Amit Shah declares India ‘Naxal-free’: What it means and what lies ahead

The Maoist insurgency, which began in the 1960s, once stretched across a sweeping “Red Corridor” through central and eastern India. At its height in the mid-2000s, left-wing extremism affected 200 districts in at least 12 states and posed what former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called India’s “the single biggest internal-security challenge”.
Today, that footprint has shrunk sharply — both in territory and operational capacity — with security forces expected to tighten control over the few remaining affected districts.