"It was the worst example I've ever seen. A fiasco. They didn't stand a chance."
Thus runs retired Brigadier BK Ponwar's brutal assessment of an ambush by Maoist rebels - known locally as Naxalites - which killed 76 paramilitary policemen in Dantewada earlier this year.
. . .
They may have as many as 20,000 men and women at arms - not as well equipped as the security forces, but familiar with the terrain, and with the hit-and-run tactics of roadside bombs and ambushes.
Their plan, unlikely as it sounds, is to overthrow the Indian state by 2050.
The Maoists have made inroads in nearly a third of India's 630 districts, but they are at their strongest in six central and eastern states which have been dubbed the "Red Corridor".
They have killed a growing number of civilians in their attacks, but they have also been spreading their message in places where the state has become perilously weak and unpopular.
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