Dragnet in the East
It's not exactly a widening frontier, more a tactical pivot to an old staging post. For, Odisha has long been an operational base of Left-Wing Extremism (LWE)—especially its poverty-ridden hinterland, which is part of eastern-central India's tribal continuum. But mark the recent Maoist-related action in the state, and you can almost live-track the shifting map of the war against LWE. Take the latest one. In the early hours of June 13, the pre-dawn gunshots that lit up the forests were in Malkangiri district—deep down south in the state and smack bang in the Eastern Ghats.
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