Chhattisgarh on alert after Maoists kill 29 police (India)

[Coventina]

Source: India

RAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Authorities in Chhattisgarh deployed hundreds of paramilitary troops on Monday and searched for 13 missing policemen after Maoist insurgents killed 29 officers in a jungle ambush over the weekend.

The insurgents killed the policemen, including a district police chief, on Sunday while they patrolled Chhattisgarh's heavily forested Rajnandgaon district.

Police said the toll could rise as 13 policemen were still missing and a search was underway.

"Intelligence inputs coming from western and southern regions of the state indicate the police force might face more attacks from the Maoists," Deputy Inspector General of Police Pawan Deo said on Monday.

The Maoists started their armed struggle in West Bengal's Naxalbari town in the late 1967, and have expanded their support among villagers by tapping into resentment at the government's recent pro-industry push.

Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-40997020090713

[TheCoxwain]

1. Indians will soon be addressing each other as 'Comrades' .... India is in the cusp of a red

revolution.



Communist India!


Yikes!!!!

[cosmicone]

2. Indians will never become communists

The Indian psyche is quite different. People are not compliant, are suspicious of authorities and far too enterprising to accept communism.

The "maoists" in India are funded, armed and trained by the Chinese intelligence with the help of Pakistani ISI just to destabilize India and be a thorn in India's side.

I think this action by the so called "maoists" will serve as a lightening rod to crush their pathetic foreign-sponsored rebellion once and for all.

[Flaneur]

3. Everything is Pakistan's fault. Thank you for clarifying.

[TheCoxwain]

4. India and pakistan are like cousins who are guaranteed to pick up a fight on thanksgving

dinner table ...

They need to either grow up or grow apart..

[cosmicone]

6. Pardon me ... but India is not Pakistan

Pakistan is a tinpot islamic banana fiefdom living off handouts and being a proxy for China via terrorism while run by military generals and a sham democracy.

India is 8 times bigger in area, 5 times bigger in population and 84 times bigger in GDP. India is also a secular constitutional democracy with freedom of the press, expression, assembly and a system of laws.

India and Pakistan are not "cousins" ... no comparison at all.

[cosmicone]

5. For Pakistani sympathizers .....

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EH23Df04.html

http://beacononline.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/kingpin-may-spill-the-beans-on-maoist-isi-link/

http://www.newsindia.com/editorial/1556.asp

http://blog.taragana.com/n/maoists-torch-buses-in-bihar-100100/

http://www.stratfor.com/hyderabad_bombings_learning_curve_indian_militants

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/SRR/2006/01/60.html


I could cite hundreds of newspaper, foreign policy and intelligence community references.

ISI's main goal has been to destabilize India by supporting all terror groups within India. It fits well with Pakistan's raison d'être of having terrorism as official state policy.

Happy now? :sarcasm:

[Flaneur]

7. I don't have a dog in this fight.

But the obsessive Paki-bashing makes one skeptical of anything you have to say on the topic. It's like talking to a rabid East European about gypies or talking to a Zionist about Arabs.

[cosmicone]

8. Except that I am not anti-Pakistan

I am only against their terrorist ways and I can back up everything I post :)

[BOG PERSON]

10. Yeah, about that...

vomiting up internet links isn't really the same as backing up posts. We appreciate the effort though.

[cosmicone]

15. How else can one back up anything on the net?

Although, it is refreshing to know that the illogically inane peanut gallery is active!

[BOG PERSON]

9. Of course, you'd have to be extremely enterprising

to be able to live on less than 20 rupees a day, as 80% of India does

[smitra]

11. Time for an update of your knowledge of statistics...

Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India

To quote from here: "...India's nominal per capita income of $1043 is ranked 136th in the world. As per PPP method, per capita income is close to $3000. In the late 2000s, India's growth has averaged 7.5% a year, increases which will double the average income within a decade...

...Despite robust economic growth, India continues to face several major problems. The recent economic development has widened the economic inequality across the country.<19> Despite sustained high economic growth rate, approximately 80% of its population lives on less than $2 a day (PPP)..."

And also, from here: http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic,

you can see that $2 a day equals approximately 100 rupees a day, considerably more
than the figure of 20 you mention. Even on a nominal basis it will equate to about
40 rupees per day.

As the Wikipedia piece says, despite major malnourishment issues, mass starvation,
as frequent under British rule (remember 1943 Bengal) and even in the 1960s, is
not exactly a problem now.

My dad in India has a friend who studied in the US in the 1960s and was asked questions
about whether he rode an elephant or a tiger to school. Seems like some people in
this country have not recovered from the stereotypes and biases of those times.

[BOG PERSON]

13. The Arjun Sengupta Committee says otherwise

and it's probably better than wikipedia.

Let me see if I can find it. It says 77% of Indians subsist on roughly 20 rupees a day (where I rounded up to 80%. Sorry)

Okay here:

According to a report filed by the Arjun Sengupta Committee, which was formed to study the working and living conditions of workers in the unorganised sector, about 836 million people (77% of India’s population) subsist on Rs 20 a day each (about 26 UK pence) or less. As to how people can survive on such a paltry amount, I have no clue. But that apparently is the case.

And before you go thinking the panel got the numbers wrong, here’s more evidence on the state of the nation. Confirming the Sengputa Committee’s findings, the National Sample Survey Organisation’s report on Household Consumer Expenditure in India, 2006-07, reports that the average Indian spends just Rs 440 or less in a month on food. It goes on to say much more, none of it heartening.

What is disturbing is that none of these statistics have aroused any interest in the media. All they’re concerned about is whether India continues to record 7%-plus economic growth. A friend of mine says growth would see money trickle down to the most needy. That’s a load of hogwash, if you ask me; in 1991, when the ‘reforms’ process began, India was ranked 123rd in the UN’s Human Development Index. Today, it proudly occupies the 128th place.

[smitra]

14. Quoting from one source does not make you right...

That one source you quoted from is a magazine that has a certain political agenda. Also, by its own admission the panel may have got the numbers wrong, and it is impossible to believe that -- it does not account for the fact that the Rs 440 quoted on food expenditures accounts for the subsidized rations available to many of the poor in govt. run 'ration shops'.

It is easy to deride Wikipedia, and seems to be a favorite thing to do on DU to refute statistics you don't like. If you look at the source from which this statistic on Wikipedia is quoted, it was the UNDP, which you are no doubt aware does a more thorough job than some panel.

I am from the country. I have traveled through some rural areas there recently. I can 'vomit up a host of Internet links' - your pet peeve apparently - that will tell you how much of progress has been made in these areas (granted, there is a long way to go).

Your attitude seems to be that of those my dad's friend met here in the 60s - a country of poor brown people, where you see starving beggars and snake charmers.

[BOG PERSON]

18. Indian expats often have an agenda of their own

and they're a lot more sensitive to popular perception in the West of "starving naked India" perhaps because of their own internalized racism.

But honestly it shouldn't matter if you say you're from the country. Everybody lies about themselves and their "lived experience" on the internet, as a general rule, so it's not a good idea to rely on that to prop up your point of view. For all you know, I might be of Indian background and a frequent visitor too. I might even have a ration card I never had to use. Or I might be a scheming Pakistani out to ruin India's reputation on the internet. Or I might be one of those well meaning white people who just saw "Slumdog Millionaire" :)

Anyway, regarding Indian welfare:

India’s food grain go-downs (storage silos) are overflowing with 300 million tonnes of food stocks, but more than a quarter of the India’s population do not get adequate food. Two-fifths of children in India are malnourished and over half of the women are anaemic. In India, poverty and hunger exist amidst an excess food grain.

The Public Distribution System (PDS) leaves out large sections of the poor and vulnerable and distributes inadequate quantities of food. A shift has taken place from universal PDS to Targeted PDS (TPDS). Under TPDS, people are classified as poor, i.e. those below the poverty line (BPL), and the non-poor, i.e. those above the poverty line (APL). With this division emerged a dual pricing system, with a subsidised price for the poor and a near market price for the non-poor. When the government raised the price of rice and wheat, BPL families had to pay 68% more for these grains and APL families paid 25% more. When procurement prices increase, the price for the poor goes up automatically. In effect, these price increases mean that many poor are excluded from PDS. Many non-poor prefer to buy on the market since the price difference is small. The bulk of PDS goes to urban areas. For example, Delhi with 1% of the population and the highest per capitaincome receives 5% of the grains distributed through PDS in the country. In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa where the bulk of the rural poor live, PDS actually goes to the richer households. These rural-urban and interregional disparities add to ineffective functioning of the PDS. The PDS, which was meant to ensure food security, seems to have lost its purpose.

The government views the PDS as a measure of poverty alleviation, not as a basic entitlement. It uses its increasing financial burden as an excuse for downsizing the PDS. But this food subsidy is only about 0.4% of GDP and this number has not changed for the last few decades.

According to the latest economic survey, 150 million hectares of India’s land is affected by water and wind erosion, arable land is shrinking, and investment in agriculture is declining. The livelihood of 1.6 million farmers is at risk because of the imminent opening of the poultry market. Poverty reduction strategies in India cannot succeed without a robust agricultural sector. Economic reform has weakened rather than strengthened this sector.

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN002355.pdf

And regarding Indian food security

India has higher levels of malnourished children than Sub-Saharan Africa, despite the Asian giant having more funds and better infrastructure to tackle the problem, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

A recent survey by the Indian Health Ministry, backed by UNICEF, has found that almost 46 per cent of children under the age of three are undernourished. About 35 per cent of children in Sub-Saharan Africa region are malnourished.

"In terms of the under-nutrition levels, certainly India is at a much higher level than the average Sub-Saharan African country," Werner Schultink, chief of child development and nutrition for UNICEF in India, told a news conference.

http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=81788

[smitra]

21. I'll quote post #16, which your own post supports....

Where do you live in Pakistan?

India is a country of 1.1 billion people, 18 or more major languages (many with their own scripts, more different from each other than Russian is from Portuguese), the home of almost every religion known to humankind (despite the riots that the likes of you would be so happy to quote), received independence a mere 60 years ago, and has tried - more or less - to maintain a free and open democratic polity since then. It has not received the massive amounts of aid that Pakistan received from the US in the 1960s, nor has it had the 'advantage' of homogeneity among its people and totalitarianism in the governmental setup that China has had.

Given these challenges, it has done enormously well - not only from the time the British departed, but since the 1960s as well. Could it have done better? Certainly.

Is it worthy of the derision you throw at it, without taking any balanced views? Certainly not.

And incidentally, I am not an Indian 'expat', but a US citizen of Indian origin.

[BOG PERSON]

23. So basically

you think India is doing pretty well for a country that could be doing much better? Gotcha.

[BOG PERSON]

19. BTW...

what is the political agenda of Outlook India?

[smitra]

20. Since you have made up your mind to find out the negative aspects of India...

and are adept at surfing through the Internet to find out even the tiniest fault, and in looking up sites to support your own pre-conceived biases, I am sure you can look up what the political agenda of Outlook India is somewhere.

[cosmicone]

16. Welcome to DU -- where do you live in Pakistan? n/t

[InfiniteThoughts]

12. Let's leave Pakistan out of this ...

I am not too sure if the Maoists are funded by Pak/China. That shouldn't be the focus. The focus should be on why there is local support for the Maoists in many of these states?

The country needs to introspect critically on why there is a huge Maoist support in regions that are rich in natural resources - Orissa, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, AP, WB, MP. It cannot be coincidence. Hundreds of thousands of local people don't benefit from these natural resources and are disadvantaged from the growth happening around them. That's the reason why these territories have become breeding ground for Maoists. The relentless abuse by industrial mafia & private industrialists (not the public companies - who have been more restrained) goes unchecked because of their political clout.

[cosmicone]

17. There is no "huge" support for maoists ..

they get more press because of their terrorism. Terrorism which they get trained in in Pakistan and then get weapons, explosives etc. from ISI.

Pakistan is the main cancer on South Asia and needs to be balkanized in order for the region to have peace.

[BOG PERSON]

22. "Pakistan is the main cancer on South Asia"

The other cancer is the rural-urban divide, which the Maoists are apparently exploiting to great effect

[InfiniteThoughts]

24. we agree on quite a bit ... but on this, i will pass

i don't think all the training that the maoists are getting come from Pakistan. May be 10% - 20% and that too max. A lot of training comes locally & from Nepal/Bangaladesh rather than Pakistan. Another thing to note, is that funding is mostly local and not foreign. Maoists get a lot of money from running parallel government.