to their paddy fields when a group of armed Naxalites reached there and asked them to stop farming saying it has been `banned' by them, the sources said.
Alarmed over unabated Naxal violence, the Centre and the state governments have decided to go after the top leadership of the Communist Party of India - Maoist through intelligence based operations. The decision was taken at a special session of chief ministers of Naxal affected states -- held in Delhi on Wednesday -- in the wake of the May 25 bloodbath in Chhattisgarh's Bastar that left 27 people, including top state Congress leaders, dead.
Rahul Gandhi attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Chhattisgarh for its failure to act against Maoists responsible for killing many Congress leaders in May.
The main Opposition party Communist Party of Nepal-(Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML) disrupted the National Assembly meeting on Wednesday, demanding the prime minister's resignation. The meeting has been postponed to 1 pm Thursday.
Left leaders on Friday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and presented him "evidence" of the "nexus" between the Maoists and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, charging the latter with using violence to expand their political base in the state.
Stepping up their offensive, Maoists shot dead a Congress leader inside his vehicle and set it ablaze in Lumbatoli village in Jahrkhand's Simdega district. The victim, Hemant Bage, was on way to his relative's house when a group of ultras intercepted his vehicle and shot him dead, Sub-divisional Police Officer (Simdega), Varun Kumar said.
A ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leader was on Monday shot dead by Naxalites in Katekalyan region of the Maoist-hit Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, police said.
'Now that an extremist organisation like the PFI has been banned, it is time for the leaders to reach out to the minority community.' 'You need to have co-ordination between the State and the social fabric to send out the message that it is not directed at the community, and they should not feel vulnerable.'
Nepal witnessed political turbulence in 2022 that dramatically turned rivals into allies and throned former guerrilla leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' as the prime minister for a third time, as Kathmandu made efforts to balance ties with immediate neighbours India and China with high-profile talks and visits.
Intelligence inputs suggest that there is a meticulously-woven Maoist network in the jungle zones of Kerala
As soon as the Question Hour ended, Congress' Leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury demanded that a discussion on the 'Indo-China border situation be held', saying late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed a discussion in Lok Sabha on the India-China war in 1962.
Jailed Naxal leader Kobad Ghandy, who was arrested for setting up a base of banned CPI-Maoist in the national capital, on Thursday sought bail from the Delhi high court on the ground that he has already been granted the relief by Andhra Pradesh high court in a case.
Saying that prison inmates do not cease to be human beings and can't be deprived of the fundamental right to life, the Bombay High Court on Thursday directed the Maharashtra government to transfer alleged Maoist leader Nirmala Uppuganti from jail to a hospice for palliative care on account of her terminal cancer.
One hundred and thirty-three candidates will try their luck from the constituencies falling under the districts of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura.
Amid suspicion of Maoists' involvement in the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmananada Saraswati and four others at Jaleshpeta ashram in Orissa's Kandhamal district, the police on Wednesday issued sketches of two suspected killers. "The crime branch has issued the sketches seeking information from the public on the two suspected persons," DGP Gopal Chandra Nanda said.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
With the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) planning to create disturbances to mark its decade of formation this September, police is bracing up to counter any such move and make people aware about the "futility" of the rebel movements.
Kanu Sanyal, one of the founders of the Naxal movement in India, committed suicide on Tuesday. The veteran leader hanged himself in his residence at Seftullajote village, 25 km from Siliguri, on Tuesday.
The National Investigation Agency will probe the Maoist attack on Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh after the Centre received a go-ahead from Chief Minister Raman Singh for the same. "I have spoken to Raman Singh and he has agreed for probe by NIA and he has agreed to the probe by the central agency," Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Monday.
A top Naxal commander and aide of dreaded Maoist leader Kundan Pahan was on Wednesday killed by security forces in a pre-dawn encounter in the forests of Khunti district of Jharkhand.
"For me, they (Maoists) are no enemies at all. If they are under some wrong notions, we need to talk to them," Rao said in the Rajya Sabha, while participating in a debate on the Dantewada massacre.
'...incarcerated in jails, ruining their entire families.' 'You would see that Dalits who displayed so much agitation over the Bhima-Koregaon issue are effectively silenced by the arrests of their activists by the police.' 'What can be a more pitiable state than this for a people who had just seen a ray of hope after darkness of millennia?'
The court asked National Investigation Agency to file its reply on Anand's plea on December 1.
Maoist-backed People's Committee against Police Atrocities leader Uma Kanta Mahto was killed in an encounter with joint security forces in West Midnapore district of West Bengal on Friday, said the police.Mahto was wanted in connection with the Gyaneshwari train disaster case that had claimed 148 lives on May 29 this year. The government had suspected that Maoists had planned the derailment of the passenger train.
Two senior Nepalese leaders, including the chief of the ruling party, on Tuesday left for India, where they are set to meet the Indian leadership, as the political crisis in Nepal deepened with the Maoists stepping up their protests to destabilise the government.
