Thursday, May 28, 2009

Naxal Revolution Archives

Given below are some randomly chosen articles from this blog
more information can be accessed by clicking on the categories above
or you can use the search function to dig really deep into this archive for 
there are more than 1300 posts in this blog.

Partial Index of Important Documents ( Randomly chosen )

Interviews with Com Ganapathy, Currently
General Secretary of the CPI(Maoist)

Unification is the only way to advance the cause of the Indian revolution'
as General Secretary of CPI(M-L)Peoples War
(1998 - Rediff.com)

The People's War always repay's its blood debt
(2000 Rediff.com )

Reply to letter by Independent Citizen's Initiative
on Dantewada
(2006 cgnet.in)

Interview with Ganapathy, General Secretary, CPI(Maoist)-
(2007 Peoplesmarch )

Other Interviews

March 2001 issue of Poru Mahila, the organ of Krantikari 
Adivasi Mahila Sanghatan, DK.

"India: A Catastrophe or a Break with Imperialism" -Interview with
GN Saibaba of the RDF (Interview by Lars Akerhaug ,Norway, December 2007)

Inside Look at Maoist Strategy in India Part 1 , Part 2 (2008 March)
Interview with G.N Saibaba by Norwegian revolutionary 
socialist party Rødt [Red!]

Interview with Naxal Leader Ganesh Ueike
(2006 NDTV )

Exclusive interview with CPI(Maoist) Spokesperson Comrade Azad on
Nepal Developments
(2006 Peoplesmarch)

Naxal Revolution Exclusive - Interview with Mr P Govindan Kutty ,Editor of Peoplesmarch(Voice of the Indian Revolution) - An magazine considered sympathetic to the CPI(Maoist)(2006 Naxalrevolution.blogspot.com)

Chat Transcripts with Vara Vara Rao - A revolutionary writer
based in Andhra Pradesh
(1997 Rediff.com)

"All revolutionary ranks must unite" - Interview with Prasad , CCM of PW
(1998 Rediff.com )

Polemics

CPI(Maoist) Reply to break away faction in Karnataka - The Karnataka
Maoist Swatantra Kendra
(2007 Peoplesmarch )





‘ Maoism or Mao Thought ? ’ - A booklet on ideological debate
published by Janamuktikami Prakashani .

Press Releases of the CPI(Maoist)
Recieved via email from unknown individuals
Press releases of CPI(Maoist)

author Sudeep Chakravarthi's response

Kranthi Patha - Kannada magazine


Through the Eyes of the Police Naxalites in Calcutta in the 1970s

Naxalite Movement and Cultural Resistance
Experience of Janakiya Samskarika Vedi in Kerala (1980-82)

Andhra Pradesh: Women's Rights and Naxalite Groups

Fatalities : State and Maoist Violence for the years 2005 and 2006

Class Analysis of Indian Agriculture

Naxalites Today

Communist Parties of India List on Wikipedia

The economist-India's Naxalites : A spectre haunting India

Guardian Article Inside India's hidden war - Mineral rights are behind clashes between leftwing guerrillas and state-backed militias

Vice Magazine-In the name of Mao, India pick's up the slaughter

A State at War With its People Anything goes against the Maoist insurgency in Central India

Student Politics

The Life and Struggle in Regional Engineering College, Durgapur
1966 to 1970

Summer of '69 in St Stephen's

Shining Path

Urban Guerillas

Criticisms of Maoists by other Groups/People

SUCI's criticism of the Naxalites

What threatens the State - Arms or Ideology
(springthunder.wordpress.com)

RCP Karnataka Documents 
Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)  was formed by a section of 
the members of CPI (Maoist) Karnataka state unit. 

Other Articles 

A compilation of articles on the History of the Naxalite Movement in India 
from various journals by Harsh Thakor 

Legacy of Indian Maoism-A Tribute to Tarimala Nagi Reddy’s 30th death anniversary and the 60 th anniversary of the launching of the Telengana Armed Struggle. - By Harsh Thankor

Commemorating 10th death Anniversary of Comrade Ashok Janaradhan
24th JUly1998)-A tribute to Andhra Pradesh Radical Students Union.

In commemoration of 30 years since founding of C.P.I.(M.L) Unity Organisation
- -formed in November 1978. In memory of Comrade Ajoy. (Parimal Sen)

Significance of formation of the Communist Party Reorganization
Centre of India (Marxist Leninist) or the C.P.R.C.I. (M.L)

Burning punjab : A history of communist revolutionaries in punjab
- Compiled from revolutionary Journal the 'Comrade" and from
publications of the 'Surkh Rekha' a democratic journal of Punjab
as well as reports of Lok Morcha , Punjab.

Important Web Links





http://parisar.wordpress.com/
http://redbarricade.blogspot.com/
http://pmsgindia.blogspot.com/
http://dsujnu.blogspot.com/
http://mikeely.wordpress.com/






Books

Making History I - By Saki(Saketh Rajan)


Memories Of a Father - Prof T V Eachara Varier.
A book on slain naxalite sympathizer P Rajan


Liberation archives
http://sanhati.com/liberation/

About Liberation

Liberation, the monthly central organ of the undivided Communist Party of India (Marxist - Leninist) (CPIML), was first published in November 1967. Through intense state repression and terror perpetrated by various political parties, the monthly continued to be published except for a brief hiatus in the early 1970s.




Issues of the monthly will be archived here till 1972.
While studies of the Naxalbari movement have continued over the decades, there has been a conspicuous lack of widespread availability of the literature of its main protagonist, the CPIML. Through this archive, we hope to fill this lacuna, thus enriching the debate for scholars and activists alike.
The archival material has been sourced from the personal collection of Suniti Ghosh, Central Committee member of pre-split CPI(ML).
**************************************************************
Right click on the below link and "Save as" or "Save link as"
**************************************************************
For more issues -- http://sanhati.com/liberation/
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

ChakraVIEW

Sudeep Chakravarthi author of Red Sun has a new blog called ChakraVIEW
The below post is from his blog

Why does Sharad Pawar still have his job?


I'll get to more of the new government later. Meanwhile, I have one question to ask of the newly elected Congress-led alliance of the United Progressive Alliance: why is Sharad Pawar being given the job of Minister for Agriculture?

Let me tell you a story which might help with the measure of the man.
Not all people, not even in Vidarbha -- India's rural suicide alley -- take their own lives as a reflection of becoming what banks call non-performing assets. Sometimes, they brutally fight back.

On 19 June 2006, still several days away from Manmohan Singh Mark One's visit to Vidarbha, a farmer, Vijay Thakre and his family with sticks and stones beat a moneylender and his associate to death in Pimpalgaon village of Akola district. For good measure, they hacked the moneylender with axes.

Thakre was quite angry, you see. The moneylender, Danode, had loaned Rs 50,000 to him after accepting in mortgage thirteen acres of land Thakre owned-a "medium" farmer. Thakre paid back Rs 300,000-six times the principal. But that wasn't enough for Danode, who took over Thakre's thirteen acres under mortgage. A local politician of the Shiv Sena, Gulabrao Gawande, led a public campaign to get Thakre back his land. But Danode, with the help of his associate Pramod Chanbhare, wouldn't have it.

Thakre wouldn't have it either. Neither would his family. So they did what they did.
Fortunately for the cause of visible peace, many other farmers of Vidarbha were simply content to wait for the prime minister, or die. They would wait, as their then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, his deputy R.R. Patil, and even the then agriculture minister of India, Sharad Pawar -- also from Maharashtra -- had not bothered to once make even a show-visit to a hut of a farmer-family traumatized by debt and death. Indeed, the buzz in Delhi was that Minister Pawar, who then as now devoted a considerable part of his energies as president of the Board of Control for Cricket of India, was upset with suggestions offered by some officials at the Prime Minister's Office that he hadn't done enough as agriculture minister to sort out the problems of India's farmers in general, and Vidarbha's in particular. So, went the political-media scuttlebutt, Pawar wouldn't show up with the PM.

Better political sense would prevail. When the prime minister arrived on June 30, Pawar, who heads Congress' alliance partner Nationalist Congress Party as part of national government, would be seated to the left of the PM; Chief Minister Deshmukh to his right. Thus ensconced on a well-appointed dais in Amravati, golden curtains to the side, comfortably seated on designed chairs and with bottles of mineral water placed in front on shiny chrome and glass tables-with a banner at the back on plush purple backdrop that proudly proclaimed the PM's meeting with families of "Debt Stressed Farmers"-India's leaders would listen to three dozen pre-selected suicide-struck families.

The interaction would last an hour. "I am aware of your pain and sorrow," the Prime Minister would say, as several people, all in front of him, wiped their eyes. "I know the burden of your debt is like a millstone around your necks." Pawar did not bother with the blather.

He would leave with a promise of debt relief and partial solution even before he left Maharashtra from Nagpur later that day. The photo-op would be smooth-for the record, no one could say the prime minister of India didn't care about the people of India, and that, by extension, the chairperson of the UPA, Sonia Gandhi, didn't care, and so on. This connect was crucial PR.

Before he left for Delhi, Manmohan Singh announced a "crisis mitigation package" of Rs 37.5 billion for six districts of the Vidarbha region, mainly for providing credit to farmers. Both Pawar and Deshmukh took the credit for it. (Pawar would also take credit for the Rs 600 billion of loan waivers announced by then finance minister P. Chidambaram, primarily for farmers in suicide-prone and drought-prone areas; though not for the glitches of the scheme.)

It would hardly prove a salve for seven farmers, who would kill themselves within five days of the PM's departure. The announced package would come too late for them, being more than a month behind any credit they could have used for summer sowing, or kharif season.

By July, the rate of suicides would be quite dramatic: one farmer every five hours. (If it matters to you, more people die of farming-related suicides in a year in India than those that make the cut in Indian Institutes of Technology. And they are dying as you read this.)

By January 2007, Chief Minister Deshmukh would tell a major Indian newspaper, "Farmer suicides will be zero. This is my vision." Pawar made no such statements.

Perhaps both Pawar and Deshmukh should have listened closely to the Divisional Commissioner of Amravati, Sudhir Kumar Goyal, who speaks of farmers struggling for survival in a flawed system amidst adversity, without adequate help and proper guidance. He would urge policymakers to focus on low-cost farming with micro-watershed development. 'We allocate Rs 450 billion for irrigation on 15 per cent of cultivable area and only Rs 40 billion for watershed development on 85 per cent of the rain fed area. Hybrid food varieties do not yield seeds and fodder.' He would talk of the root causes of indebtedness, in a manner India's minister for agriculture and food, and the chief minister of Maharashtra, ought to have spoken: 'Wrong agricultural practices, unbridled market forces, and inadequate protection against the vagaries of nature.'

But Chief Minister Deshmukh would not talk about these issues in his interview. He would also play things down in his unabashed public relations outing, while inadvertently letting slip other disturbing data. That Maharashtra accounted for only 15 per cent of the one hundred thousand farmer suicides in India in recent years. He would play Vidarbha down further, as tender mercy. "Did you know," he would ask, "that in Mumbai 4,000 people commit suicide annually?"

The kinder, gentler, chief minister. Well, at least Deshmukh lost the position of chief minister after the terror attack on Mumbai in November 2009. Even his friend Pawar could not help him.

Meanwhile, Pawar remains directly responsible for the misery of a great many of India's farmers, and their ongoing deaths. In addition, he is directly responsible for the chaos and churn of India's food pricing and agriculture importation machinery that will affect the livelihood of millions of farmers at the cost of enriching food exporters of developed countries, and that great blight, middlemen and deal-sweetener specialists in India. Even with the pressures of coalition politics, why does this man still have his job?
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Saturday, May 23, 2009

A Critique on the Theory and Practice of CPI (Maoist)

By Karthik

Concrete analysis of the concrete situation and applying Marxist-Leninist theory according to concrete conditions are basic criteria for developing the strategic line and evolving necessary tactics or path of revolution in each country. Deviation from this basic principle degenerates the movement to either right opportunist or ‘left’ sectarian, anarchist trends. It is also the experience of the communist movement in India.

In the pre-1947 period, in spite of the growth of the movement at all India level due to vacillation to both right and ‘left’ influence, the CPI leadership failed to establish the working class leadership in the national liberation movement and often reduced itself to tailing behind the Congress. Again during the post-1947 years, once again failing to correctly analyse the international and national situation, developing the path of revolution according to concrete conditions here, it withdrew the Telangana struggle and went under the influence of Soviet revisionism when it emerged.

Though rebelling against the Dangeist leadership, the CPI(M) was born, the failure to concretely analyse the conditions in India and the class character of the big bourgeoisie, to take lessons from the struggle of the CPC under Mao’s leadership against the revisionist leadership of CPSU soon led it to abandoning the agrarian revolution and the line of the People’s Democratic Revolution in practice.

When CPI(ML) was born fighting against the revisionism of CPI and neo-revisionism of the CPI(M) though it upheld the path of agrarian revolution as part of the ‘New’ or People’s Democratic Revolution, coming under the sway of the ‘left’ sectarian line then dominating the CPC and failing to apply Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in the concrete conditions of India, it deviated soon to a sectarian line upholding the individual annihilation as a short cut to launch guerilla struggle, got isolated from the revolutionary masses and suffered severe setbacks, splintering to many groups. The practice indulged in by the CPI (Maoist) shows that it has not bothered to study the experience of the movement at all and the consequences of its own practice.

What it did before and during this Lok Sabha elections in the name of ‘boycott’ of election alone is sufficient to prove how much damaging it is becoming to the revolutionary movement in this country. In the columns of this journal itself numerous instances of anarchist actions indulged by it creating loss of life and severe damages to ordinary people were pointed out. How its own counter productive squad actions and annihilations in AP where it was boasting about base areas and then guerilla zones once ultimately have led to surrender of large number of its squad members and followers, elimination of its top leaders and decimation of its influence is accepted by its own leadership. In spite of all these it is continuing individual annihilations and sporadic squad actions which are ultimately helping the enemy to use them as a pretext to intensify fascistic suppression preventing mass mobilisations and mass struggles.

Contradiction in its Programmatic Approach
The Comintern (Communist International), the 1957 Moscow declaration, 1960 Moscow Statement and Proposal Concerning the General Line of ICM of 1963 point out that there are four major contradictions at international level. It was after the Theory of Three Worlds was put forward by the capitalist roaders in China the contradiction between socialism and imperialism started disappearing from the documents of the parties under Dengist influence. It took long seven years for the erstwhile CPI(ML) People’s War group to denounce the capitalist roaders who usurped power in China. But still the CPI(Maoist) has not restored this major contradiction showing the continuation of the influence of the Theory of Three World in its thinking.

Its analysis of India as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country under neo-colonial form of imperialist indirect rule, exploitation and control is self-contradictory and exposes its ignorance about both the terms, semi-colonial and neo-colonial. Lenin has explained that under colonial system there are three type of countries — colonial, semi-colonial and dependent. As Lenin and following him Mao had pointed out semi-colonial is a country in a transition where the colonisation is not yet completed. As far as India is concerned, colonisation started here from the time of Plassy war and it continued under semi-colonial transition stage till the First War of Independence of 1857-58, after the defeat of which India became a colony under British crown. In China the colonisation continued, but it remained in the transition stage, and so it was called semi-colonial.

The neo-colonial forms of imperialist domination was initiated after the World War II, with US imperialism replacing British imperialism as the leading power and introduced IMF-World Bank-MNCs and other neo-colonial tools of exploitation along with ‘de-colonisation’ to remove all restrictions for the entry of finance capital of all imperialist countries. Following many articles published in Cominform journals and in the 1950s, the CPC has explained neo-colonialism well in the Fourth Comment of the Great Debate in 1963: Apologists of Neo colonialism.

As the inner-party struggle intensified within the CPC with the overthrow of Liu-Deng forces followed by Lin Biaosit ‘left’ deviation coming into ascendance, the theoretical discussion on neo-colonialism did not advance, and for a time both semi-colonial and neo-colonial were used synonymously in an erratic form. Later many of the ML groups abandoned neo-colonial concept and reverted to calling India semi-colonial in spite of the 1970 Party Programme of CPI(ML) analysing India as a “neo-colony of US imperialism and Soviet social imperialism”. That
CPI(Maoist) is using these words ecclectically without understanding them is clear from their analysis of Indian situation.

In para 10 of CPI(Maoist) Programme it is stated: “after the end of direct colonial rule imperialism adopted new forms of indirect rule, exploitation and control of the nations and countries subordinated to them. That is called neo-colonialism”. If so why stick to semi-colonial religiously, to a category Lenin used to explain countries where colonisation was started, but not completed? Then its programme further explains that “the domination and control of the imperialist finance capital in every sphere of our life — economic, political, military and cultural — continue to increase further and further”. But the consequences of it and imposition of neo-liberal policies, it refuses to admit.

Instead it religiously talks about feudalism still remaining as social prop of imperialism, as a fundamental contradiction, repeatedly call India semi-feudal and talks about continuation of share cropping. In short it refuses to see the vast changes that have taken place in all walks of life including the agrarian sector where old feudal landlords are overwhelmingly replaced by agricultural bourgeoisie and rich peasants under neo-colonisation. Marxism is understood as a dogma, not as a science.

Instead of “seeking truth from facts”, refusing to make a concrete analysis of present situation, it has cooked up Indian condition to suit the mechanical adoption of the strategy of “protracted people’s war” which was developed and applied in the then concrete conditions of China. Then Mao’s quotations are utilised mechanically refusing to see the basic differences of pre-revolutionary China with present day India. As Mao has explained, in China after the split with the Kuomintang, the CPC was also leading an army, and thereafter the conflict was a military one in the course of which guerilla tactics were utilised.

That is why Mao’s writings of this period are called military writings dealing with the theory and practice of the military conflict between red army and the Kuomintang army. It is yet another grievous mistake like misinterpreting the war of annihilation explained in Mao’s writings as the line of individual annihilation which caused severe setback to the movement, and which is still religiously pursued by the CPI(Maoist).

In the programme and in the Strategy and Tactics of revolution is has accepted communist party as the vanguard of the proletariat, that the NDR and agrarian revolution should be led by the proletariat, and that working class is more than seven crores in strength. But its entire practice shows that this cardinal question is not at all given any importance when in reality the strength of the working class is about 15-20 crores and without politicalising them and establishing their practical leadership in the field neither the NDR can be led to victory nor the setbacks like the ones suffered in former socialist countries can be prevented.

The question of working class is mentioned just as a theoretical cliche de-linked from practice. A study of its documents reveal that the Indian situation is understood without any concrete analysis, cutting the leg according to the size of the shoes. It is this mechanical approach and ecclectical thinking which has led it to outright anarchist practice harming the revolutionary movement. It was Lenin who taught that both Mensheviks and Narodniks ultimately serve the ruling system.

Consequences of Anarchist Practice
In the last decade, as the neo-liberal policies have started intensifying the miseries of the vast masses, numerous mass upsurges, even spontaneous movements have broken out challenging the ruling system. There are reports of such big and small struggles from different states involving millions of people. Singur, Nandigram, Chilka, Kalinganagar, Posco, Kashipur are some among them. In Chattisgarh itself against the privatisation of Sivnath river there was a long drawn struggle as a result of which the then Congress government had to withdraw some of its disastrous clauses.

Then when the BJP government decided to sanction three SEZs in the state and issued notification to procure about 7000 acres of agricultural land belonging to 25-30 villages the farmers were mobilised and after a militant movement the government was forced to suspend all SEZs. Both these movements were led by CPI(ML). But what is the case in Bastar districts where CPI(Maoist) claims to have base areas sometimes and guerilla zone at other times. Tata-Essar has launched a project there to carry the rich iron ore from Bailadila through pipe line to Visakhapattnam. ‘Maoists’ have declared that such projects for looting the natural resources damaging environment and uprooting tens of thousands of adivasi families will not be allowed.

But according to available reports Tata-Essar has built 375 kms of pipe line already. On the one hand, neither the ‘Maoists’ nor the government though black laws enforced and forces deployed in the name of Salwa Judum to fight ‘Maoists’ allow any mass movements in the area. On the other hand, both of them in effect serve the corporates to build the project while in nearby Rajanandgaon district a mass movement could prevent the SEZ. These facts are revealing.

And what is the result of the election boycott of ‘Maoists’ in this area? Both in 2003 and 2008 assembly elections, the voting was almost 60% and BJP considered the number one enemy by the ‘Maoists’ won 11 out of the 12 seats. There are not reports of any organised democratic mass movement of the adivasis and of agrarian struggle with land to the tiller slogan led by them from this area. In the current Lok Sabha elections also the media gave lots of publicity to their boycott call. When the CPI(Maoist) programme calls for “raising the slogan ‘Boycott election is a democratic right’ on a mass scale”, even when there is a provision now in the ballot to express dissent, so far there are no instances of such a campaign by them even from their ‘base areas’ or ‘guerilla zones’.

What they do is mining election booths or killing polling staff, terrorising the people to prevent voting. If polling is disturbed in some booths as a result, re-polling is done in the same area after a couple of days. Are they going nearer to their capture of political power by indulging in these terror tactics in a negligible number of booths? If the government decides to close down the parliamentary system and go for a vote-less dictatorship, will they consider it more democratic? Their approach to election boycott is proved absurd similar to their claims about stopping Tata-Essar and allowing them to go ahead with the project comfortably after paying ransom.

Are They Ready to Rectify the Anarchist Path?
The communist parties are trying to learn from the past mistakes which led to the severe setbacks to the ICM and rebuild the movement in all countries. No organisation worth the name of a communist party can address the people today by repeating that everything was fine except for some individuals like Krushchov, Deng, and the CPI-CPI(M) leadership. How could revisionism emerge and destroy all the former socialist countries ?

How could Vietnam after such a heroic struggle and historic victory degenerate so fast? What happened to the much acclaimed Philippines and Peru movements? Why did the Maoists in Nepal had to change their path? How can CPI(Maoist) explain their setback in AP and their influence almost disappearing in a number of states? How the theory and practice of proletarian revolution can be developed when “the domination and control of the imperialist finance capital in every sphere of our life — economic, political, military and cultural — continue to increase further and further”? How can the party be built up with “centralism based on democracy” after most or even almost all of the parties built up under Communist International have degenerated as bureaucratic organisations ?

How the bureaucratisation evident even in ‘Maoist’ parties can be overcome? Similarly, can we close our eyes to the sea-change that has happened in India compared to the conditions of pre-revolutionary China? All these and many more question are raised by not the enemies but the friends of revolution and even common masses nowadays.

The provocation for writing this observation is the drama of the election boycott organised by the CPI(Maoist) in the first two phase of the Lok Sabha elections, even by hijacking a passenger train terrorising almost seven hundred common people travelling in that. Marxist teachers down to Mao teaches that it is the people who create history, revolution is the festival of the masses. The role of the communist party is to politicise the masses, organise them and lead them towards revolution. History teaches that the experience of the revolutionary struggle in any country cannot be copied and repeated in any other country mechanically. If it is tried, first time it will be a tragedy, then a farce. So let the CPI(Maoist) stop acting like contractors of revolution. Let us try to study how to build the Party in this vast country with almost 120 crores of people, out of them almost 20 crores of workers in organised and unorganised sectors, as the real vanguard of the proletariat in the true Marxist-Leninist sense, rectifying past mistakes, making concrete analysis of the international and national situation, and ready to develop our theoretical understanding and practice based on it.

From the CPI(M-L) Red Flag journal
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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Blady Indian Dogs

Anti India sentiments are running very high in Nepal currently
Nuff said

More pictures from nepal rally
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Clueless cops turn sitting ducks in Naxal land

Agencies.Raipur, May 13:
This month Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh have killed over 30 people, most of them security personnel. Security experts are saying the police are not following "basic points" of insurgency warfare and were thus often reduced to "sitting ducks".

The latest bout of criticism has come after 12 policemen and the driver of one of their buses were killed Sunday in the state's Dhamtari district, a new area of operation for the rebels, who had earlier been concentrated further south in the state's Bastar region.

In Dhamtari, about 150 armed rebels ambushed a 41-strong police team travelling in three vehicles. As the rebels' landmine blast tossed the vehicles up in the air, the Maoists started spraying bullets at the hapless policemen.

For about 16 hours, the police headquarters here did not have a clear idea of what had happened. Only around noon Monday did the officials say 12 men of their district force and a driver had been killed. Several of the bodies were found disfigured and charred and police are still to match each name to each mutilated body.

"The tenets of jungle warfare must be followed. I keep advising trainees they must follow 48 points and on top of the list is never use vehicles in jungle roads for operation purposes," Brigadier (retd.) B.K. Ponwar, director of the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College (CTJWC), said.

"Vehicles should be used only for carriage of ration, stores and ammunition. But the forces are not following the basic points."

The CTJWC was set up by the Chhattisgarh government in 2005 in Kanker town of Bastar region, hardly 50 km from the site where guerrillas attacked the police convoy in Dhamtari. The college is meant to train policemen to "take on guerrillas like a guerrilla".

"As long as warfare points are not followed the policemen will continue to get killed as happened in Dhamtari. I don't know who ordered forces to go inside a hilly area riding vehicles without the road being cleared of landmines," Ponwar said.

"I keep insisting in warfare training for the policemen to go into the jungles with multi-directional assault plan but no one is ready to follow these basic things despite knowing 95 percent casualties in Chhattisgarh are linked to landmine blasts."

Before Sunday's killings, on May 5, a senior leader of state's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was shot dead in Rajnandgaon district and a day after rebels ambushed 11 people included seven policemen in Dantewada district.

On May 7, the insurgents brutally killed Pharasgaon police station in-charge Abdul Wahid Khan in full public view in Narayanpur district. The killing took place within 150 metres of Pharasgaon police station and a camp of the Central Reserve Police Force's 39th battalion but no one intervened.

The string of attacks forced Chief Minister Raman Singh to chair an emergency meet with top police officers here May 8. After the meeting, Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar announced: "Police will answer bullets with bullets and there will be no peace talk with rebels by the state government".

The rebels responded within two days with the ambush at Dhamtari, which was carefully planned, with the policemen led into a trap by a tipoff which proved to be fake.

A senior officer at police headquarters here said Tuesday: "We are still not sure which officer took the decision to send a 41-member convoy, most of them constables of the District Force, without a senior officer to lead them. It looks like they were just led into a trap. There was not even any back-up. Other forces reached the spot 16 hours after the ambush, just to collect the disfigured bodies."

Another senior police officer who has spent years in Bastar told: "We do not seem to have a strategy now. We haven't had one since April, when (Director General of Police) Vishwaranjan, was forced to go on long leave by the Election Commission.

"As far as I can see, the police force deployed for anti-Maoist operations is now just acting as sitting ducks. There is no coordination at the higher levels. We're just hoping against hope that we can prevail against Maoists."

Central Chronicle
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Thursday, May 7, 2009

Sri Lankan Army makes shocking discoveries in captured LTTE territories

From puligal.blogspot.com

Since most of you do not have time to read through all of their fascinating articles, I will highlight the accomplishments of the Sri Lankan army's last 8 days in PTK here:

( picture source: http://www.defence.lk/img/20090226_17.jpg )

"Terrorist toilet recovered in PTK after heavy damages dealt to LTTE. Security forces are still searching for the toilet brush, suspected of having been burried as the LTTE withdrew. Intercepted terrorist radio communications indicate senior LTTE leaders were present on the front lines to defend this toilet at all costs. Soldiers are presently searching the toilet to disable any mines or booby traps the LTTE may have left before they allow security forces to use it. The presence of a stainless steel flush knob indicates a foreign hand, probably NGOs, working hand in hand with the terrorists. It is reported one Tamil civilian, obviously being used as a human shield, came running out in a shocked manner as the security forces broke down the locked door. The presence of an obnoxious odor seems to suggest the LTTE was using this toilet to store some form of chemical or biological weapons. Photos of other notable discoveries included below."


( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01l.jpg )

"Used terrorist cell phone recharge card. Security forces were dissappointed that it had already been used and had no more validity."

( picture source: http://www.defence.lk/img/20090226_04.jpg )

"Terrorist carrom board. Security forces are looking for where the terrorists have burried the striker and dots. If they are unable to find them, suggestions are to reopen A-9 early and have the dots supplied from Colombo."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01t.jpg )

"Security forces capture LTTE leader Anton Balasingham. So far he refuses to tell interrogators anything. He has also reportedly refused all attempts to feed him. If he continues to refuse food, security forces may have to resort to force feeding."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01N.jpg )

"Terrorist baby mosquito protector recovered by security forces. This was obviously used by terrorist babies so they wouldn't be bitten by mosquitos as they planned their terroristic attacks. The security forces have developed unique screening methods to identify terrorist babies from ordinary civilian babies, which they are employing at all screening centers to seperate out the terrorist babies."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01u.jpg )

"Terrorist plastic waste basket cover. This clearly reveals dark secrets about the LTTE's garbage recycling plans."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01y.jpg )

"A terrorist black and white laser printer, obviously used for making fake passports and printing counterfeit currency notes."
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Pictures of LTTE and Prabhakaran

25 years later the LTTE is back
right where it started.

Waiting to see what the Maoist response will be
to the defeat of the LTTE ? and
What do the Maoists attribute the LTTE's defeat to ?
What influence will it have on the armed struggle
in India ?

I hope we can find answers to these questions soon.


You can ignore the SLA commentary printed on
the photos below.

Pictures recovered from Prabhakaran's Personal Photo Albums

Pictures From
http://www.army.lk/detailed.php?NewsId=369



Regarding the comments on the pictures
The Sri Lankan government has recently released some old family pictures of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, and claimed they show Prabhakaran living a very luxurious life. I am sure everyone in the world has pictures of themselves celebrating some special occasion. There is nothing wrong with celebrating a special occasion with a feast. Defence.lk is trying to twist the photos to suggest every single day Prabhakaran is living a luxurious life, but the fact that he has refused to be bought out for years proves this is not the case - he is not interested in money or a luxurious lifestyle.

They say Prabhakaran gave special treatment to his own son, but sent other people's sons to fight. But Prabhakaran's son was leading from the front lines last month when he was injured in combat. Prabhakaran is willing to let his son fight and die on the front lines for the cause of the Tamil people.

The Sri Lankan government continuously tries to benefit from contradictory statements. They will simultaneously say Charles Anthony was injured on the front lines, but then they will say he is protected and living a luxurious life in a foreign country. They are unable to make up their mind which story to publicize, so they foolishly publish both versions which are mutually contradictory.

They show a picture taken during peace times of Prabhakaran's son celebrating his birthday. During peace time there was no shortage of food, or difficulties for the people. Do they expect Prabhakran's 6 year old son should be dressed in military dress during peace time on his birthday? Again they show a picture of Prabhakaran's son riding a bicycle during the peace times, claiming it is somehow wrong for a child to ride a bicycle.

They show a picture of an NGO worker eating on the beach during the peace time, and claim there is something wrong with that. Do NGO workers not eat food? Should NGO workers live off of air? Again, this picture was taken during peace time when there was plenty of food for everyone. It was not like it is now in the no fire zone, where the Sri Lankan government denies food to more than 150,000 civilians, while the government leaders enjoy sumptuous meals in Colombo.

There have already been a number of starvation deaths reported inside the government detention camps. While the Sri Lankan government lets imprisoned Tamil civilians die of starvation in their custody, the leaders like Rajapaksa enjoy sumptuous meals in Colombo and on international trips. Take for example the fact that during a short period of less than 2 years (2006 to 2007), Mahinda Rajapaksa spent around 473 million rupees on trips abroad. This same person wants to criticize Prabhakaran for giving a birthday cake to his son in 2002 during peace times.

Let anyone who wants to criticize old family photos first look at the house, car and food that Mahinda Rajapaksa uses today. Maybe Defence.lk can show us photos, side by side, of Prabhakaran's place of residence, fighting with his people in the no fire zone, compared to Mahinda Rajapaksa's luxurious house in Colombo.


From 
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Friday, May 1, 2009

Crores on propaganda shows rulers desperate: Azad, CPI(Maoist))

Comrade Azad, spokesperson, central committee, CPI (Maoist), talks about why his party has called for an election boycott, how it plans to implement it, why Left-led Third Front government is out of the question as they are trying to brand themselves secular only to grab power. Azad spares no one, whether it is L K Advani, Congress, Mayawati or Prakash Karat, calling them opportunists.

This is one of the biggest elections with about a billion voters participating. Don't you see it as people's growing faith in parliamentary democracy?
Certainly not. Every day, media, central and state governments and all contesting parties are dinning into the ears of people to exercise their vote. This shows the desperation of the ruling classes. Crores are being spent on propaganda alone. They are so scared that they cannot imagine allowing voters the minimum democratic right to reject parties and candidates contesting the elections.

Your party has called for poll boycott. But involvement of people in elections seems to be growing.
There is neither any interest nor involvement of people in the elections. Even the narrow base of some parties has taken a beating this time. Contrary to images you see on TV, the involvement of people has declined compared to earlier elections. Hence, the desperate attempt by rulers to rope in film stars, cricketers and popular personalities into publicity campaigns to educate people regarding the virtues of parliamentary democracy, and about the great responsibility of citizens in casting their votes.

Left parties are trying to build a non-BJP, non-Congress alternative at the Centre. What is your view on the Third Front?
The Third Front forged by CPI and CPM as a secular democratic front comprising non-Congress, non-BJP forces is actually a congregation of self-seeking discredited opportunists, all of whom have proved to be hypocrites and double-dealers in their respective states. Who needs to be taught about the infamous history of a Chandrababu Naidu, a Jayalalitha, a Mayawati, a Deve Gowda, a Naveen Patnaik? These leaders and their parties, who had, at one time or the other, shared power with the Hindu chauvinist BJP, are being given secular-democratic image by the Left.

The Karats, Yechuris and other power brokers of the so-called Left had churned out the slogan of anti-communalism to justify their alignment with the most loyal agent of imperialists, Congress, during the 2004 elections. Now, these opportunists see anti-communalism in parties like TDP, BSP, AAIDMK, JD(U) and BJD, all of whom had never really demarcated themselves from communal BJP, and have no compunction in striking an alliance with it if it gave them a share in power. For our Marxist ideologues, all these forces have suddenly become secular. One should not be surprised if they once again become the tail of Congress after the election.

Why do you say that?
Just see. They found secularism, anti-imperialism and democratic moorings among parties such as TDP, a party which was first to transform a state into a laboratory of the World Bank and is responsible for the murder of over 2,000 Maoist revolutionaries besides the high-level of corruption of the regime led by Chandrababu Naidu. There are other opportunists such as Jayalalitha's AIADMK that had become infamous for the scale of corruption, abuse of power and fascist suppression of people's struggles in TN; Naveen Patnaik's BJD has sold the state to imperialists and proved itself to be executioner for the imperialists by massacring adivasis in Kaliga Nagar, POSCO, etc, besides protecting saffron hoodlums as they went about killing, raping and persecuting Christians. Deve Gowda's JD(S) shared power with BJP and broke with it only when the latter wanted a greater share of power; you have Mayawati who would do anything to grab power whether it be power-sharing with the BJP on rotational basis, or striking an alliance with Brahmins and subordinating Dalits to upper-caste Hindus, besides crushing all opponents ruthlessly. 

The Third Front has certainly weakened the two major alliances, NDA and UPA, and has led to further fragmentation of Indian polity.

How will you take your boycott campaign to the people?
We began after EC declared the poll schedule. Our stand has been made clear to people through circulars, press statements, interviews, leaflets, posters, wall writings. Cultural teams stage performances among the people. We will carry this out till the last phase of elections. It also includes questioning candidates and party members, gheraoing them, making them confess their misdeeds before the people.

Then there is active boycott where we prevent candidates from carrying out their campaigns in villages and smaller urban centres in our areas. We warn the parties not to venture out into our areas. When they do not heed our warnings, we stop their campaign, beat them up if they are notorious elements, burn their vehicles, conduct people's courts where possible and make the party representatives confess the misdeeds of their respective parties and seek apology from the people. They are let off after they agree not to come to the villages again. We carry out counter-offensive actions against police and central forces who are used by the reactionary rulers to enforce elections at gun-point. Basically our active boycott too is a political campaign though we undertake some actions aimed at destroying enemy forces.

What about the growing impact of regional parties?
The elections this time are the most complex, most crisis-ridden and most fragmented. Extreme instability and contradictions plague every party and candidate. No party or candidate seems to be certain of the poll outcome. Hence they are resorting to all sorts of gimmicks to attract the apathetic voter. The desertion by the Left, Lalu's RJD, Mulayam's SP, Paswan's LJP, Ramdoss's PMK have left Congress and the UPA in a pathetic condition. Likewise, BJP and its NDA allies have lost support of strong allies like BJD, AIADMK and several smaller parties. Neither BJP nor Congress is in a position to hold their respective alliances together and centrifugal tendencies will continue to weaken these further.

What is the alternative Maoists are offering to parliamentary democracy?
The alternative is people's democracy where it is the people, and not a few moneybags, who decide the destiny of the country and their own lives. It is genuine democracy as seen from the grassroots level to the top and not vice versa. You can see e grassroots democracy at work in the vast tracts of Dandakaranya where Maoists are running a parallel government. There, people are supreme and decisions are made through gram sabhas, assemblies of the people and not by invisible hands. The people's courts, of course, will be refined further but the content remains the same, deliverance of real and speedy justice by taking the side of the oppressed, persecuted people.

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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Password Trivia

MySpace Passwords Aren't So Dumb

How good are the passwords people are choosing to protect their computers and online accounts?

It's a hard question to answer because data is scarce. But recently, a colleague sent me some spoils from a MySpace phishing attack: 34,000 actual user names and passwords.

The attack was pretty basic. The attackers created a fake MySpace login page, and collected login information when users thought they were accessing their own account on the site. The data was forwarded to various compromised web servers, where the attackers would harvest it later.

MySpace estimates that more than 100,000 people fell for the attack before it was shut down. The data I have is from two different collection points, and was cleaned of the small percentage of people who realized they were responding to a phishing attack. I analyzed the data, and this is what I learned.

Password Length: While 65 percent of passwords contain eight characters or less, 17 percent are made up of six characters or less. The average password is eight characters long.

Specifically, the length distribution looks like this:

1-40.82 percent
51.1 percent
615 percent
723 percent
825 percent
917 percent
1013 percent
112.7 percent
120.93 percent
13-320.93 percent

Yes, there's a 32-character password: "1ancheste23nite41ancheste23nite4." Other long passwords are "fool2thinkfool2thinkol2think" and "dokitty17darling7g7darling7."

Character Mix: While 81 percent of passwords are alphanumeric, 28 percent are just lowercase letters plus a single final digit -- and two-thirds of those have the single digit 1. Only 3.8 percent of passwords are a single dictionary word, and another 12 percent are a single dictionary word plus a final digit -- once again, two-thirds of the time that digit is 1.

numbers only1.3 percent
letters only9.6 percent
alphanumeric81 percent
non-alphanumeric8.3 percent

Only 0.34 percent of users have the user name portion of their e-mail address as their password.

Common Passwords: The top 20 passwords are (in order):

password1, abc123, myspace1, password, blink182, qwerty1, fuckyou, 123abc, baseball1, football1, 123456, soccer, monkey1, liverpool1, princess1, jordan23, slipknot1, superman1, iloveyou1 andmonkey. (Different analysis here.)

The most common password, "password1," was used in 0.22 percent of all accounts. The frequency drops off pretty fast after that: "abc123" and "myspace1" were only used in 0.11 percent of all accounts, "soccer" in 0.04 percent and "monkey" in 0.02 percent.

For those who don't know, Blink 182 is a band. Presumably lots of people use the band's name because it has numbers in its name, and therefore it seems like a good password. The band Slipknot doesn't have any numbers in its name, which explains the 1. The password "jordan23" refers to basketball player Michael Jordan and his number. And, of course, "myspace" and "myspace1" are easy-to-remember passwords for a MySpace account. I don't know what the deal is with monkeys.

We used to quip that "password" is the most common password. Now it's "password1." Who said users haven't learned anything about security?

But seriously, passwords are getting better. I'm impressed that less than 4 percent were dictionary words and that the great majority were at least alphanumeric. Writing in 1989, Daniel Klein was able to crack (.gz) 24 percent of his sample passwords with a small dictionary of just 63,000 words, and found that the average password was 6.4 characters long.

And in 1992 Gene Spafford cracked (.pdf) 20 percent of passwords with his dictionary, and found an average password length of 6.8 characters. (Both studied Unix passwords, with a maximum length at the time of 8 characters.) And they both reported a much greater percentage of all lowercase, and only upper- and lowercase, passwords than emerged in the MySpace data. The concept of choosing good passwords is getting through, at least a little.

On the other hand, the MySpace demographic is pretty young. Another password study (.pdf) in November looked at 200 corporate employee passwords: 20 percent letters only, 78 percent alphanumeric, 2.1 percent with non-alphanumeric characters, and a 7.8-character average length. Better than 15 years ago, but not as good as MySpace users. Kids really are the future.

None of this changes the reality that passwords have outlived their usefulness as a serious security device. Over the years, password crackers have been getting faster and faster. Current commercial products can test tens -- even hundreds -- of millions of passwords per second. At the same time, there's a maximum complexity to the passwords average people are willing to memorize (.pdf). Those lines crossed years ago, and typical real-world passwords are now software-guessable. AccessData'sPassword Recovery Toolkit would have been able to crack 23 percent of the MySpace passwords in 30 minutes, 55 percent in 8 hours.

Of course, this analysis assumes that the attacker can get his hands on the encrypted password file and work on it offline, at his leisure; i.e., that the same password was used to encrypt an e-mail, file or hard drive. Passwords can still work if you can prevent offline password-guessing attacks, and watch for online guessing. They're also fine in low-value security situations, or if you choose really complicated passwords and use something like Password Safe to store them. But otherwise, security by password alone is pretty risky.

Via Wired

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