A thoughtful critique by Journalist Nandini Krishnan, Chennai Excerpts:- "The Maoists have consistently turned down invitations to hold talks. India doesn’t have the best record where ‘talks’ are concerned - we’ve been ‘talking’ to Pakistan for half a century - but is killing non-Naxals a solution to this? It may have been Abraham Lincoln who famously quoted the Bible and said “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. But the adage hasn’t been proved true as many times in any other country as in India. It is this quality which saw parts being swallowed whole by the Mughals and then raped by the British. We can debate about a government attacking its own citizens, but how can those who claim to be exempt from the law qualify as citizens? We live in far more dangerous times than the Colonial Era, and the world is watching as the big candidate for the United Nations Security Council struggles with ‘internal security threats’. In an age of neo-colonialism and terrorism, with far too many vested interests to keep track of, what are we opening ourselves to in providing forums for Maoist sympathisers? " read the full interesting story http://sify.com/news/we-need-arundhati-roy-like-a-hole-in-the-head-news-columns-kghkzpgcacd.html