Word: naxals
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...insurgency's effect on education has been devastating. The Naxalite movement has been agitating for revolution in India's long-neglected rural interior since 1967, and sees any government building as an emblem of the state it seeks to overthrow. Naxal attacks usually occur at night, when improvised explosive devices, known as "can bombs," are set off inside the schools. Human Rights Watch researchers visited a school in Dwarika, a village in Jharkhand where no classes have been taught since a can bomb explosion severely damaged the building in November 2008. The wooden doors were shattered, and the walls cracked...
...Indian police and paramilitary forces gear up for a big push against the Naxals planned for early next year, the impact on schools is likely to get worse. In remote areas, schools may be the only solid construction available to use as a base of operation. State education officials say the schools are occupied only temporarily, and that alternative sites are arranged, but residents of Naxal-affected areas say that many schools have been closed for months or years, permanently disrupting education. Burhan Soren, a farmer in Gurha, says one school in his village has been occupied since...
...government school systems in Bihar and Jharkhand were already abysmal well before Naxal activity picked up this year. Average class sizes in the two states are 75 and 65, respectively, for a single teacher, compared to the national average of 40. Literacy rates, too, are well below the national average of 65%. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made development in Naxal-affected areas - including education - a priority, but the attacks and occupation threaten to undo what limited progress his government had made. In the Aurangabad district of Bihar, for example, the government approved about $28,600 to build...
...Human Rights Watch is calling on the Naxal groups to stop targeting school buildings, and for state authorities to repair damaged buildings and provide viable alternatives for occupied schools more quickly. Its representatives will be meeting with Indian central government officials about the issue this week. In the meantime, thousands of students in the affected areas are missing yet another year's exams. "The government says it is in the interest of the children that the security forces stay in the schools to guard against Maoist activities," Bhattacharjee says. "The Maoists say they blow up schools because they are less...
...Still, considering it's taken four decades to get to this point, the process is bound to be a gradual one. In recent years, the state's action plan was to establish a minimum police presence in all Naxal regions, and little attention was paid to increasing the size of the ranks or improving the meager force's fighting abilities. But without strength in numbers or combat skills, the police have been unable to curb the spread of Maoist violence and defend the state's isolated police outposts. At the Indian Economic Summit in New Delhi on Nov. 10, Chidambaram...