CURRENT NEWS Demand for creation of 10 new states before home ministry The Economc Times: 28 Jun 2009, 2021 hrs IST, PTI, NEW DELHI: The Centre has received demands for creation of at least 10 new states, including a separate Mithilanchal in Bihar, Saurashtra in Gujarat and Coorg in Karnataka. A senior home ministry official said the demands were mostly received from organisations like Telengana Rashtra Samiti and Gorkha Janamukti Morcha and some other organisations and individuals. The most vocal organisation TRS has placed its demand for creation of Telengana state, comprising Telengana region in Andhra Pradesh, a few years back while the GJM has been putting pressure to carve out Gorkhaland state out of Darjeeling and its adjoining areas in West Bengal. The demand for creation of Bundelkhand state, comprising districts like Banda, Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Sagar of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have been pending for long with the ministry, the official said, adding, though no state government has given any recommendation, which is mandatory for carving out a new state, the demands continue to pour in. A demand for creation of Bhojpur state comprising areas of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh has also been received by the Ministry. Another demand for creation of a new state comprising Saurastha region of Gujarat, one of the most prosperous states, has also been pending with the Ministry for several years now. The Centre has received representations for creation of Harit Pradesh or Kisan Pradesh consisting several districts of Western Uttar Pradesh, the official said. The Home Ministry has also received demands for creation of Mithilanchal or Mithila state comprising territories in Bihar, a new Greater Cooch Behar state out of parts ofWest Bengal and Assam, a Vidarbha state in Maharashtra and a state for the Coorg region of Karnataka. However, no decision has been taken by the Home Ministry in any of the representation for creation of a new state. "Government takes decision on the matter of formation of new states after taking into consideration all relevant factors. Action by the government would depend on the felt need and general consideration," the official added. Salvo at allies THE TELEGRAPH:Calcutta, June 27: The Maoists today slammed the CPM’s allies for failing to pull out of the government in protest against the decision to enforce the central ban on the rebels and the joint Centre-state crackdown in Lalgarh. In an open letter to parties such as the RSP, CPI and the Forward Bloc, the Maoists’ eastern region spokesperson, Surya, accused them of shedding “crocodile tears” while playing “opportunistic politics” and mouthing “doublespeak” over the ban. “You raised a hue and cry over Singur and Nandigram but failed to rebel against the fascist politics of the CPM and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government,” Surya wrote. Reacting to the charges, the CPM allies sounded apologetic. “We still think of the Maoists as friends. Even when Naxalites attacked us in the 1970s, we didn’t ask for a ban. But we are opposed to their wrong politics and appeal to them to come back to the democratic fold,” Bloc veteran Ashok Ghosh said. SWINE FLUE -95 CASES New Delhi, June 28: Six persons, including four children, on Sunday tested positive for swine flu, taking the number of those affected from the virus in the country to 95. Two cases were reported from Kochi in Kerala and one each from Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Kolkata and Mumbai, a health ministry release said here. Two cases were reported from Kochi in Kerala and one each from Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Kolkata and Mumbai, a health ministry release said here.Out of the six, two inflicted the disease from a relative, who had earlier tested positive for the virus.Twelve-year-old girl from Gurgaon, who was found suffering from the disease, is the sister of a person who tested positive two days back. A 45-year-old woman from Mumbai tested positive for the virus, two days after her child was found suffering from it. In Kolkata, a five-and-a-half-year old girl, who arrived in the city from Bangkok on June 26, was found to be inflicted with swine flu. In Hyderabad, a 10-year-old boy, who came from USA transiting Frankfurt and Mumbai on June 25, tested positive for the disease. A woman and her son, who arrived at Kochi from UK with suspected symptoms of the virus, were found to be suffering from the disease. The duo was earlier quarantined at the Kochi International airport. 676 persons have so far shown symptoms of the virus out of which 97 have tested positive.Of the 97 cases, 61 have been discharged and rest of them remain admitted to the identified health facility. 191 out of the 676 persons have been identified through screening, twenty seven through contact tracing and the rest were self reported, the release added. World Health Organisation has reported 59,814 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza A/H1N1 infection and 263 deaths from 112 countries. Meanwhile, screening of inbound passengers from affected countries continues at 22 international airports. Till yesterday, 51,648 passengers have been screened of which 39,181 passengers came from affected countries. 224 doctors and 112 paramedics are manning 77 counters at these airports. A cumulative total of 25,33,934 passengers have been screened so far, the release said. SWINE FLUE -89 CASES New Delhi, June 27 (ANI): The discovery of nine more individuals getting affected with Swine Flu on Saturday pushed the total number of confirmed cases to 89 in the country. Nine new cases–four each in Bangalore and Delhi and one case in Punjab’s Gurdaspur city were reported. However, of the total 89 cases of H1N1 or Swine Flu in the country 59 patients have already been discharged. The rest of the affected persons are admitted to the identified health facility. The positive case in Mumbai was a 36-year-old man who travelled from New Jersey to Mumbai on Monday and reported to a health facility with complaints of fever and cough on Thursday. Meanwhile, 16 people have been discharged after being successfully treated for swine flu. All the other patients are stable. The situation is being monitored. Of the 31 school children in Jalandhar who returned from the US, 14 continue to be under medication. They have responded to treatment. The remaining children and about 296 contacts are under chemoprophylaxis. As of now, no case has been reported among the contacts, said a Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry release. So far, samples of 407 people have been tested. Of the 50 positive cases, five are indigenous. World Health Organisation has reported 39,620 laboratory confirmed cases of swine flu from 89 countries till June 17. (ANI) BJP GJM DFFERS ON GORKHALAND Economic Times:SILIGURI: A subtle difference of opinion seems to be brewing between the BJP and its friend in Darjeeling, the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM), on the future course of the Gorakhaland movement. While BJP nationalspokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy is more in favour of making GJM’s presence strong in Delhi, GJM is inclined towards intensifying the movement in Darjeeling. "The result of the last Lok Sabha election was a setback for BJP. In this changed circumstance, the first track approach of GJM to Gorkhaland should be reviewed and restrategised," said Mr Rudy after having a long meet with GJM leaders on Wednesday in Darjeeling. By ‘first track approach’, the GJM undoubtedly underlined its promise to form a Gorkhaland state by 2010. The promise was upheld in the form of unprecedented ballot support of the masses in the hills for GJM-supported BJP MP candidate, Mr Jaswant Sinha. "Even after NDA’s setback in the last elections, the dream of Gorkhaland can get delayed but not denied," said Mr Rudy. He suggested that GJM leaders focus more on Delhi with their demands that could be facilitated by Mr Singh there. At the same time, formation of a Gorkhaland study group, comprising intellectuals to propagate the Gorkhaland demand was also in Mr Rudy’s suggestions. "In addition, BJP has already approached union home minister P. Chidambaram for another tripartite meet on the Gorkhaland issue between the West Bengal government, GJM and the Centre," he said. However, top GJM leader Binoy Tamang, standing beside Mr Rudy during the media briefing on Thursday, said, "We are going to launch a fresh movement here." He, however, did not mention anything on the probable form and shape of it. "But, we have initimated people to get prepared for a possible indefinite strike," GJM general secretary Roshan Giri had said just two days back. Retreat hits Maoists where it hurts Statesman News Service: RAMGARH, 27 JUNE: The chase had been on since yesterday. As the joint forces advanced to Kadashole and began their operation to reclaim Ramgarh this morning, the Maoists beat a desperate retreat. A prudent strategy in guerrilla warfare, the retreat, however, caused more damage to the Maoists and their standing among the tribals of the area than any territorial reversal. With security forces close on their heels, a group of Maoists who are suspected to be involved in planting landmines and firing at security forces on the Kadashole-Ramgarh Road, scurried for cover and desperately sought shelter from the villagers of Ramgarh. But all doors were closed to them. Angered by the response of the villagers, the group of about 20 to 25 armed Maoists banged at every door, pointed guns through windows and door outlets, but only in vain. The villagers just wouldn't let them in. "We saw a group of armed Maoists march towards our village from Kadashole. We immediately ran into our houses and shut the door. They banged at our doors urging us to open them. But we didn't,” said Mr Bijay Ray, a resident of Ramgarh. His mother Mrs Jyotsna Ray said: “We have been staying in this area for decades. We know that this area is Maoist-infested but we had never felt so threatened by their presence as we did today”. The Maoists had no option but to flee Ramgarh instead of resisting the advancing security forces. On their way out they damaged a CPI-M party office. With this, the Maoists’ expectation that they would have the people on their side in an area where they are dominant fell through in Ramgarh. Tactical though it may have been, their retreat today also put paid to any plans of using the much-hoped-for ‘resistance’ from the people of Ramgarh to the security forces for propaganda purposes. Ramgarh taken Anjan Chakraborty/Sabyasachi Roy, Statesman News Service: RAMGARH, 27 JUNE: The joint forces hunting the Maoists on their own turf tasted their second success today, after the capture of Kadashole yesterday, on the 10th day of the operation to flush out the ultras from trouble-torn Lalgarh with the reclaiming of Ramgarh, known till date as a Maoist bastion. The success was even sweeter for many as the arrival of the security forces was greeted with jubilation by villagers who thronged the roadside along the entire stretch that led to the Ramgarh police outpost, cheering them in. Villagers poured out on to the road to greet the "liberating forces", as one resident put it, which entered the area at around 2.30 p.m. The operation from the Goaltore end was completed without any significant resistance. However, the day's other operation that saw joint forces heading towards Ramgarh from Lalgarh police station was not as successful. The operation from the Lalgarh end was called off after the forces encountered landmines and came under fire near Pathardanga village. Altogether, the forces found and defused five landmines. Earlier in the day, the joint forces that had moved out from Goaltore and camped at Kadashole yesterday resumed its advance towards Ramgarh around 7.30 a.m. in slow motion, wary of landmines in their path. The forces had moved around 1 km when they came under fire from suspected Maoists around 9.15 a.m. Quick retaliation forced the Maoists back and the advance continued. There was a brief spell of heavy rain but it did not hamper the progress of the joint forces. Around 5 km from Ramgarh, while they were in the Mohulbani jungle, the forces discovered some posters on the road that read: “General public stay away, land mine is planted here". A thorough search of the area turned up a land mine, which was defused. At Tentultala, the bridge there was found to be wired, but a search did not reveal any explosives or land mine. The rest of the march went off without further hindrance and the forces moved into Ramgarh around 2.30 p.m. led by Mr Siddhinath Gupta, DIG, CID (operation), and other officers. They were greeted with jubilation by the villagers who thronged the roadside along the stretch that led to the Ramgarh police outpost. Mr Gupta later said: “We saw movement of Maoist cadres in Napitpara and Saluka villages near Mohulbani jungle. Our operation to capture the area has been completed without any injury or casualty on our side.” As the day's operation ended, police were sanitising the Ramgarh police outpost and high school to clear them of mines and booby traps. A late report said there was a gunbattle between Maoists and the joint forces at Pirakatha this evening, while a suspected Maoist has been detained for questioning at Amdanga. In Kolkata, state home secretary Mr Ardhendu Sen said the state may need more Central forces to flush out the Maoists. Mr Chatradhar Mahato, convener of the Police Santras Birodhi Public Committee addressed a rally at Kantapahari, this evening, asking villagers to resist any atrocities by the security forces, and eight members of Fact Finding Committee of India, an NGO, were arrested under section 151 of the CrPC in Kotuali this evening on their way to Lalgarh. Maoists mock and melt, Fall of Ramgarh without a whimper

SUJAN DUTTA,THE TELEGRAPH:

IN WATER WARMTH, A DIVIDE LURKS Residents of Ramgarh offer water to security forces. Those welcoming the forces were mostly non-tribals, reflecting the divide with the tribals whom the Maoists have been trying to mobilise. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya Ramgarh, June 27: A fresh bootmark on the black door someone tried to kick open. They were here. When 7 Delta, the Central Reserve Police Force section that reached Ramgarh first, approached him, a trembling schoolteacher told the troopers that they — meaning the Maoists — tried to smash his door minutes ago. And they shouted: “We are not the police, we are your protectors.” A little further on, there is a charred mud house with a tin roof that was the office of the CPI. It is still smouldering. They were here too. Not more than half-an-hour back, says the shopkeeper and CPI worker. “They fired in the air and burnt our office. We were watching television to follow the news about what was going to happen to us when they attacked. We fled. They smashed the television and set the office on fire,” the party worker in Ramgarh said. His party shared the office with the Ramgarh Loading and Unloading Workers’ Union. On the road to Ramgarh from Kadashole, the village that the security forces took yesterday, a freshly painted poster in Bengali is pressed back with four stones on the black asphalt. It is written by a fluent hand: “The people are urged not to use this path, it is laid with mines. Signed, the Communist Party of India (Maoist).” This is just after the first forest as the security forces resumed their march today and entered Ramgarh in Bengal’s offensive against rebels in Lalgarh. Ramgarh is to the north of Lalgarh. Today’s march took the state forces to Ramgarh for the first time in seven months. A police camp in Ramgarh was burnt by the rebels. The “fall of Ramgarh” on the 10th day of the operation is seen by the state forces as a strategic gain. Bengal police’s Siddhi Nath Gupta said the forces would set up camp in the town and the next operations would be from here. A few hundred people lined the main road of Ramgarh leading to its bazaar that the forces took. Some offered the forces drinking water. Most were silent. After about an hour, they were more welcoming. The tribal hamlets of Ramgarh were emptied. There is a clear tribal-non-tribal divide in the town. The people on the streets welcoming the forces were mostly non-tribals. From Ramgarh, it is about 14km to Lalgarh, whose police station was reached by the forces last weekend. It took the forces a little more than eight hours to travel the distance from Kadashole to Ramgarh, a town of about 1,200 houses. On the way back from Ramgarh by car, the distance was covered in less than 10 minutes. Using ruse and retreat with pitiful firepower as tactics, all that the Maoist rebels have succeeded in doing is slowing down the state’s offensive. The security forces have discovered many of their land mines and improvised explosive devices. There have been so many duds that it has got wearisome. Red and black wires apparently connecting explosives to detonators have been found. They were scarcely concealed even from the unskilled eye. This morning, a bomb disposal squad found another length of wire. They decided to track it to its point of origin. After going some half a kilometre, they found no detonator. The wires were nailed to the ground. Dead end. The Maoist rebels have also reduced the operation into a catch-me-if-you-can. Since yesterday, they have left no doubt about their presence. They have also left little doubt that they are always a little ahead — or just in time — for the retreat. Defiance from the Maoists is limited to firing beyond range. On the right flank of the road that leads to Ramgarh today, about 10 rebels fired and fled. A CRPF section leader laughed it off. “Itna door se yeh .202 or .303 se kya hoga? (what can these small-calibre guns do from so far?)” But every time the security forces were entering wooded areas, the CRPF was firing off its newly acquired high explosive (HE), the 51mm mortars. “I think the HE has done the job,” said the deputy inspector-general (range), B.R. Kamath. “They did not expect this.” Tomorrow, the security forces are likely to resume their march and this time head south in the direction of Lalgarh. Their first objective would be Kantapahari, a known base of the Maoists. It is probably time to ponder that the offensive in Lalgarh is in its 10th day today. The 1971 war that won independence for Bangladesh lasted 13 days. One section welcomes PRONAB MONDAL AND IMRAN AHMED SIDDIQUI, The Telegraph: Ramgarh, June 27: A welcome awaited the security forces as their 35-vehicle convoy rolled into Ramgarh this afternoon. The residents of the small town, standing along the Kadashole-Ramgarh road, offered the troops water — a relief on a humid June afternoon for the jawans who had lost a colleague to heat stroke. “We are so relieved the security forces have come. The last few months were a nightmare,” said Abani Chatterjee, a retired post and telegraph employee. He had skipped his siesta because he wanted to see the troops enter the town, and had waited on the road for over an hour. The jawans approached some people and asked for water. They had been told that no resident was to be harmed. “There were specific instructions that no villager should be touched…. A smiling and approachable force is a big confidence-building measure,” a senior police officer said. Ramgarh, with a 10,000-plus population, is the second-largest of Binpur I block’s 14 panchayat areas after Lalgarh. Over 70 per cent of the town’s residents are non-tribals, engaged in farming and trade or holding regular jobs.Although the townspeople are not part of the Maoists’ core support base, the rebels had turned Ramgarh into a “stronghold” with help from the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities. The 30-odd shops in Ramgarh’s bazaar used to bustle till November, drawing people from nearby villages such as Kushmasuli, Chotishole and Alamdanga. Then the People’s Committee began its police boycott and, like elsewhere in and around Lalgarh, business suffered here too.For the past three months, most shopkeepers at Ramgarh bazaar had kept their shutters down. Minati Jena, a housewife, said that though the Maoists and their People’s Committee collaborators never harmed residents, they terrorised them by organising rallies and marches by armed activists.Chatterjee said: “They forced me and my family several times to participate in the rallies, held under the banner of the People’s Committee. Since there were hardly any policemen, we could not protest.” A retired policeman said: “My son is a schoolteacher. He and his colleagues pay a levy of Rs 500 to the Maoists every month. I hope the security forces camp here for sometime and leave only after normality returns.” A senior officer said the 120-odd policemen at the Ramgarh outpost were virtually held hostage in their two-storey building for the past seven months. Rebels signal tactical retreat PRONAB MONDAL, THE TELEGRAPH: Goaltore, June 27: The Maoists tonight scrambled to save face after the soft surrender of “stronghold” Ramgarh but appeared to be preparing the ground for a “temporary” withdrawal from the entire battle zone. A rebel leader claimed the retreat from Ramgarh was a “tactical” and “honourable” one and promised a stronger fight in the coming days. He, however, conceded that the security forces could recapture the whole of Lalgarh, forcing the Maoists “to leave for Jharkhand for the time being”. Before leaving, the rebels would explain their compulsions to the villagers — whom they had promised to “protect” from police — at secret meetings while pledging to return once the central forces left, he told The Telegraph. Such a meeting was held tonight at Kantapahari, still under Maoist control, where the rebels met the villagers under the banner of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities. Committee leader Chhatradhar Mahato told families not to leave their village if the forces recaptured it, adding: “Our activities will pick up once the central forces have left.” The Maoist leader who spoke to this newspaper claimed the government forces would face a tougher fight when they march northwards from Lalgarh town to Ramgarh (today’s advance was westwards from Kadashole). He acknowledged the rebels needed to put up “as stiff a resistance as possible” so the villagers would not feel “let down”. “We have won their confidence; they have some expectations from us. If we don’t put up any resistance, we shall lose goodwill.” He said that when the police start advancing from Lalgarh, they would be attacked from the deserted mud huts in roadside villages and from trenches dug near ponds. “We shall put up stiff resistance in our strongholds at Barapelia, Dalilpur Chowk and Kantapahari.” Today’s retreat from Ramgarh was tactical, he claimed, because “we were not equipped to beat back such a massive force carrying sophisticated weaponry”. It was also honourable because “at least we managed to detonate an explosive and engage the police in a firefight”. He admitted a “tactical mistake”, though. “If we had detonated our IED only after the police had entered deep into the jungle, there would definitely have been casualties. Unfortunately, we detonated it when the police were just entering the jungle.” Sledgehammer versus fly swatter SUJAN DUTTA, THE TELEGRAPH: Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya, a photographer with The Telegraph, tracked the CRPF’s 66 battalion as the central force advanced from Kadashole to Ramgarh through the Mohultala forest on Saturday. The central forces came across fire from the Maoists and stumbled upon mines — some of which they had been forewarned about by notices meant for civilians. Chattopadhyaya’s photographs capture some of the highlights of the 66 battalion’s march through the forest At 9.24am, around 45 minutes after setting out from Kadashole, the battalion comes under fire, hits the grassy ground and takes position Jawans load the 51mm mortar, a recent high- explosive addition to the CRPF inventory, and fire The march continues through the jungle Ramgarh, July 27: The Maoist firepower in Lalgarh has so far been basic or imaginary. If the number of duds found between yesterday and today were real, the central forces would have found themselves in a far more tricky situation. This afternoon, a foray from Lalgarh towards Ramgarh was diverted after a mine went off near the village of Hariharpur-Pathardanga. It is also People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities spokesperson Chhatradhar Mahato’s village, about two-and-a-half kilometre from Lalgarh police station. In contrast, the firepower of the CRPF is new. Its troopers carry automatic rifles — AK-47s and Insas — and also 7.62mm Light Machine Guns. The 51mm mortar is a recent addition to its inventory. But, surprisingly, and probably for the first time, the CRPF has shown in Lalgarh that it possesses the CGRL, the Carl Gustav Rocket Launcher, of Bofors heritage. The 51mm mortar should ideally fall in the category of light artillery. Never was a police force in India — the CRPF is after all a police force — known to be equipped with such a weapon. “I don’t think we will have to use it,” said the deputy commandant and battalion major Firoz Kujur. “They (the Maoists) don’t have defences that have to be destroyed by it,” he said. The CRPF did not want it to be photographed. But it was unmistakable. The weapon has been displayed in a defence exhibition in Delhi. Indeed, the CRPF’s 66 battalion in operation here looks like an infantry battalion of the army from the 1990s. The army’s infantry battalions today are far better equipped and their tactics, too, are different, probably even more time-consuming. But the CRPF is ranged against the Maoists who, by their own admission, have only a militia or, at best, a guerrilla army. The CRPF troops in this operation are also, in military parlance, “battle-inoculated”. “This terrain is good for us,” a CRPF platoon commander said. “This is not hilly (such areas are hazardous even for seasoned troops),” he added. This is in marked contrast to what Bengal police personnel say. They complain about the jungles. Unlike the Bengal Armed Police that fled last Saturday after an explosion in their first foray outside Pingboni, the village that was a virtual border in Lalgarh’s north, the CRPF troops are cool about facing fire. The Maoist rebels in retreat can at best hope to launch attacks on the police after they set up camps. Four days ago, in Boropelia, a village under the control of the people’s committee and also the Maoists, a middle-aged man, asked about the Maoist resistance, said: “Even the snake that has no poison bares its fangs. We will bare our fangs.” Boropelia village is on the road between Lalgarh and Ramgarh. It may be targeted tomorrow in an offensive by the state forces from both ends. Diversion trick to stall rebels OUR CORRESPONDENT, THE TELEGRAPH: Lalgarh, June 27: Police kept the Maoists engaged near Lalgarh town this morning to stop them sending reinforcements to attack the jawans marching towards Ramgarh from Kadashole. About 1,000 jawans set off for Pathardanga village, 3km from Lalgarh, defusing improvised explosive devices and drawing a few rounds of fire from the Maoists. The troops, from the state and central forces, returned the bullets. “We feared the Maoists might send cadres from here to boost their strength in the Ramgarh belt,” an officer said. “So we thought if we started a march from Lalgarh, we could foil the plan.” The jawans left Lalgarh police station around 9.30am. Sometime later, BSF jawans spotted wires sticking out of the ground in a paddy field. A bomb disposal squad was called in and unearthed two cans stuffed with explosives. “It seemed like an unfinished job,” an officer said. As the jawans marched on, two bullets were fired in their direction. They dived to the ground and fired back. There was no more shooting after that. Around 2.30pm, when the police learnt their colleagues had reached Ramgarh, they returned to Lalgarh.