Divya Gandhi

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.

2 months ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed |Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy

On January 8, six naxalites who were active in Karnataka surrendered in the presence of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. At the event, the Chief Minister announced that with this, Karnataka had become “naxal-free”. The last naxalite who remained active surrendered three weeks later, on February 1, reinforcing the government’s declaration that the armed struggle of the naxalites had ended in Karnataka after its four-decade-long journey since the 1980s.

2 months ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy |Ayesha Minhaz

It has been quite some time since the Maoist movement faded into irrelevance in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Yet, news reports of security forces killing, arresting, or facilitating the surrender of Telugu-origin Maoists in other States routinely serve as reminders of the region’s radical history and its role in the Indian Maoist movement. Some of the most determined, feared, and violent revolutionaries of the movement were from this region.

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.

2 months ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy |Meena Kandasamy

The Central government’s Operation Kagar, Home Minister Amit Shah’s cherished project to eliminate naxalism and burnish his political credentials, has unleashed unprecedented bloodshed in Chhattisgarh. In just the first three months of 2025, security forces have killed 140 alleged Maoists in the State (according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal website), already more than half of Chhattisgarh’s entire kill count for 2024 (235).