NEW DELHI: Maoist rebels killed six policemen Sunday with a roadside bomb in a remote forest in eastern India, where the guerrillas have been waging an insurgency for decades.
Another officer was injured when their vehicle was hit in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh state, said senior state police officer Sunder Raj P.
The police were escorting a truck carrying material for road construction. Raj said a search was under way for the attackers.
India’s Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s and has cost thousands of lives in almost daily incidents of violence.
Last month dozens of guerillas were killed in jungle raids in India’s remote interior. The ambushes of rebel camps left 37 fighters dead.
In March eight Indian paramilitary troopers were killed when their vehicle drove over an explosive device.
The Maoists are believed to be present in at least 20 Indian states but are most active in forested resource-rich areas known as the “red corridor” linking the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.
The rebels, also known as Naxals, claim to be fighting for the rights of the indigenous tribal people, including the right to land, resources and jobs.
Maoist rebels kill six Indian policemen in bombing
Maoist rebels kill six Indian policemen in bombing
- The police were escorting a truck carrying material for road construction. Raj said a search was under way for the attackers
- The guerrillas have been waging an insurgency for decades
UK drops plans for mandatory digital ID for workers in latest U-turn, media reports
- The digital ID would be held on people’s mobile phones, the government said
- The plan drew criticism from political opponents and warning it could infringe on civil liberties
LONDON: Britain is set to drop plans to make it mandatory for workers to hold a digital identity document, The Times newspaper, the BBC and other media reported on Tuesday, potentially marking another policy U-turn for the Labour government.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced in September last year that his government would require every employee to hold a digital ID in an attempt to tackle illegal migration and reduce the threat from the populist Reform UK party.
The government said the digital ID would be held on people’s mobile phones and become a mandatory part of checks employers must make when hiring staff.
The plan drew criticism from political opponents, with some arguing it would not deter illegal migration and others warning it could infringe on civil liberties.
The Times said the government abandoned the plan amid concerns it could undermine public trust in the scheme, noting that when introduced in 2029, digital IDs would be optional rather than mandatory.
Other forms of documentation, such as an electronic visa or passport, would still be valid, The Times said.
“We are committed to mandatory digital right to work checks,” a government spokesperson said. “We have always been clear that details on the digital ID scheme will be set out following a full public consultation which will launch shortly.”
The spokesperson said current checks rely on a “hodgepodge” of paper-based systems, with no record of whether they were ever carried out, leaving the process open to fraud and abuse.
If plans for a mandatory digital ID are dropped, it would mark another policy climbdown for Starmer.
In December, the government scaled back a plan to raise more tax from farmers, months after it backed down on cuts to welfare spending and scaled back a proposal to reduce subsidies on energy bills for the elderly.
