Naxal menace remains area of concern: Rajnath

New Delhi, Aug 29: Maoist menace remains an area of concern for the internal security of the country but forces have managed significant improvement over the years, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday.

Addressing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Naxal menace, Singh said the overall situation this year so far also indicates a declining trend in Maoist incidents compared to corresponding period of 2016. The number of violent incidents has declined by 25.6% during the period.

The Minister said this remains an area of concern for the internal security of the country but the forces exhibited significant improvement over the years and the declining trend continued in the last three years.

Providing figures, he told the meeting that there was a 53% decline in a number of violent incidents and 72% dip in deaths in 2016 compared to 2010. This trend is continuing in 2017, he said.

The MPs who participated in the meeting said the Naxal problem is not just a law and order but also a socio-economic problem. "There is a need for adopting a sustained policy and intelligence sharing in the LWE affected States. They also suggested that police should be further strengthened with the use of better communication and connectivity facilities," an MHA statement said.

Singh informed the meeting that 743 Scheduled Tribes candidates from four most affected LWE districts of Chhattisgarh -- Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur and Sukma -- have been recruited in Bastariya Battalion in order to enhance local representation in the security forces.

The Minister said the Centre has been properly monitoring the situation. The MHA gives necessary assistance to states and empowers them with financial assistance besides giving security forces proper training, technology and latest equipment, he said.

Singh mentioned that the joint operations of paramilitary forces and state police have given good results in the recent past and hoped that the situation will further improve in the near future.

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188 Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli army in Gaza

News Network

November 10,2024

The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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