Dr Happymon Jacob speaks with Niranjan Sahoo, (the author of Politics of Power Sector Reforms in India and Reservation Policy and its Implementation across Domains in India: An Analytical Review) about the Maoist insurgency in India with reference to his recently published paper titled “Half a Century of India’s Maoist Insurgency: An Appraisal of State Response".

Sahoo provides a historical overview of the Naxalite movement and speaks about the major course of events that posited it as the “single-biggest threat” to the Indian State by the mid-2000s.

He speaks about the Indian state’s counterinsurgency approach and also addresses controversies regarding state-sponsored vigilante group Salwa Judum and the debate surrounding the so-called “Urban Naxals".

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