Number of LWE districts declines in India

Tags: National News

• The Government of India has informed the Rajya Sabha on 9 February 2022 that the number of the Left Wing Extremist(LWE) affected  districts India has declined from  from 96 in 2020 to 46 in 2021.
• The incidence of violence has been reduced by 70% to 509 in 2021 as compared to the 2018-19 period . The number of deaths has also come down to 147 in 2021 from 1005 in 2020.

Left Wing Extremist (LWE)

• Groups which are influenced by the ideology of Mao are called as Maoist /Naxal or left wing extremists in India. Mao was the leader of the Chinese communist party who set up the Modern People's Republic of China in 1949 after an armed revolution. It is based on communist ideology .
• Similarly people or groups like Communist Party of India (Maoist) want to overthrow the government set up in India after 1950 through an armed insurgency just like Mao did in China and set up a communist government in India .

Red Corridor 

• The area where the left wing extremists  are active is also called the Red Corridor .
• It is mainly active in the States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. 

Specialised Anti Left Wing Extremist (Naxal/Maoist) Forces 

Special units have been raised in India to combat the threat of the left wing extremist in India.

Some of the important ones are :

COBRA of CRPF

Central Reserve Police Force  has raised a specialised unit COBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action)  for jungle warfare .

GreyHound 

It is a specialised unit of  both the Andhra Pradesh Police and Telangana Police to fight against the Left Wing Extremist active in their respective states.

Black Panther 

It is a special unit of the Chhattisgarh Police to fight against the left wing extremist.

Special Operation Group (SOG)

It is the special force set up by the Odisha police to deal with Left wing extremist problems .