Chhattisgarh chief minister’s chopper to have satellite phone

September 27th, 2009 BHOPAL - Four suspected Maoists who had allegedly crossed into Madhya Pradesh from Chhattisgarh have been detained in Shahdol district, police said Sunday. The four - Ramnath, Lalsai, Roopsai and Sunao, all of them Gond tribals aged 25-30 - had sneaked in from Narayanpur district in Chhattisgarh, a police official said.

September 19th, 2009 RAIPUR - Police Saturday sent a chopper to the southern Maoist-hit areas of Chhattisagrh to look for five policemen who went missing after battling guerrillas in Dantewada district Friday. "Some five policemen are still missing.

August 21st, 2009 RAIPUR - Maoist violence was continuing in certain parts of the country because development was not reaching the troubled areas, particularly in states like Chhattisgarh, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said here Friday. Accusing Chhattisgarh's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of failing to reach the fruits of development to vast Maoist-hit areas, Gandhi said: "If the government fails to reach people, then problem begins, and this is the case in Chhattisgarh." "See how Andhra Pradesh tackled the Maoist problem, it actually took the central government welfare schemes to problem-hit areas, but in Chhattisgarh the government is not reaching trouble-hit areas," the Congress leader told a press conference here.

August 3rd, 2009 RAIPUR - From Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh downwards, most of the state cabinet is camping in Mt Abu in Rajasthan to attend meditation classes. A Congress legislator who couldn't join the trip wryly commented that "we hope they will come back with new ideas on how to handle insurgents".

July 23rd, 2009 RAIPUR - Power utility NTPC Ltd has agreed to provide 35 percent of the electricity produced at its upcoming 500 MW stage-III Korba project to Chhattisgarh, a government statement said Thursday. "NTPC (formerly National Thermal Power Corp) has agreed to provide 175 MW power to Chhattisgarh from its 500 MW stage-III Korba project that will begin generation by February 2010," the statement said.

July 15th, 2009 RAIPUR - The Chhattisgarh government Wednesday announced relief measures for families hit by Maoist violence including jobs to dependents of policemen killed while battling rebels. "The state government has decided to give jobs, on compassionate basis and within 60 days, to the relatives of the policemen killed by the Naxalites," Chief Minister Raman Singh told reporters after a cabinet meeting here.

May 30th, 2009 RAIPUR - Chhattisgarh is set to examine why agreements that various companies have signed with the government since 2000 to set up projects in the state haven't been honoured. According to industry department officials, various projects involving a total investment of over Rs.177,000 crore are yet to be implemented.

May 20th, 2009 RAIPUR - A constable of the State Armed Force (SAF) gunned down his platoon commander in Chhattisgarh Wednesday, the police said. The accused Madhav Singh was arrested after he shot his senior Radhelal at Rajnandgaon town, District Superintendent of Police V.K.

March 19th, 2009 RAIPUR - A three-member team of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Wednesday visited the Chhattisgarh capital to assess the facilities at a 60,000-seating capacity cricket stadium here. 'The team led by Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament director Dhiraj Malhotra inspected the facilities at the stadium at Parsada village (on the outskirts of Raipur),' Baldev Singh Bhatia, president of the Chhattisgarh State Cricket Sangh (CSCS), told IANS.

March 4th, 2009 RAIPUR - The Bharatiya Janata Party's Chhattisgarh unit hopes to be ready with its list of candidates for the forthcoming general elections by next week. Party leaders Sushma Swaraj has already taken the draft list to Delhi to place before the BJP's central election committee Thursday.

February 15th, 2009 RAIPUR - At least a dozen people and eight policemen were injured here Monday when the police baton charged protesters carrying a youth's body near the official residence of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, police said. The clash broke out after over a hundred protesters carrying the body of a 23-year-old youth, Gulshan Meghani, wanted to march towards the chief minister's residence to stage a protest, but the police stopped them.

February 7th, 2009 RAIPUR - The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will put up candidates for all 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh in the upcoming general elections, the party's state chief said here Sunday. 'The party will contest all 11 Lok Sabha seats on its own,' Dauram Ratnakar, BSP's Chhattisgarh president told IANS.

January 17th, 2009 RAIPUR - In an attempt to end the power crisis in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh will supply about 300 MW electricity to the southern state, an official said Sunday. 'We have formally approved the Karnataka government's request.

January 17th, 2009 RAIPUR - Chhattisgarh will start generating up to 700 MW power over the next three years using dust from coal washeries, Chief Minister Raman Singh said Sunday. Speaking at the two-day convention on 'Energy security from renewable energy sources' here, he said the country can narrow the widening demand-supply power gap by looking into options to generate power from non-conventional sources.

December 31st, 2008 RAIPUR - The Chhattisgarh government Thursday announced that it has split the state electricity board into five entities - one holding company and four others to manage transmission, distribution, production and trading. The new companies are - Chhattisgarh State Power Transmission Co.