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1 week ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Vivek Katju |Vaishna Roy
Mansur al-Hallaj, a 9th-century Persian Sufi mystic, was brutally executed in 922 CE in Baghdad for proclaiming “Ana al-Haq“ (I am the Truth/God), a mystical utterance deemed heretical by orthodox authorities. His execution was more harrowing than that of prominent dissenters such as Socrates, Jesus, Sarmad, Hypatia, and Bruno.
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2 weeks ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Gowhar Geelani |Vaishna Roy
In the rugged hills of Jammu, where the echoes of past wars linger, the recent “ceasefire understanding” between India and Pakistan has triggered a storm of disbelief and smouldering anger.
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2 weeks ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Gowhar Geelani |Vaishna Roy
Ramiz Khan, 48, lies in a Jammu hospital, his body torn by shrapnel from a blast that claimed the lives of his 12-year-old twins, leaving him to mourn their loss through a haze of painkillers. The explosion, which was part of the retaliatory strike by Pakistan following India’s Operation Sindoor, struck their home in Poonch, a rugged district nestled in the Pir Panjal hills and perilously close to the Line of Control (LoC), on May 7, weeks after the twins’ birthday.
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1 month ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Meena Kandasamy |Vaishna Roy
The military crackdown in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, the heartland of Naxal insurgency, has significantly weakened the decades-old movement, yielding tangible and immediate gains for the Indian state.
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1 month ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ayesha Minhaz |Amey Tirodkar |Ashutosh Sharma |Bharath Murthy
The Hush of the Uncaring Sea: Novellas, 2018-2025Upamanyu ChatterjeeSpeaking TigerRs.699This collection of four novellas by Upamanyu Chatterjee displays the characteristic features of his writing: acerbic wit, comedy, dollops of the absurd, and existential grief. The Convenience Store by the SeaSonoko Machida, translated by Bruno NavaskyOrionRs.599In the quaint seaside town in Kitakyushu, Mojiko, there is a 24/7 convenience store called Tenderness, where the lights are always on.
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2 months ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy
Brigadier (retd) Basant K. Ponwar, a veteran of the 1971 Bangladesh war, has extensive experience in counter-insurgency operations across India. Having served in Nagaland, Punjab, Tripura, and the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, Ponwar has trained police personnel from 10 Maoist-insurgency-affected States, as well as members of the Border Security Force, Indo Tibetan Border Police, Sashastra Seema Bal, and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), in guerrilla warfare tactics since 2005.
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2 months ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy
In the late 1980s, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, leader of the People’s War (PW), dispatched Maoist squads to Khammam, Karimnagar, Warangal, and Adilabad (in present-day Telangana). Driven by Mao Zedong’s belief that “power flows from the barrel of a gun”, the PW waged an armed struggle, extending operations across the Godavari to Gadchiroli in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh’s Bastar (then in Madhya Pradesh), aiming to establish guerrilla safe zones.
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2 months ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy
Bela Bhatia, a Bastar-based lawyer, researcher and writer, has been working for years on issues related to human rights abuses and state repression, particularly in conflict-torn areas. With a postgraduate degree in social work from Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences and a doctorate from the University of Cambridge, she blends academic rigour with on-the-ground advocacy.
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2 months ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy
In 2012, a CBI team, directed by the Supreme Court to investigate the March 2011 assault on Swami Agnivesh by Special Police Officers (SPOs) of the Chhattisgarh Police and Salwa Judum, came under an extraordinary attack from the State’s SPOs. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) intervened to protect the CBI officers, who had locked themselves inside a guest house at Dornapal in Sukma district.
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2 months ago | 
frontline.thehindu.com | Ashutosh Sharma |Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy
In a fervent appeal, 54 human rights and civil liberties organisations, joined by around 150 prominent activists, intellectuals, and members of civil society, have called on both the government and Maoist insurgents to declare an immediate ceasefire. Their demand comes in response to escalating violence that continues to devastate local Adivasi communities.
