Why in the News?

The Union Home Minister said that Left-wing extremists and their ideology are “against the country’s development and bright future” during a Tribal Youth Exchange Programme. 

Tribal Youth Exchange Programme:

1. 1. It is run through Nehru Yuva Kendras of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
   2. The programme targets tribal youth from LWE-affected areas of the country.
   3. Under the programme, participants travel to major cities and metros and interact with government officials, constitutional authorities, outstanding achievers in different fields, and their urban peers across the country.
   4. They are also taken on tours of camps of security forces, educated on government policies, and exposed to cultural and sporting events. 
   5. The programme intends to
      1. promote the aspirations of young people in LWE-affected
      2. counter propaganda against the government spread by CPI Maoists.
      3. sensitise youth about India’s cultural heritage and deepen confidence in the democratic system.

The Maoist Resilience:

1. Though Naxal or the Maoist insurgency was virtually wiped out in 1970, it began resurfacing in the 1980s due to:
   1. Continued apathy of the State towards the sufferings of the natives of the forested plateau lands (across 9 States of Central India)
   2. States saw the Naxal’s rise as a mere law-and-order nuisance that did not necessitate any extraordinary action.
   3. The states in ‘denial mode’ failed to conceive the characteristics and long-term implications of the rebellion, and its causes and remedies.
2. By the second half of the 1990s, Maoist established ‘liberated areas’ where they ran their ‘government as they involved in active recruitment, heists, loot of police weaponry and widespread extortion gaining sufficient strength to expand their control over plateau-forest land.
3. Branches of Maoist joined hands and spread their influence across many areas to be described as the ‘Red Corridor’.
4. The first decade of the 2000s saw unprecedented degree of violence and ‘Party Rule’ in the Maoist’s core areas of operations.

Steps taken by the government:

1. Strengthening of the security forces and a quantum upgrade of security related infrastructure.
2. Upgradation of the intelligence network and methods of timely dissemination of information sharing
3. Political recourses to address the people’s disenchantment over the governance deficits
4. Clamp down on terror funding and extortion networks.
5. Security forces patrols into their ‘liberated’ and dominated areas.
   1. With modernisation and training, police forces have broken into some of ‘no-go’ areas such as Dandakaranya, Bastar- Indravati Ranges, Saranda-Singbhum Ranges and Gadchiroli-Sundarnagar Range.
6. Financial grants for CAPFs to undertake welfare activities in the affected areas under a Civic Action Program (CAP).
7. A scheme of Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) has also been initiated to upgrade mobile communication services in affected districts of 10 States.
8. ROSHNI (Ajeevika Skills) or the e ‘Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana is a special initiative launched in 2013 for training and placement of rural youth from the affected districts in the nine States.
9. The Strategy of SAMADHAN, adopted in 2017 stands for
   1. Smart leadership
   2. Aggressive strategy
   3. Motivation and training
   4. Actionable intelligence
   5. Dashboard based key performance indicators and key result areas,
   6. Harnessing technology
   7. Action plan for each theatre
   8. No access to financing
10. Strengthening in terms of long institution of long overdue constitutional provisions such as:
    1. Explosives and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Acts
    2. Prevention of Money Laundering Act
    3. ban on the CPI (Maoist) and other organisers of radicalism who pose threat to the society
    4. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006