Life is grim for the tribals living in the reserve forest areas of the country, who face pressure from corrupt officials on one hand, and the environment lobby on the other.

Regardless of the new ban on the Maoists, as long as the Indian government remains better at talking about local-level welfare than doing anything about it, Naxalite rhetoric will continue to find fertile ground.

Uttar Pradesh has suffered from regional disparities and inequality and even six decades after independence, some of the regions of this state are very backward and the abode of the largest proportion of poor in the country. The challenges raised by intra-regional disparities and their compounding implications on living conditions and governance are enormous.

Over the past few years, the West Bengal government and its law enforcement agencies used repression against the tribals in Lalgarh on the pretext of acting against the Maoists. This resulted in a genuine resistance movement since November 2008, which has reacted not only to state repression, but had also taken matters of livelihood and development into their own hands.

The political movement that came up from among the people of Lalgarh in November 2008 cried out for help and support from the civil and democratic society

Lalgarh poses questions that the two main streams of the Left in India have to answer. (Editorial)