Indian Defence Review

Notes and References

1. The first global study of the prevalence of child soldiering, a 1996 UN study, “Impact of Armed Conflict on Children by Graca Machel,” indicated there were around a quarter of a million child soldiers, with the largest numbers found in Africa and Asia. Subsequent reports, such as “Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers,” have estimated that there were approximately 300,000 child soldiers at any point in time, which tallies with the figures given in UNICEF’s factsheet on child soldiers.
2. P. W. Singer. “The Enablers of War: Causal Factors Behind the Child Soldier Phenomenon.” In Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States. Edited by Scott Gates and Simon Reich. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010, pp. 93–107.
3. The recruitment of children in the Salwa Judum movement in Chhattisgarh has been discussed in detail in the 2008 report “Dangerous Duty: Children and the Chhattisgarh Conflict by Human Rights Watch.” There is also mention of children in a report published by Asian Centre for Human Rights in 2006, named “The Adivasis of Chhattisgarh – Victims of the Naxalite Movement and the Salwa Judum Campaign.” “The Child Soldiers Global Report 2008” published by Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has identified the Naxalite-affected states Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir as areas in India where children have been recruited by insurgent outfits. Occasional media reports have been pointing to the prevalence of the phenomenon.
4. Interview with a colonel of the Assam Rifles on 25 September 2007. 
5. Interviews with commanders of militant outfits and field visits made to overground and underground camps in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya between 2003 and 2010. 
6. S. Bhaumik. Troubled Periphery. Sage Publications, 2009.
7. Information given by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on the basis of an application filed by the author under Right to Information Act revealed that 109 cadres below the age of 18 belonging to the Black Widow or DHD (Juwel), which was active at Dima Hasao in Assam, surrendered on 2 October 2009. 
8. Reported on www.kanglaonline.com (1 February 2011). The number of unemployed job-seeking persons in Manipur has reached 685,422 as per the data provided by the Directorate of Employment Registrar. The data provided by the registrar is based on records till December 2010, of which 495,894 are males while 189,528 are females.
9. Reported on www.e-pao.net (7 April 2011) and the Assam Tribune (19 April 2011). The All Manipur Tribal Union (AMTU) highlighted the plight of the children in Manipur in its representation to Karin Hulshof, UNICEF representative to India. It urged the world representative to open a nodal office of UNICEF in Manipur in order to uplift conditions of the impoverished children of the state.
10. Interview with Kiamlo, commander of the ZRA and senior cadres, on 26 October 2010. Excerpts of the interviews and field visit also reported by the author in the Bengal Post (12 December 2010).
11. Reported in the Telegraph (11 October 2008). On 8 October, troops of the 20 Assam Rifles seized 1,870 bags of urea and potash loaded in 13 Shaktiman trucks near Molnom village in Chandel district. The Assam Rifles arrested four activists of the United Kuki Liberation Front, including two teenaged children, with arms and ammunition in connection with the case.
12. Reported in the Times of India (26 May 2010), “NSCN Gun-Runners a Threat to Talks,” which refers to the involvement of NSCN (IM) militants in gunrunning. Intelligence reports also point to the involvement of other groups, like the KNA, People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) and NSCN (K), in the illicit trade.
13. Reported in the Telegraph (7 December 2005). 
14. Interview with a superintendent of police in Manipur on 22 September 2008.
15. Reported in CNN-IBN (25 July 2008) and the Telegraph (11 July 2008).
16. Op cit, n. 2.
17. PLA commander-in-chief Manohar Mayum Pravin Kumar, alias Ngouba, told journalists on 4 May 2009 about the alliance between his outfit and the CPI (M) at an undisclosed location along the Indo-Myanmar border. Confessions by arrested Maoist cadres have also revealed links between CPI (M) and PREPAK. 
18. Interview with a superintendent of police in Manipur on 28 October 2010.
19. Michael Wessels. Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection. Harvard University Press, 2006.