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NEW DELHI - In the past five years, Maoist rebels have emerged as the most potent threat to India's internal stability and left the authorities groping for a response to their increasingly audacious attacks. With an ambush last weekend that killed 30 police, the leftist insurgents demonstrated their ability to strike with apparent impunity and then melt back into their rural hideouts before anyone can react. Their insurgency, which started as a peasant uprising in 1967, has spread to more than half of India's 29 states and has been identified by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the number one threat...

Maoist rebels killed at least 30 policemen, including a senior officer, in two separate ambushes on Sunday in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, police said. Both attacks took place in Rajnandangaon district, 56 miles from the state capital Raipur, the deputy inspector general of police in charge of operations against the Left-wing rebels said. In the first attack, the guerrillas shot dead two policemen on patrol in the area and then ambushed a security reinforcement team sent to investigate the incident, Pawan Dev said. "In all, 26 policemen were killed in the attack including superintendent of police VK Choubey," he...

Maoist rebels in India are rapidly expanding their insurgency and could move from remote rural areas to cities.... The rebels are estimated to have 22,000 fighters, and have spread to more than 180 of the country's 630 districts from just 56 in 2001, government and independent data says. "They have a very comprehensive plan to spread their tentacles into other parts of the country, including urban areas," M.L. Kumawat, special secretary (Internal Security) told Reuters... "We now need highly specialised forces to deal with the sophisticated weapons they have. Our police forces will be capable, I cannot say they are...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Sixteen police are feared dead after they were ambushed by Maoist rebels in Maharashtra on Thursday, police said, the latest in a series of attacks which hit India's recent general election. "Sixteen policemen perhaps have been killed, I have got the information," Pankaj Gupta, a senior state police official, told CNN-IBN news channel. "Trees were felled and put across the road, and it was obviously a trap it seems." Dozens of people have died in recent weeks while Maoist violence marred India's month-long general election. The rebels attacked security forces and polling officials, bombed civic buildings...

RAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Maoist rebels killed 14 policemen in an ambush in Chhattisgarh, officials said on Monday, the latest in a string of rebel violence that has marred part of India's general election. Police said the rebels triggered blasts and shot at a security convoy that was searching for rebels on an intelligence tip but which turned out to be a trap. "The heavily armed rebels first triggered multiple blasts and then opened indiscriminate fire from hilltops," Girdhari Nayak, a senior police officer, told Reuters. Maoist rebel violence marred the initial phase of a staggered vote. They killed five...

New Delhi - Suspected Maoist rebels killed seven people, including a polling official and two political workers, in separate attacks in eastern India taking the death toll in the latest election-related violence to nine, news reports said Friday. Maoist militants detonated a landmine that blew up a jeep carrying polling officials in the central Muzaffarpur district of Bihar state Thursday night, killing four policemen and an election official, the NDTV network reported. The incident came hours after voting in the country's second phase of parliamentary elections ended in Bihar and the officials were returning from their duties, the report said....

Tens of millions of Indians voted Thursday in the second and largest stage of month-long general elections, with security forces on high alert for fresh attacks by Maoist rebels. One week after the first round, polling stations opened in 12 Indian states with almost 200 million people eligible to vote on the day -- more than three times the population of France. The five-round vote wraps up May 13. The polls come at a pivotal time for India and its 714 million electorate, with a once red-hot economy feeling the strain of the global downturn and relations with Pakistan at...

The Naxals, who stunned security agencies on Wednesday by using rocket launchers for the first time in its attack on a BSF camp in Rohtas district of Bihar, have now acquired weapons made in Russia, US and even China. According to official sources, the Naxals have started using a wide range of weapons ranging from the World War II era .303 rifles to fully automatic assault rifles. The CRPF, having the mandate to deal with Naxal menace, besides fighting insurgents in Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir had seized 1,714 arms in the last financial year (2008-09). Interestingly, the maximum seizures...

A growing insurgency by Maoist rebels in India is threatening to derail the country's parliamentary elections with a series of co-ordinated attacks. They have unleashed a campaign of terror in four states in the south and east of the country where they have threatened election officials, security personnel and voters who defy their call for a poll boycott. The campaign intensified yesterday when 250 rebels, known locally as 'Naxalites' hijacked a train and held 500 passengers hostage for four hours before releasing them unharmed. The raid highlighted a deadly war which has gone largely unnoticed beyond India, and demonstrated the...

This week’s kickoff of India’s multi-stage election was marred by violence carried out by Maoist rebels, but for many of the country’s Christians, Hindu extremists are of greater concern. The communist insurgents killed at least 16 people, including security and polling officials, in three northeastern states – Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Bihar – on Thursday, one of five election days spread over the next month. Around 140 million people out of a total electorate of some 714 million were eligible to vote on the first day of what is described as the world’s biggest democratic electoral process. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s...

RAIPUR, India, April 11 (Reuters) - Heavily armed Maoists ambushed a security forces patrol in central India on Friday, killing 10 personnel, a police official said, as the rebels step up violence ahead of the general election. More than 125 Maoists armed with AK-47s fired at a team of central reserve police force patrolling the forested Chintagufa area, about 445 km (275 miles) south of Raipur, capital of Chhattisgarh state, said Rahul Sharma, a local superintendent of police. Eight security personnel were injured in the attack in the restive Bastar region, in which three Maoist rebels were also killed, he...

PATNA, India, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Suspected Maoists killed at least 10 policemen and wounded dozens of people in eastern India on Monday, police said. The rebels fired on policemen watching a cultural show in the region's Bihar state, a senior officer said. "We have undertaken a massive combing operation in the area to trace the Maoists involved in the attack," said Neel Mani, a senior police officer. The rebels fired indiscriminately, killing the policemen and left on motorcycles with their weapons, police said. Last week, rebels killed 15 policemen in the western state of Maharashtra, in one of the...

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Suspected Maoist rebels killed 15 policemen at the weekend in Maharashtra, police said on Monday, in one of the biggest such attacks in the state. The rebels fired upon a police team patrolling a forested area near the border of the insurgency-hit Chhattisgarh, Hemant Sanghe, a policeman on duty at the control room said. The Indian Express newspaper said the rebels gouged out the eyes and severed the legs of a few injured policemen. An investigation is underway and the state home minister has rushed to the area, the chief minister's office said. The Sunday attack underlines...

The 'business' of Maoist movement in India April 24, 2008 Financing a 'revolution' is not child's play. It is all the more tough when the organisation is proscribed and hence operates underground. For the Indian Maoists, also known as Naxalites, the conditions are a little more unfavourable because they claim to be fighting for the deprived and neglected sections of society who are poor. And the Maoists do not enjoy the support of the affluent. But still the Maoists are being able to collect and manage vast sums of money. According to a media report of April 9, 2008, the...

RAIPUR, India, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Suspected Maoist insurgents killed at least 12 policemen and wounded several others when they opened fire on a patrol in central India on Monday, police said. A federal police patrol was ambushed in the forests of Bastar in the central state of Chhattisgarh, Girdhari Nayak, the state's anti-Maoist operations chief, told Reuters. Maoist rebels say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers and they regularly attack government property and policemen. In July, 38 policemen of the elite anti-insurgency unit were killed by the rebels in the eastern state of...

RAIPUR, India, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Suspected Maoist insurgents killed four policemen with a landmine blast on Monday in central India where the country's president Pratibha Patil was holidaying, police said. Patil who was near a waterfall in Bastar, about 27 km (15 miles) from the blast site, was safe, police officer Girdhari Nayak said. Bastar is in the central state of Chhattisgarh, one of several where Maoist rebels say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers. Three policemen were wounded in the latest explosion which took place in the forests of Bastar, Nayak said.

New Delhi - At least five policemen were killed and six injured Thursday in a landmine blast triggered by suspected Maoist rebels in the central Indian state Chhattisgarh, a news report said. The incident occurred in a hamlet in the southern Surguja district when a joint police team was conducting a search operation. Police sources told the IANS news agency that three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and two state police died in the blast, 520 kilometres south of state capital Raipur. Maoist militants, who claim to be fighting for the rural poor, operate in 13 of India's 29...

RANCHI, India — A landmine blew up a police van in a communist rebel stronghold in eastern India on Saturday, killing at least 12 officers, police said. The officers were on a mine-clearing operation in a densely forested part of the Burudih area, about 160 kilometres south of Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state, said Navin Kumar Singh, the superintendent of police. Singh said the rebels have planted mines in the area to avoid being targeted by security forces. The rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting for more than three decades...

At least nine people, including six policemen, have been killed in clashes between security forces and Maoist rebels in India, officials say. Two rebels and a civilian were also killed in the shoot-out in Gaya district of the northern Bihar state. The fighting started when the police challenged a group of Maoists who were attempting to rob a bank, police say. More than 6,000 people have died during the rebels' 20-year fight for a communist state in parts of India. The rebels later managed to escape from the area after the clashes. Police are conducting a search operation. In April,...

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - At least 24 policemen were killed when a landmine exploded under a security vehicle in Orissa on Wednesday, in an attack police blamed on Maoist rebels. The attack, in the remote Malkangiri district, comes a fortnight after the rebels sank a police boat and killed 38 officers of an elite anti-insurgency unit in the same area. "All 24 police personnel are dead," officer Sujeet Naik told Reuters, blaming the strike on rebels who are known to be strong in the forested region. Police said the Maoists had stepped up violence in response to a security campaign...

BHUBANESWAR, India, June 30 (Reuters) - Police and soldiers scoured a remote ravine in India's east on Monday looking for dozens of elite anti-insurgency officers feared dead after Maoist rebels attacked and sank their boat in a reservoir. Police said 29 officers, some with gunshot wounds, had survived, but 37 others were still missing after the rebels fired from hilltops at their boat passing through a narrow gorge in Orissa state's Malkangiri district on Sunday. Although police said the well-trained officers would be able to survive, a top official of the local administration said "30-40 people" could have died in...

Bagdogra (PTI): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday hoped that Nepalese political parties involved in the electoral process have an obligation to make a success of the "democratic experiment" and extended India's support to the exercise. "We feel that all political parties which took part in the elections have an obligation to make a success of this democratic experiment," Singh said in an interaction with reporters here after concluding the "most successful" visit to Bhutan. On Maoists forming the next government in Nepal, the Prime Minister said that India has been in touch with the leadership of the erstwhile Maoist...

PATNA, India (AP) — Communist rebels fatally shot five policemen and a luggage porter and seriously wounded two others in an attack on a railroad station in eastern India, police said Monday. More than 100 rebels took part in the Sunday evening attack in Jhajha, a town in Bihar state 75 miles northeast of the state capital, Patna, deputy inspector general of police Manohar Prasad Singh said. The rebels blew up the railway police building at the station and stole some weapons. They also fired indiscriminately on the platform, Singh said, adding that a railway porter and five policemen were...

MAOISTS LET loose bloody mayhem in Jharkhand today, in all probability in retaliation to eight of their men being killed by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on April 1 in the state. On Tuesday, Maoists opened fire killing nine persons, including three women and a child near Semra forests about 12 kilometres from Gumla town. Subsequently, the rebels set fire to their vehicle with the bodies dumped in it. One woman, Renu Devi, managed to evade the attack with her child even though she suffered a bullet injury, Sub-divisional Police Officer Alban Tigga told the local media. It is...

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - Hundreds of Maoist rebels in India's eastern Orissa state attacked police stations in a district close to the capital, killing 14 people and looting weapons, police and officials said on Saturday. All but one of the dead were police officers and there was no word of casualties among the Maoists. The other victim was a civilian. The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of the poor and landless and regularly stage raids in the swathe of eastern and central India in which they have a presence. Prime Minister Manmoham Singh has declared their decades-old...

Maoists are turning cannibals. They eat human flesh to terrorize villagers. This was revealed by the residents of Bandiguda, 45 km from the district headquarters town of Malkangiri. The district police, under the leadership of daredevil SP Satish Kumar Gajbhiye, risked in organizing a community policing programme in a far-flung area, known as the Red Terror Zone of the district. On August 3, 2007, the people of Bandiguda saw Mukunda Madhi of their village being lifted by 'Papular Dalam Commander' Bhagat, as Mukunda was suspected by the Maoists as a police informer. Next morning, Mukunda was brought back to the...

NEW DELHI, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- The Indian state of Jharkhand, which has been hit by Maoist violence, has formulated a surrender policy for rebels under which former militants will be paid a monthly salary along with a one-time financial package for laying down their arms. Severely criticized both within and outside the state following the killing of 17 people in Giridih on Oct. 26, the state government is working on the new policy. “The proposed surrender policy, which my government will announce within a month … includes a monthly salary for surrendered Naxals besides the one-time package,” said Jharkhand...

Patterns of a resurgence in cooperation between Islamic extremists and radical communists -- faint in some places, more pronounced in others -- are emerging. While much of the current focus is on parts of Europe, South Asia could emerge as the principal arena for a communist-jihadist alliance. Depending on whom you talk to, an alliance between Islamic extremists and radical communists is either more sinister war-on-terror hyperbole or a clear and present danger. At the most basic level, the two groups are divided by their outlook on the supreme being. For Islamist extremists, killing in the name of and dying...

As many as 15 policemen were killed in a Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district on Friday, the police said. "Maoists triggered a landmine explosion near Pamed police station in the district, in which 15 policemen were killed," Girdhari Nayak, inspector general in charge of Maoist operations, told IANS. The attack site in extreme southern interiors of the district is thickly forested, some 560 km south of capital Raipur, close to the Andhra Pradesh border.

SOUTH BASTAR - TWO years ago, Comrade Sunil used his given name and spent half the day at school, the remainder working the red fields of his ancestral village. This all changed one night when he found his home torched and his brother dead outside, allegedly shot by state-sponsored civilian militia on the pretext of being a Maoist sympathiser. Warming by a campfire deep in the mountain jungle of southern Chhattisgarh, the 18-year-old swears he will never give up his home-made gun. "I am prepared to stay out here and fight like this for the rest of my life," he...

NEW DELHI (AP) — Communist rebels attacked a village festival in eastern India with gunfire and bombs Saturday, killing a top politician's son and 17 other people, police said. About 25 Maoist guerrillas attacked the cultural festival in the remote state of Jharkhand, opening fire indiscriminately on the crowd, local police chief Arun Kumar Singh told The Associated Press. Among the dead was Anuplal Marandi, the son of the state's former chief minister, Babulal Marandi, Singh said, adding that the politician was thought to be on the rebel's hit list after leading a crackdown on them while in office. Singh...

RAIPUR: Red terror returned to haunt Chhattisgarh on Wednesday with Maoists ambushing a convoy of policemen travelling through the forests of Dantewada, killing at least 12 security personnel. It was the worst Naxal attack since the chilling July 10 offensive when Maoists killed 24 cops in a similarly brazen ambush. On March 15, this year, 55 policemen were massacred in Bijapur when Communist guerrillas attacked a police camp. Wednesday’s attack, obviously executed on specific and early information about police movement, was carried out by 100 armed Maoists who were waiting behind bushes and trees in the area, about 550 km...

For the first time since Independence, the Chhattisgarh state assembly held a secret sitting on July 25, 2007. No visitors, no journalists and no cameras were allowed. The secret session was called to discuss the Naxalite menace, described by the Prime Minister as the “biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country”. The Chief Minister said that the in-camera session was to allow members to discuss the issue “openly and freely”. In other words, the elected legislators avoid speaking out, either about the Naxalites or measures to be taken publicly. Otherwise, they would be targetted and even killed. All...

RAIPUR, India (Reuters) - The Maoist rebels who shot dead 24 policemen in the jungles of Chhattisgarh disfigured several victims' heads with axe blows and stripped the corpses of shoes and socks, police witnesses said on Wednesday. Fresh details of Monday's grisly gunbattle in Chhattisgarh emerged from policemen who had survived what they describe as a well-designed ambush by rebels armed with AK-47 automatic rifles and mortars inside a hilly, dense jungle. "Initially Maoists had fired a few shots in the air and panicked all of us," a police commander who was part of the 115-strong unit told Reuters by...

PATNA, India, July 1 (Reuters) - Maoist rebels killed nine people, including five policemen, in eastern India's remote Bihar state early on Sunday during an attack on two police stations, officials said. Some 200 rebels were involved in the pre-dawn raid, stripping dozens of wounded policemen of their weapons after the raid before they fled into the darkness. Sunday morning's attack came after a two-day strike against the government's economic policies that was called by the Maoists earlier this week. The Maoists operate out of jungle bases across a swathe of 13 Indian states running up the eastern flank of...

Maoist rebels in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand have been growing opium poppies to fund their operations in the region, officials say. The rebels have a presence in 18 of the 22 districts in Jharkhand. The Maoists say they are fighting for more rights for indigenous people in at least five states, including neighbouring Bihar, which has a reputation as India's most lawless state. What began as small scale poppy cultivation in the remote areas of Chatra and Katkamsandi in Hazaribagh district two years ago has now flourished into a booming activity spread over some 20,000 acres of land...

RAIPUR, India, May 28 (Reuters) - Landmines planted by Maoist rebels killed at least nine police officers in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh on Monday, police said. The motorcycle-borne policemen were patrolling a wooded area in the state's southern Bastar region when the Maoists set off a series of landmines. Two policemen were wounded in the attack. The rebels made off with 12 police rifles. "We have nine casualties in coordinated, simultaneous landmine blasts," Girdhari Nayak, police inspector general, told Reuters. In a separate incident, the guerrillas killed a federal policeman on Monday. Chhattisgarh is one of 13 Indian...

IN THE DHAULI FOREST, India - After the paved roads have ended and the dirt roads have crumbled into winding footpaths, after the last power line has vanished into the forest behind you, a tall, red monument suddenly appears at the edge of a clearing. It's 25 feet high and topped by a hammer and sickle, honoring a fallen warrior. White letters scroll across the base: "From the blood of a martyr, new generations will bloom like flowers." The monument is a memorial but also a signpost, a warning that you are entering a "Liberated Zone" , a place where...

MAOIST guerillas have infiltrated the highest level of the Indian Government, gaining access to documents from top-level cabinet meetings in a major security breach. The guerillas, who are waging an armed insurrection across 16 of India's 28 states, obtained minutes of a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that discussed tactics to deal with the insurgents. According to the magazine Outlook, the documents outline the success of the Maoists, known as Naxalites, in penetrating the Government. Those at the meeting, ...included the chief ministers of all states affected by the Maoist insurgency, along with senior intelligence and security...

There is much focus now on the Maoist threat in India and, despite entirely inconsistent assessments by various Government agencies, an increasing consensus around the view that this is the greatest internal security challenge confronting the country. At the same time - and particularly in the aftermath of the major incidents that are all-too-frequently engineered by the Maoists - there is rising concern at the 'police failure' or 'security forces failure' to contain this rising menace. It needs to be recognised at the outset that a professional and motivated police force, with a sufficient numerical strength and adequate material and...

Approximately 300 Maoist rebels, called Naxalites, attacked an Indian police post at Rani Bodli in the central-western state of Chhattisgarh the night of March 15. Armed with guns, grenades and homemade firebombs, the attackers overwhelmed the 79-man post, leaving approximately 50 policemen dead and making off with weapons and ammunition. Eleven days before the Rani Bodli attack, Indian parliament member Sunil Mahato was assassinated in neighboring Jharkhand state -- an operation in which Maoists were allegedly involved. ... The Naxalite insurgency is located primarily in eastern India in a "red corridor" comprising the states of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Karnataka,...

NEW DELHI: Suspected Maoist rebels set off a land mine, killing 16 police in eastern India on Saturday, police said. The officers were traveling in a van over a bridge in Jharkhand state when the blast hit their vehicle, killing them, said local police chief M. S. Bhatia. There were no survivors, he said. Police were carrying out searches in the area, Bhatia said. The rebels, who claim to be inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, have been fighting for more than two decades in several Indian states, demanding land and jobs for agricultural laborers and the poor. More than...

The Indian army says it has recovered a massive cache of arms and ammunition in the eastern city of Calcutta. The hoard included anti-personnel mines and ammunition manufactured by a government arms factory in the city. Three people, including a soldier, have been arrested in connection with the seizure of arms. An army spokesman said the cache of arms was meant for Maoist rebels and other terrorist groups active in and around eastern West Bengal state. Army spokesman Wing Commander RK Das said as many as 543 land mines and more than 900 rounds of ammunition had been recovered in...

DANTEWADA (CHHATTISGARH): India's most famous anti-insurgency cop, now in the dense forests of Chhattisgarh leading a blitz against Naxalites, says the state police force is woefully trained and equipped. "There are significant deficiencies in strength, equipment, infrastructure and resources which are being attended to. As these gaps in police capacities are filled up, the responses will develop a far more effective edge," KPS Gill, the former Punjab DGP, told TOI in an exclusive interview. "There are many points in which police capacities require enhancement, and arms, transport and other infrastructure constitute part of the current deficiencies," Gill said. The man...

St. Petersburg, July 17: Opening the first ever India-Russia-China summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin today said the three neighbouring nuclear powers have "practically identical" views on major global problems and expressed satisfaction at the coordination of efforts by them. "Our approaches on key world problems are very close or as the diplomats say, practically identical," Putin said opening the trilateral meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese President Hu Jintao. Putin expressed satisfaction that the three powers of the same region "manage to coordinate their efforts on the international scene." Hosting his Indian and Chinese colleagues in the ornate...

The Marxists of India are running with the hare, and hunting with the hounds. At a time the Maoist guerillas are wreaking havoc across central India, a CPI leader, Atul Kumar Anjaan, advises government of India to release 60-70 Nepali Maoists leaders lodged in Indian jails. Sitaram Yechuri, who attended the opening session of the Nepali Mahapanchayat, has also said that the CPI (M) would pressurise the Indian government to release the Nepali Maoists languishing in jails of India. The idea is a brainchild of Baburam Bhattarai, who heads the International Department of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, and offered...

Forty young men and women in ill-fitting army fatigues, clutching flintlocks and pistols, stand in the shade of a mango tree. Beside them flaps a red flag emblazoned with a hammer and sickle. In a show of strength, the soldiers creep up on imaginary enemies through long grass. Armed with weapons and the opinions of the doctrinaire left, these guerrillas, or Naxalites as they are known, are part of a hidden war in the middle of India's mineral-rich tribal belt. The Naxalites are heirs of the revolutionary ideology of Mao Zedong. Unlike their ideological cousins in Nepal, the guerrillas are...

Raipur: At least two dozen tribals taken hostage by Maoists in Chhattisgarh were tortured, the state government said on Tuesday. They were first made to go hungry and then were forced to consume urine. “The Maoists did the most inhuman things by forcing the hostages to drink urine mixed water. The act shows how inhuman the rebels are,” state home minister Ramvichar Netam said. Last week the rebels had kidnapped a group of 40 villagers who were part of a government-backed anti-Maoist group and were living in makeshift camps in Dornapal, 550 km, south of here, in violence-hit Dantewada district....

MAOIST rebels in India slit the throats of 13 of 40 tribal villagers abducted earlier this week in the restive central state of Chhattisgarh, police said today. The killings are the latest in a series in some of the dozen or so states where Maoist guerrillas operate. The bodies were found deep in the forest 22km from a government-run relief camp which was near the spot where the group had been taken hostage at gunpoint in revolt-hit Dantewada district. "The bodies had multiple wounds and rebels killed them by slitting their throats," district police chief Praveer Das said. Yesterday, police...

CHHATTISGARH, India -- The 78-kilometer road between Sukma and Konta is almost deserted. Scores of villages, once bustling with tribal life, are now vacant. Across the rough orange and green terrain of the nearby forests, hundreds of other villages similarly have been abandoned. Tens of thousands of tribal people are simply gone. This is not war-torn Afghanistan or Sudan. This is central India, where super-sleek call centers and software factories have brought millions of poor into the modern middle class. But the country's drive to become a first-world power has left many of its most vulnerable behind and frozen economic...