Administration in tizzy as Maoists call upon youths to take up arms

By C.B.Singh

Rayagada, Feb. 28: Maoist posters calling upon youths to take up arms to fight against the administration appeared in several parts of Koraput district, sending signals that the rebels were back in their business after the recent nine-day hostage drama.

During the hostage period that began with the abduction of Malkangiri collector R. Vineel Krishna and Kudumuluguma junior engineer Pabitra Mohan Majhi on February 16, both the state government and the rebels reached an armistice pledging not to use force against each other. Ever since, the police has remained calm and Operation Green Hunt has been suspended.

The posters – which appeared in Narayanpatna, Semiliguda and Sunabeda towns – reportedly said that since the state administration had failed to provide jobs to youths – an armed struggle was necessary to obtain the legitimate rights.

The appearance of large-scale Maoist posters come has come as a shock for the district administration and the police as they expected that the rebels would desist from their violence propaganda, especially after the recent assurance by the state government to execute all its promises made for tribal development and not to adopt coercive method while dealing local disputes in the scheduled areas.

Sources said the Maoist frontal organizations, which were until recently keeping a low profile, are out in the open after the state conceded to their 14-point charter of demands during the negotiation process to free the abducted Malkangiri collector R. Vineel Krishna.

Nachika Linga, the leader of Maoist-backed Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh, on Saturday organised a huge peasants rally in Narayanpatna where he called upon the gathering to get united to forcibly free their lands occupied by the non-tribals.

Linga, who is one in the “most wanted” list of the police had gone underground for over two years.

Though the peasants rally marched through Narayanpatna town, the local police did not react to his presence. Instead, it waited for peaceful conclusion of the meeting.

Tendulkar scores 47th ODI century

INDUS VALLEY TIMES correspondent

with cricketnext.in.com inputs

Banglalore, Feb. 27: Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar on Sunday once again regaled his cricket fans by scoring a marvelous century at M. Chinaswami stadium here against England.

The batting maestro reached his 47th one-day century and 98th in international cricket in 103 balls.

The legend, playing his last World Cup, went after the England bowlers in the Group B encounter before a Sunday packed audience.

India were up to a good start with Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar firing on both the sides. Sehwag produced a splendid shots before being caught by Matt Prior off Tim Bresnan. On the other hand, Tendulkar led from the front and brought up his half century en route the big partnership with Gambhir to put India on course for a huge total.

Tendulkar and Gambhir mixed aggression with caution to keep the Indian score ticking following Virender Sehwag's departure, who made an edgy but quick 35 runs.

After surviving an early scare, followed by some spanking shots, Sehwag edged one to Matt Prior off the bowling of Tim Bresnan .

Sehwag's intent to spank England bowlers from the word go almost led to his wicket in the first over of the innings itself as he edge James Anderson thrice but the ball fell short of diving fielders. However, he survived the close shaves and settled in with Sachin Tendulkar to give India a start.

Earlier, Indian skipper MS Dhoni on Sunday won the toss and elected to bat first.

India come into this match after registering an emphatic victory over Bangladesh, while England just managed to beat Netherlands. A win here of either teams will see them top the Group A with four points.

India, strongly fancied to add a second World Cup trophy to their 1983 success, has made one change in their team that beat Bangladesh on the opening day of the World Cup. In-form leg-spinner Piyush Chawla replaces pacer S Sreesanth who went for 53 in his five overs against Bangladesh.

Virender Sehwag who was hit on the ribs during a practice session on Friday is fit to play and will open the batting with little master Sachin Tendulkar.

England has made two changes in their team that won against Netherlands. Ajmal Shahzad comes in place for Stuart Broad and Mike Yardy makes to playing eleven at the expense of Ravi Bopara.

(Source: http://cricketnext.in.com)

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A tryst with a legend

By Amitabh Thakur/

Lucknow, Feb. 25: Today, when Sri Surendra Bisht, Acting Coordinator of Lok Satta Initiative told me that he was coming to our house, little did I had that he were to have another surprise guest with me.

So, when I opened the door and found a very familiar face, I got some small but pleasant shock. It was Sri K N Govindacharya, the legend about whom we all know so well. We know about his contributions to politics and his society and also about the tiffs he had and the way he has now started an All India campaign by the name of “Knit India” movement.

I have none of the credits to be honoured by the visit of this person, all on his own and hence, when he was there at the door, I was genuinely delighted. I have no inhibition in saying that I would not have got one-tenth of that delight if I had people like SRK or Dhoni were there (not that they are going to come anyway!).

The real thing started now. Having read my name and having talked to me for a minute or so, he started talking in impeccable “Bihari,” with our peculiar style of stretching words and syllables. When asked, I came to know that he can speak Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Oriya and almost all variants of Hindi.

To give an idea of his width of thought and outlook, in the 30 minutes that I interacted with him, he started his life with Left, being closely associated with CPI, then moved to right, with his Sangh associations and now is holding his own independent views. He called his view as being humanistic (influence of Left) and nationalistic (influence from Right).

To go slightly deeper into his unfathomable persona, he saw a book on “Bagamati” river written by another genius of his kind, Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra (Dr Mishra is a B Tech from IIT Kharagpur who has dedicated all his life to studyand control of flood in North Bihar), and said- “Oh, so this the book by Dr Dinesh. I had heard a lot about him.” I asked him if he would like to talk to Dr Mishra to which he readily agreed and when they talked, it was as if they were friends for years.

There were many other smaller and bigger issues on which he talked, but I could easily realize that the person sitting in front of me was something very-very unusual and special.

When I brought my children to meet Sri Govindacharya, he started talking to them on studies and when my wife Nutan came, he could locate her house both at Patna and in Hazipur, along with a few prominent persons of that region.

By the time he departed, having taken an assurance that we will invite him for lunch the next time, I was feeling completely dazed and mesmerized by his personality.

Being in police, we often have opportunities of meeting “big” people, but it is not that we meet “great” people every other day.

(Amitabh Thakur is an Indian Police Service officer based at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh)

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Collector goes missing, Maoists’ hand suspected

Police clueless about Krishna's whereabouts

By Gurudatta Behera

Malkangiri:, Feb.17: Mr R. Vineel Krishna, the district collector of Malkangiri, went missing on Wednesday evening while returning from public relations camp in a cut-off area inside the Chitrokonda reservoir in the district.

The police suspects that Mr Krishan could have been abducted the Maoists.

Malkangiri, located nearly 750 km from state headquarters, is one of the worst Maoist-hit districts in Orissa.

According to reports, Mr Krishhna had gone to attend a Jana Sampark Yatra (public relations camp) at Badapada village under Kudumuluguma block. He was accompanied by District Rural Development Agency project director Balabant Singh, Kudumuluguma block junior engineer Pabitra Majhi and an employee of Paribartan, a local non-governmental organization.

From the Jana Sampark Yatra place, the collector along with Mr Singh, Mr Majhi and the NGO activist left for Papermetla area by motorcycles to monitor implementation of Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutkaran Yojana, a rural electrification programme. On the way they were intercepted by a group of Maoists who took them to forests.

The released the NGO activists and project director of DRDA sending a letter in their hand demanding release of all Naxal cadres from various jails within 48 hours.

Additional director general of police, Sanjiv Marik said all communications with the collector got disconnected soon after he left the meeting place at around 4 pm.

In Cuttack, the state’s police headquarters, director general police Manmohan Praharaj said: “Nothing could be said at this moment. I will reply at the appropriate time”

Southern range director general of police Soumendra Priyadarshi could not be contacted for his comment as his mobile phone answered “switched off.”

Last year, the rebels had killed at least 38 greyhound jawans of the Andhra Pradesh police they were returning from a combing operation atAlampaka near Gudulguma.

Sources said the collector had not taken adequate security forces with him since the rebels never targeted any senior government officials.