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Academic mobility

Academic mobility refers to students and teachers in higher education moving to another institution inside or outside of their own country to study or teach for a limited time.

The Bologna process regulates academic mobility within European higher education area.

Mobile students are usually divided into two groups: Free-movers are students who travel entirely on their own initiative, while programme students use exchange programmes at a department, faculty, institution, or national level (such as Erasmus, Nordplus or Fulbright). Nowadays, the traditional Erasmus exchange (which involves travelling) has been complemented with virtual mobility, or Virtual Erasmus, in which students from different countries may study together without leaving their home.

Background

According to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the mobility of international students has significantly increased in the past four decades, from 250,000 in 1965 to approximately 3.7 million in 2011. These statistics show the academic mobility of international students that aim for a degree rather than short-term "study abroad" education. UNESCO suggests that there are over 2.7 million students studying in a country other than their origin country. The group of Asian students is the largest constituent part of all students who enrolled in the overseas schools. They make up 45 percent of total of international students in OECD countries and 52 percent of total in non-OECD countries.

Barrier
Most mobile students suffer from many barriers both in their lives and academic activities. For example, Sanchez, Fornerino and Zhang did a survey among 477 students who respectively studied in United States, France and China. This survey suggests that the students studied in these three countries face barriers such as family barriers, financial barriers, psychological barriers and social barriers. The psychological barriers relate to aspects such as homesickness or the fear of the new environment and the social barriers usually relate to friends and family. Different students are various in degree of these problem.

For the credit mobile students, they will meet some specific academic difficulties. A survey by Klahr and Ratti emphasizes the importance of the lack of recognition of periods abroad and credit transfer. Besides, insufficient knowledge of academic prerequisites and qualifications of various countries, differences in the structure of the academic term, disparities in the times at which examinations are taken, these are all common problem of credit mobile students when they engage in academic activities. Moreover, the lack of foreign language skills is considered as another big barrier to most of the mobile students, not only the credit mobile students.

Female mobile students have some particular barriers because of their gender role. The female mobile students, especially who are in older in age, are tied to a specific spatial context by private responsibilities. For example, partnering and children will have a great effect on the female's academic mobility. Some findings from qualitative interviews with researchers from Bulgaria and Poland, confirmed the great significance of personal and family relationships for female's academic mobility, either as a barrier or as an incentive.

Researchers
Researchers are employed on casualised temporary contracts in some universities, which force them to relocate around every three years when funding streams change, typically to another country. Historically this was done just one for a "postdoc" research project, but modern funding now devotes far more money to contract research than teaching posts, and so most researchers now face a whole career of living in this way. This often leads to the breakup of their families and friends and sometimes to mental health problems.

With 57% of its researchers coming from other countries, Switzerland is the country with the world highest proportion of foreign researchers. Canada, Australia, the United States, Sweden and the United Kingdom have between 30 and 50% of their researchers coming from foreign countries.

The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and France have between 10 and 30% of their researchers coming from foreign countries. Brazil, Spain, Japan, Italy and India have less than 10% of their researchers coming from foreign countries.

Switzerland and India are among the countries with the highest proportion of their researchers going to work in other countries.

title: Academic mobility


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Hollins University

Hollins University is a private university in Hollins, Virginia. Founded in 1842 as Valley Union Seminary in the historical settlement of Botetourt Springs, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States.

Hollins enrolls about 800 undergraduate and graduate students. As Virginia's first chartered women's college, undergraduate programs are female-only. Men are admitted to the graduate-level programs.

Hollins is known for its undergraduate and graduate writing programs, which have produced Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Annie Dillard, former U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey, and Henry S. Taylor. Other prominent alumnae include pioneering sportswriter Mary Garber, 2006 Man Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai, UC-Berkeley's first tenured female physicist (and a principal contributor to theories for detecting the Higgs boson) Mary K. Gaillard, Goodnight Moon author Margaret Wise Brown, author Lee Smith, photographer Sally Mann, and Ellen Malcolm, founder of EMILY's List.

History
The area where Hollins College developed was the site of Botetourt Springs. The area developed as a resort which operated from 1820 to 1841. It then became the site of a short-lived seminary, whose property and buildings were acquired by Valley Union Seminary.

1842–1855: Valley Union Seminary and Charles Lewis Cocke
The institution of higher learning that would become Hollins was first established in 1842 by the Reverend Joshua Bradley as the coeducational Valley Union Seminary. Bradley left in 1845 for Missouri, and in 1846, the seminary's trustees hired a 25-year-old math instructor from Richmond named Charles Lewis Cocke to direct the institution.

Cocke arrived with his wife, Susanna, and 16 slaves. The same year, Cocke established the first school for enslaved people in the Roanoke area; many students at the school worked at the seminary. In 1851, Cocke abolished the men's department of the institution, and in 1852, the school became a women's college called the Roanoke Female Seminary. In 1855, Lynchburg residents John and Ann Halsey Hollins gave $5,000, and the school was renamed Hollins Institute. The Hollinses gave an additional $12,500 in gifts before their deaths in 1859 and 1864 respectively.

Slaves and servants
Before the Civil War, Hollins used the labor of enslaved people to build and maintain the grounds. In addition, many students brought "servants" with them who were likely slaves. After slavery was abolished, Hollins employed many formerly enslaved people, mostly women whose names were not recorded. Students were encouraged to ignore these workers in the college handbook during this era, and employees were forbidden from developing friendly relationships with women studying at Hollins.

1855–1870s: Family institution
As the head of Hollins, Cocke saw his students as a part of a family and himself as their father figure. His pedagogy was based upon the "southern sensibility that a lady was to be trained to submit to the order of men". Though he thought women studying at Hollins were best confined to domestic duties, he still placed great value on intellectual excellence. Cocke considered the higher education of young women in the South to be his life's calling; in 1857, he wrote that "young women require the same thorough and rigid mental training as that afforded to young men". Hollins was known as a rigorous institution where degrees were not easily earned during Cocke's tenure. Students at the school during this period remember the "unbelieveably [sic] serious" instruction and "high standards". During this period, Hollins also pioneered several academic practices; it became the first school in the United States to begin a system of elective study, and it was the first to establish an English department under a full professor.

1880s–1901
The Hollins of Cocke's ambitions was limited by region, as Cocke was interested in educating women only from Southern states. Because of this limited scope, Hollins struggled to "professionalize" in the 1880s and beyond. Its remote location far from the better respected and funded men's institutions put Hollins in contrast with the Seven Sisters in the Northeast. Despite its academic rigor, Hollins and other southern women's colleges were smaller and poorer than women's college such as Smith College and Mount Holyoke in the north. However, Hollins saw its enrollment rise in the last two decades of the 19th century.

From 1846 until his death, Cocke did not take a stipulated salary from the institution so that the trustees could instead put the school's income toward paying faculty and improving the grounds. In 1900, the board of trustees found themselves so thoroughly in debt to Cocke that the school was deeded to him and his family.

1901–1932: Matty Cocke and accreditation
Charles Lewis Cocke's death in 1901 at the age of eighty-one was a grave moment for the Hollins Institute, but the transition to the leadership of his forty-five-year-old daughter Matty Cocke was smooth. "Miss Matty," as she preferred to be called, was intent on preserving the "genteel" atmosphere her father had cultivated at Hollins. Though she was a "charismatic leader" and the first woman to head a college in Virginia, Miss Cocke was not interested in waging any battles for women's education; indeed, she let her nephews, Joseph Turner and M. Estes Cocke, handle the school's financial dealings entirely. Miss Cocke shared the opinion of President John McBryde of Sweet Briar Women's College, who in 1907 decried the "independence" sought by Vassar and other members of the Seven Sisters and suggested instead that women's education focus on "grace [and] refinement". In 1911, the school was renamed Hollins College. Because the Cocke family owned Hollins, the school could not raise an endowment through alumnae donations. Further stalling Hollins' prosperity was President Matty Cocke's distaste for fundraising. Due to their financial limitations, Hollins was not able to hire high-quality faculty or assemble an up-to-date library or laboratory, making accreditation hard to achieve. This was not unusual for the time; as of 1916, only seven southern women's college were certified by professional organizations as "standard," while both Hollins and Sweet Briar were designated as "approximate". The Cocke family agreed to turn over ownership if sufficient funds were raised in 1925, but the Depression slowed their efforts. A scathing 1930 letter from alumna Eudora Ramsay Richardson in the South Atlantic Quarterly indicted the American Association of University Women for regional bias. Richardson's letter and prompting from the presidents of Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr sped up the accreditation process. The Cocke family turned the school over to a board of trustees and President Cocke tendered her resignation in 1932, as the school finally gained accreditation.

1933–present
Hollins was home to the first exhibition gallery in the Roanoke region in 1948. In 1950 when he was 31 years of age John R. Everett was elected President of Hollins College, a position he held until he resigned in 1960. One of the first writer-in-residence programs in America began at Hollins in 1959. Hollins was home to the first graduate program focusing on the writing and study of children's literature, established in 1993. Hollins University Quadrangle is on the National Register of Historic Places.The institution was renamed Hollins College in 1911, and in 1998 it became Hollins University. Nancy Oliver Gray led Hollins from 2005 until she retired in 2017; that same year, Pareena Gupta Lawrence, an economist and an Asian-American immigrant, became Hollins's twelfth president. In April 2019, the president directed the temporary removal of four volumes of the university yearbook from the library's digital commons after the 2019 blackface controversy involving Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. The four volumes (1915, 1950, 1969, 1985) contained photographs of students wearing blackface. The university issued a statement saying access to the digitized yearbooks would be restored as soon as the university developed accompanying "educational information regarding the history and practice of blackface to help all of us understand why it is a racist and prejudicial practice." The removal was criticized by the Society of American Archivists, the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, and the Virginia Library Association. The digitized volumes were still available on the Internet Archive, and all physical copies of the yearbooks were also available in the library. The Wyndham Robertson Library and the Working Group on Slavery issued a statement in response objecting to the decision, stating that, "we cannot and do not support any erasure of institutional history, even if only temporarily" and recommended that the affected yearbooks be made electronically accessible again along with a statement on the content. Access to the four digitized volumes was restored on April 9, less than one week after their removal along with the added educational content.

Mary Dana Hinton became the thirteenth president of Hollins University on August 1, 2020. She is the first African American president in the university's history. An active and respected proponent of the liberal arts and inclusion, her leadership reflects a deep and abiding commitment to educational equity (as opposed to equality) and the education of women.

Architectural history
The Hollins College Quadrangle consists of six contributing buildings. The earliest buildings were built for the Botetourt Springs resort which operated from 1820 to 1841 and then became a seminary. When it failed the property and buildings were acquired for Valley Union Seminary.

The first built specifically for the new college is East Building, erected 1856–58 opposite the hotel building. The Main building was built in 1861 at the north end of the quadrangle, Bradley Chapel was erected in 1883 between the East and Main Buildings, the octagonal Botetourt Hall was built in 1890, and the Charles Cocke Memorial Library was built in 1908 at the south end of the quadrangle.

The main dorm of Hollins University was decorated and improved in the 19th century by local carpenter and woodworker Gustave A. Sedon.

Hollins College Quadrangle was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Traditions and folklore
Hollins University has a number of beloved traditions, many of which have been observed for more than 100 years. Tinker Day is one of them, dating back to the 1880s. One day in October, after the first frost, classes are cancelled so that students, faculty, and staff can climb nearby Tinker Mountain while wearing colorful and silly costumes. After a lunch of fried chicken and Tinker Cake, the students and new faculty perform skits and sing songs before returning to campus. The exact date of the celebration is a closely held secret.

Academics
Hollins offers small classes with a 9:1 student-teacher ratio in a variety of majors. The most popular majors are English, psychology, studio art, business, and biology. Currently Hollins offers graduate programs in dance (M.F.A.), creative writing (M.F.A.), children's literature (M.A., M.F.A.), liberal studies (M.A.L.S.), playwriting (M.F.A.), screenwriting and film studies (M.A., M.F.A.), and teaching (M.A.T.). , Hollins offers a graduate-level certificate in Children's Book Illustration.

Hollins was one of the first colleges in the nation to establish a study abroad program, launching Hollins Abroad-Paris in 1955. Approximately half of Hollins students have an international learning experience. Hollins runs its own programs in London and Paris; non-Hollins students are free to apply to the Hollins Abroad-London and-Paris programs. Hollins students can also study through Hollins-sponsored programs in Argentina, Germany, Ghana, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, and in various other countries through the School for Field Studies. Hollins also sponsors an annual service-learning project in Lucea, Jamaica.

Curriculum
A liberal arts school, Hollins has designed its own Education through Skills and Perspectives (ESP) general education requirement program. Rather than focusing on the usual math, science, English, and history booklist of required courses, Hollins requires each student to take a variety of skills classes (writing, oral communication, applied quantitative reasoning, and applied research techniques) and perspectives classes (aesthetic analysis, creative expression, ancient and/or medieval worlds, modern and/or contemporary worlds, social and cultural diversities, scientific inquiry, and global systems and languages). These requirements can be completed in as few as 8 courses but aim to help the students explore other fields of study while rounding out their basic understanding of the world.

Hollins offers majors in the fields of studio art, art history, biology, business, chemistry, classical studies, communication studies, dance, economics, English, environmental studies, film, French, gender and women's studies, history, interdisciplinary studies, international studies, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, psychology, public health, religious studies, sociology, Spanish, and theatre.

Other academic offerings include: arts management certificate, the Batten certificate in leadership studies, Hollins Outdoor Leadership certificate, education, first-year seminars, three-year accelerated degree program, pre-law, pre-med, pre-nursing, pre-vet, short term, and Horizon program for adult women.

Writing program
The graduate program in creative writing was founded by Louis D. Rubin, Jr., in 1960, but Hollins has offered classes in creative writing for even longer. In 2008 the Jackson Center for Creative Writing was established through a private donation from Susan Gager Jackson '68 and her husband, John Jackson, of Far Hills, New Jersey.

The Jackson Center for Creative Writing is home to Hollins' esteemed undergraduate and graduate writing programs, which have produced dozens of writers of national and international acclaim, including Lee Smith '67 and Pulitzer Prize winners Annie Dillard '67, M.A. '68; Henry S. Taylor M.A. '66; and Natasha Trethewey M.A. '91. Kiran Desai M.A. '94 won both the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The fiction of Madison Smartt Bell M.A. '81 has been recognized by a Strauss Living Award, and numerous other Hollins writers have received NEA, Guggenheim, and countless other grants and awards for their poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, contributing to the cultural life of the nation that is disproportionate to the program's size. In fact, Hollins's creative writing program has been called "the most productive writing program in America" by Creative Writing in America.

The campus has three literary magazines. Cargoes, which won the Undergraduate Literary Prize for content by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs in 2005, The Album, which is offered as a more alternative campus periodical, and Gravel, which focuses on student work centered around multicultural and diverse identities. R. H. W. Dillard, Cathryn Hankla, and Jeanne Larsen are among the writers who teach at Hollins.

Athletics
Hollins University athletics is a member of the Division III level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), primarily competing throughout Virginia in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) since the 1981–82 academic year.

Hollins competes in eight intercollegiate varsity sports: basketball, cross country, riding, soccer, swimming, tennis, track & field (indoor and outdoor) and volleyball. In the past Hollins has had programs in golf, fencing, and field hockey. The last year that the university had a golf program was in the 2017–18 academic year. The school also had a lacrosse program, but it was discontinued in 2023.

Hollins does not have a mascot, and the sports teams do not have an official nickname. In 1989, students voted against 100 mascot ideas.

As part of its Education through Skills and Perspectives (ESP) general education requirement program, two regular terms of physical education course work are required for graduation.

Housing
There are nine residence halls on campus. Most first-years live in Tinker and Randolph in doubles. Sophomores and juniors generally live in West or in singles in Tinker and Randolph, and primarily seniors (with a few exceptions) live in Main, or the university apartments on campus. Housing choices are determined by a lottery number given after the housing deposit is paid in the spring; the lottery numbers are assigned randomly from within a preset range determined by class year.

All undergraduates are required to live on campus. The exceptions to this rule are Horizon (nontraditional) students, married students or those with children, those over the age of 23, or those whose official residence with parents or guardians is in the Roanoke Valley area.

Student body
In October 2019, Hollins released a new policy regarding applicants and students who may identify as transgender. The new policy states "Hollins accepts applications from individuals who consistently live and identify as women." Students who begin to transition from female to male while at Hollins are still eligible to earn their degree.

Clubs and organizations
Hollins has a number of organizations that are open to all students.

The university has a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Freya walks take place on nights of special events or issues. Members of this secret society walk at night to call attention to or celebrate current events. They wear black-hooded robes to protect their anonymity and carry candles to symbolize hope. Since 1903 Freya has sought to emphasize the notion that "concern for the community is a creative and active force."

Eleanor D. Wilson Museum
Founded in 2004, the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, an art museum, is housed at the university.

Notable alumnae

 * Jennifer Berman, sexual health expert, urologist, and female sexual medicine specialist
 * Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon, 1932
 * Kiran Desai, author and recipient of the Man Booker Prize in 2006, M.A. 1994
 * Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, 1967, M.A. 1968
 * Henry S. Taylor, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, M.A. 1966
 * Ellen Malcolm, founder of EMILY's List, B.A. 1969
 * Katy Pyle, artistic director of Ballez, B.A. 2002
 * Ann Compton, ABC Radio White House correspondent, National Radio Hall of Fame
 * Jenny Boully, poetry and essayist

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hollins University


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Communist Party of India (Maoist)

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is a banned Marxist–Leninist–Maoist communist political party and militant organization in India which aims to overthrow the "semi-colonial and semi-feudal Indian state" through protracted people's war. It was founded on 21 September 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People's War (People's War Group) and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI). The party has been designated as a terrorist organisation in India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act since 2009.

In 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh referred to the Maoists as "the single biggest internal security challenge" for India, and said that the "deprived and alienated sections of the population" form the backbone of the Maoist movement in India. The government officials have declared that, in 2013, 76 districts in the country were affected by "left wing extremism", with another 106 districts in ideological influence. In 2020, the activities of the party began to increase again in Telangana and other areas. Chhattisgarh is often affected by the party's militant activities.

History
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was founded on 21 September 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People's War (People's War Group), and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI). The merger was announced on 14 October the same year. In the merger a provisional central committee was constituted, with the erstwhile People's War Group leader Muppala Lakshmana Rao, alias "Ganapathi", as general secretary. Further, on May Day 2014, the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Naxalbari merged into the CPI (Maoist).

Ideology
The CPI (Maoist) observes that the Indian state is being "run by a collaboration of imperialists, the comprador bourgeoisie and feudal lords." According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, the two factions of the Party adhered to differing strands of communism prior to their 2004 merger, although "both organizations shared their belief in the 'annihilation of class enemies' and in extreme violence as a means to secure organizational goals." The People's War Group (PWG) maintained a Marxist–Leninist stance, while the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) took a Maoist stance. After the merger, the PWG secretary of Andhra Pradesh announced that the newly formed CPI-Maoist would follow Marxism–Leninism–Maoism as its "ideological basis guiding its thinking in all spheres of its activities." Included in this ideology is a commitment to "protracted armed struggle" to undermine and to seize power from the state. On May Day 2014, Ganapathy and Ajith (Secretary of the CPI (ML) Naxalbari) also issued a joint statement stating that "the unified party would [continue to] take Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its guiding ideology."

The ideology of the party is contained in a "Party Programme." In the document, the Maoists denounce globalisation as a war on the people by market fundamentalists and the caste system as a form of social oppression. The CPI (Maoist) claim that they are conducting a "people's war", a strategic approach developed by Mao Zedong during the guerrilla warfare phase of the Chinese Communist Party. Their eventual objective is to install a "people's government" via a New Democratic Revolution.

Location and prominence
CPI(Maoist) currently operates in the forest belt around central India in the states of Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha. It is present even in remote regions of Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, as well as in Bihar and the tribal-dominated areas in the borderlands of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Odisha. The CPI (Maoist) aims to consolidate its power in this area and establish a Compact Revolutionary Zone from which to advance the people's war in other parts of India. A 2005 Frontline cover story called the Bhamragad Taluka, where the Madia Gond Adivasis live, the heart of the Maoist-affected region in Maharashtra. Recently, the Indian government has claimed that in 2013, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal experienced [ideological] "influence" of "Left Wing Extremism"; while claiming that armed activity by the "Left Wing" extremists was noticed in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal.

Organisation
The current General Secretary of CPI (Maoist) is Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraj. He was appointed after Muppala Lakshmana Rao, who uses the alias "Ganapathy". The party hierarchy consists of the Regional Bureaus, which look after two or three states each, the State Committees, the Zonal Committees, the District Committees, and the "dalams" (armed squads). Communist writer Jan Myrdal noted that the CPI (Maoist) also organises events like "The Leadership Training Programme" to endure the forces of the state.

Politburo
As per the communist party policies the highest decision making body of the CPI (Maoist) is the Politburo, with thirteen or fourteen members, six of whom were killed or arrested between 2007 and 2010. Prashant Bose alias "Kishan-da" and Katakam Sudarshan alias Anand, are the two most prominent Politburo members of CPI (Maoist). B. Sudhakar alias "Kiran" is another Politburo member of CPI (Maoist). Shamsher Singh Sheri alias Karam Singh, who died of Cerebral Malaria-Jaundice on 30 October 2005, was also the party's Politburo member. Between 2005 and 2011, the State captured several Politburo members of the party, which includes – Sushil Roy alias Som, Narayan Sanyal alias N. Prasad, Pramod Mishra, Amitabh Bagchi, Baccha Prasad Singh, Anukul Chandra Naskar and Akhilesh Yadav. Ashutosh Tudu and Anuj Thakur are another two of the arrested Politburo members of the party. Arvind Ji alias Deo Kumar Singh, a politburo member died in heart attack on 21, March 2018. Among those killed, Cherukuri Rajkumar alias "Azad" and Mallojula Koteswara Rao alias "Kishenji", were two past members of the CPI (Maoist)'s Politburo. Politburo member Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramkrishna died in October 2021 due to illness.

Central Committee
The Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) takes command from the Politburo and passes on the information to its members, and has 32 members. During an interview in 2010, Anand told media personnels that out of the 45 members of the Central Committee of CPI (Maoist), 8 has been arrested and 22 has been killed by the agencies of the Indian government. Anuradha Ghandy, who died on 12 April 2008, was an eminent member of CPI (Maoist)'s Central Committee. Kadari Satyanarayan Reddy alias "Kosa", Thippiri Tirupathi alias "Devuji", Malla Raji Reddy and Mallujola Venugopal alias "Bhupati" are another three cadres and Central Committee members of the party. Madvi Hidma is the youngest Central Committee member of the party. As of 22 September 2011, nine of the Central Committee members were jailed, which includes – Moti Lal Soren, Vishnu, Varanasi Subramanyam, Shobha, Misir Besra, Jhantu Mukherjee, Vijay Kumar Arya. One more Central Committee member, Ravi Sharma, was also captured later. Ginugu Narsimha Reddy alias Jampanna surrendered to police in December 2017. Varkapur Chandramouli, Patel Sudhakar Reddy, Narmada Akka, and Milind Teltumbde who were killed by armed forces. Another Central Committee member Haribhushan died due to Covid. Another CC member B.G. Krishnamoorthy alias BGK, Vijay was arrested in 2021 November along with another PLGA Savithri by Kerala ATS.

Publication division
The CPI (Maoist) has a "publication division". Besides volunteering as a Politburo member of the party, B. Sudhakar alias "Kiran" also works for its publication division.

Military Commissions
The Central Military Commission (CMC) is the main armed body of the CPI (Maoist), and it is constructed by its Central Committee. In addition to the CMC, the party has also raised state military commissions. The CMC is headed by Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraj. Anand and Arvind Ji are another two members of the organisation's CMC. Anuj Thakur is an arrested member of the CMC of the party. Kishenji and Chandramouli were also the members of the CPI (Maoist)'s CMC.

Technical Committee
Central Technical Committee (CTC) is given the responsibility of fabricating weapons and explosives. The Technical Committee consists of few selected members having special knowledge on science and research and works under the direct supervision of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Party. Sadanala Ramakrishna, a senior Maoist leader was the Secretary of the Committee who was arrested in February 2012 in Kolkata.

Estimated strength
The military wings of the founding organisations, the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (the military wing of the MCCI) and the People's Guerrilla Army (the military wing of the PWG), also underwent a merger. The name of the unified military organisation is the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), and it is grouped into three sections — the Basic, the Secondary and the Main squad. All the PLGA members are volunteers and they do not receive any wages. During his stay in the guerrilla zones, Jan Myrdal noted that the female cadres of CPI (Maoist) constituted about 40% of its PLGA, and held numerous "command positions"; but currently, the female members comprises 60% of the Maoist cadres, and women commanders heads 20 of the 27 divisions of the guerrilla zones.

P.V. Ramana, of the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, estimates the Naxilities' current strength at 9,000–10,000 armed fighters, with access to about 6,500 firearms. The analyses, as of September 2013, suggested that the estimated number of PLGA members has decreased from 10,000 − 12,000 to 8,000 − 9,000. But, Gautam Navlakha has suggested that the PLGA has strengthened over the past few years, and has mustered 12 companies and over 25 platoons and a supply platoon in 2013 as compared to 8 companies and 13 platoons of 2008. The People's Militia which is armed with bows, arrows, and machetes is and is believed to logistically assist the PLGA is estimated to be around 38,000.

Medical units
The Maoists had structured "medical units" in the villages of Bastar, and the CPI (Maoist) operates "mobile medical units." Rahul Pandita writes: "'In the field of health as well, the Maoists often fill in large gaps left by the state. Their mobile medical units cover large distances to offer primary health care to tribals.... Various training camps are held regularly on preventive measures against diseases such as diarrhoea or malaria. The grass-root doctors in the medical squads can administer vaccines, identify a number of diseases through symptoms, and treat injuries that are not severe. Some can even conduct simple blood tests to arrive at a diagnosis. This is a significant advantage in such areas.'" Furthermore, the CPI (Maoist)'s medical services squads also move from village to village and provides "basic medical training" to selected young tribal people which enables them to identify frequently occurring diseases through their presages so that they can also distribute vaccines to the patients.

Frontal organisations
The frontal organisations of the party include the Radical Youth League, Rythu Coolie Sangham, Radical Students Union, Singareni Karmika Samakya, Viplava Karmika Samakhya, Porattam Kerala, Ayyankali pada Kerala, Njattuvela Kerala and All India Revolutionary Students Federation, Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangathan, and Chetna Natya Manch.

Governance tactics
The "organising principles" of the Maoists are sketched out from the Chinese Communist Revolution and the Vietnam War. The CPI (Maoist) has organised Dandakaranya into ten divisions, each comprising three area committees; and every Area Committee is composed of several Janatana Sarkars (people's governments). The party says that a Janatana Sarkar is established by the election procedure involving a group of villages, and has nine departments — agriculture, trade and industry, economic, justice, defence, health, public relations, education and culture, and jungle. The Janatana Sarkar provides education up to primary level in the subjects of mathematics, social science, politics, and Hindi, in the "camp schools" using the textbooks published by the party in Gondi. They also use DVDs to educate the children in the streams of science and history.

In their efforts to intimidate their political adversaries and consolidate control, the Maoists tax local villagers, extort businesses, abduct and kill "class enemies" such as government officials and police officers, and regulate the flow of aid and goods. To help fill their ranks, the Maoists force each family under their domain to supply one family member, and threaten those who resist with violence.

The organisation has been holding "Public Courts", which have been described as kangaroo courts, against their opponents. These "courts" function in the areas under de facto Maoist control. The Maoists have also taken care to demolish government institutions under their de facto jurisdiction. They have also demolished railroad tracks and school buildings that are often used as temporary camps by security forces.

Military strategies and tactics
The CPI (Maoist) rejects "engagement" with what it terms as the "prevailing bourgeois democracy" and focuses on capturing political power through protracted armed struggle based on guerrilla warfare. This strategy entails building up bases in rural and remote areas and transforming them first into guerrilla zones, and then into "liberated zones", in addition to encircling cities.

The military hardware used by Maoists, as indicated through a number of seizures, include RDX cable wires, gelignite sticks, detonators, country-made weapons, INSAS rifles, AK-47s, SLRs, and improvised explosive devices. The Maoists condemn the accusations that they manage arms through China, Myanmar and Bangladesh. On the subject, Ganapathy says, "Our weapons are mainly country-made. All the modern weapons we have are mainly seized from the government armed forces when we attack them."

The CPI (Maoist)'s General Secretary says that they keep on appealing to the "lower-level personnel" in the paramilitary and police forces not to attack them, but rather "join hands with the masses" and "consciously" point their guns towards whom the Maoists view as "real enemies." They further claims that "only when the government forces come to attack us [Maoists] carrying guns do we attack them in self-defence." In Jharkhand, the police have also seized posters from various places which read, "Policemen keep away from the green hunt and try to be friends of poor. Police jawan, do not obey orders of the senior officials, instead join the people's army."

Funding
Some sources claim that the funding for the Maoists comes from abductions, extortion and by setting up unofficial administrations to collect taxes in rural areas where official government appears absent. Poppy cultivation is another suspected source of funding for Maoists in the Ghagra area of Gumla district in Jharkhand and in parts of Gumla, Kishanganj and Purnia districts in Bihar where security forces claim that opium fields are hidden among maize crops. Reports from Debagarh district in Odisha indicate that the Maoists also support hemp cultivation to help fund their activities.

Legal status
The party is regarded as a "left-wing extremist entity" and a terrorist outfit by the Indian government. Several of their members have been arrested under the now-defunct Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act. The group is officially banned by the state governments of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh, among others. The party has protested these bans. The Indian government, led by the United Progressive Alliance, banned the CPI (Maoist) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) as a terrorist organisation on 22 June 2009. On 22 June 2009, the central home ministry, keeping in mind the growing unlawful activities by the group, banned it under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Earlier, the union home minister, P. Chidambaram had asked the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, to ban the Maoists following the Lalgarh Violence. Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and all its formations and front organisations have been banned by the Government of India.

Opposition
The Party is regarded as a serious security threat by the Indian government. It says it will combine improved policing with socio-economic measures to defuse grievances that fuel the Maoist cause. In 2005, Chhattisgarh State sponsored an anti-Maoist movement called the Salwa Judum. The group, which the BBC alleges is "government backed", an allegation rejected by the Indian government has come under criticism for "perpetrating atrocities and abuse against women", using child soldiers, burning people alive, and the looting of property and destruction of homes. These allegations were rejected by a fact-finding commission of the National Human Rights Commission of India, appointed by the Supreme Court of India, who determined that the Salwa Judum was a spontaneous reaction by tribes against Maoist atrocities perpetrated against them. The camps are guarded by police officers, paramilitary forces and child soldiers empowered with the official title "special police officer" (SPO). However, on 5 July 2011, the Supreme Court of India declared the Salwa Judum as illegal and unconstitutional. The court directed the Chhattisgarh government to recover all the firearms given to the militia along with the ammunition and accessories. It also ordered the government to investigate all instances of alleged criminal activities of Salwa Judum. But, the state government did not abide by the Supreme Court's decision. In August 2013, the Supreme Court of India asked the state government to explain that "why its failure to execute the July 2011 order of disbanding the SPOs not considered as contempt of court.". In March 2019, a municipal school teacher, Yogendra Meshram was killed by the Maoists in Korchi, which was vehemently protested by locals. The Maoist leadership later apologized for the killing stating it to be a mistake and that Meshram was innocent wrongly suspected to be a police informer.

International connections
The CPI (Maoist) maintains dialogue with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) who control most of Nepal in the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA), according to several intelligence sources and think tanks. These links are, however, denied by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre)

While under detention in June 2009, a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative indicated that the LeT and the CPI (Maoist) had attempted to co-ordinate activities in Jharkhand state. But, Ganapathy has denied any links between CPI (Maoist) and LeT, stating that the allegations are "only mischievous, calculated propaganda by the police officials, bureaucrats and leaders of the reactionary political parties" to malign the Maoists' image with the aim of labeling them as terrorists in order to justify "their brutal terror campaign against Maoists and the people in the areas of armed agrarian struggle." Kishenji also criticised LeT for having "wrong" and "anti-people" policies; though he said that the Maoists may consider backing up a few of their demands, if LeT will halt its "terrorist acts".

Reports in 2010 indicate that the Communist Party of the Philippines, Southeast Asia's longest-lived communist insurgent group, has been reported to have engaged in training activities for guerrilla warfare with Indian Maoists.

The Indian Maoists deny operational links with foreign groups, such as the Nepalese Maoists, but do claim comradeship. Some members of the Indian government accept this, while others argue that operational links do exist, with training coming from Sri-Lankan Maoists and small arms from China. China denies any suggestion that it supports foreign Maoist rebels, citing improvements in relations between India and China, including movement towards resolving their border disputes. Maoists in Nepal, India, and the Philippines are less reticent about their shared goals.

Indian Government's paramilitary offensive against the CPI (Maoist)
In September 2009, an all-out offensive was launched by the Government of India's paramilitary forces and the state's police forces against the CPI (Maoist) is termed by the Indian media as the "Operation Green Hunt".

On 3 January 2013, government issued a statement that it is deploying 10,000 more central paramilitary personnel in Bastar, Odisha and some parts of Jharkhand. On 8 June 2014, the Minister of Home Affairs officially approved the deployment of another 10,000 troops from the paramilitary forces to fight against the Maoists in Chhattisgarh. The count of personnel from State Armed Police Forces involved in counter-Maoism operations in the Red corridor is estimated to number around 200,000. Along with firearms, the armed forces' personnel use satellite phones, unmanned aerial vehicles and Air Force helicopters.

In 2011, the Indian Army while denying its direct role in the offensive operations accepted that it has been training the paramilitary personnel to fight against the Maoists, however, the Maoists have objected to the Army's stationing in the Red corridor. On 30 May 2013, the Indian Air Force's Air Chief Marshal declared that apart from the currently operating MI-17 helicopters, the Indian Force has decided to induce a unit of MI-17V5 helicopters to "provide full support to anti-Naxal operations." In August 2014, the Ministry of Home Affairs had stated that 2,000 personnel from the Nagaland's Indian Reserve Battalions (IRB) were deployed in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations against the Maoists in Bastar.

Since the start of the operation: 2,266 Maoist militants have been killed, 10,181 have been arrested and 9,714 have surrendered.

Notable attacks

 * On 12 June 2009, at least 29 members of the Indian Police were killed in an ambush attack by Maoist rebels in Rajnandgaon, 90 km (56 mi) from Raipur (India's Chhattisgarh state).
 * On 15 February 2010, several of the guerrilla commanders of CPI (Maoist), all of whom are believed to be female, killed 24 personnel of the Eastern Frontier Rifles at Silda in West Bengal. The attack was directed by Kishenji, and after the Maoist raid at the paramilitary camp, Kishenji addressed the news media saying, "We have not started it (violence) and we will not stop it first. Let us see whether the central government is honest about a solution and we will definitely co–operate.... This is the answer to Chidambaram's 'Operation Green Hunt' and unless the Centre stop this inhuman military operation, we are going to answer the Centre this way only."
 * On 6 April 2010, the Maoists ambushed and killed 76 paramilitary personnel who fell into a trap laid by the lurking Maoists. The CPI (Maoist) described the incident as a "direct consequence" of the Operation Green Hunt stating that "We have been surrounded by paramilitary battalions. They are setting fire to the forests and making adivasis (tribals) flee. In this situation, we have no other alternative (but to stage attacks)."
 * On 25 May 2013, the CPI (Maoist) ambushed a convoy of the Indian National Congress at Bastar, and killed 27 people including Mahendra Karma, Nand Kumar Patel and Vidya Charan Shukla. While regretting the death of a few "innocent Congress [INC] functionaries" during the incident, they hold the Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian National Congress' policies which they view as "anti-people" in nature, as directly responsible for the attack. Later, 14 Maoist who had allegedly participated in the ambush were gunned down in Odisha by the Special Operation Group with the assistance of Border Security Force.
 * On 3 April 2021, twenty-two soldiers were killed in a Maoist ambush on the border of Bijapur and Sukma districts in southern Chhattisgarh. Those killed included 14 Chhattisgarh policemen and seven jawans of the CRPF, including six members of its elite CoBRA unit, specially trained to take on Maoist guerillas.
 * On 4 January 2022, CPI (Maoist) attacked former BJP MLA of Manoharpur Gurucharan Nayak in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Nayak escaped but the Maoists slit the throat of his two bodyguards, snatched their AK-47 rifles and fled. The two bodyguards died in the incident.
 * On 16 January, 2024, guerrillas in Bijapur district attacked the Central Reserve Police Force camp in a three-hour raid. As many as 35 police officers were killed and more than 40 people were seriously injured. This is another unprecedented large-scale attack since 2010.

title: Communist Party of India (Maoist)


text:
Swanage Railway

The Swanage Railway is a railway branch line from near Wareham, Dorset to Swanage, Dorset, England, opened in 1885 and now operated as a heritage railway.

The independent company which built it was amalgamated with the larger London and South Western Railway in 1886. The passenger service was withdrawn in 1972, leaving a residual freight service over part of the line handling mineral traffic.

After the passenger closure, a heritage railway group revived part of the line; it too used the name Swanage Railway and now operates a 9.5 mi line which follows the route of the former line from Wareham to Swanage with stops at Norden, Corfe Castle, Harman's Cross and Herston Halt. It provides a regular park-and-ride service, normally steam-hauled, from Norden to the sea at Swanage including Corfe Castle village and ruins of Corfe Castle. In 2023, regular trains ran through from Wareham (with National Rail connections) to Swanage.

Early industry
The Isle of Purbeck had extensive quarrying and ball clay activities before Victorian times; some of the clay was processed locally, but much of the mineral output was transported away for use elsewhere. Movement of heavy minerals was chiefly by coastal shipping, and in some cases simple tramways were built for movement within the quarries and to the various loading points situated within the natural Poole Harbour.

By-passed by the main line
The Southampton and Dorchester Railway opened its main line through Wareham in 1847; it was worked by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), and amalgamated with the LSWR in 1848. The new line gave the area a through railway connection to London, but it did not come close enough to influence the mineral traffic, which for the time being was mostly conveyed by coastal shipping, as before.

The building of the main line railway through Wareham encouraged several schemes to connect Swanage or the mineral workings in Purbeck, but they failed to gain the support they needed.

Swanage Pier Tramway
Stone was exported from Swanage by coastal shipping as before, having been quarried on, or mined in, the Isle of Purbeck. The actual loading of the vessels was primitive, and Captain Moorsom, chief engineer of the Southampton and Dorchester line, encouraged local promoters to found the Swanage Pier and Tramway Company, which obtained an authorising Act of Parliament on 8 August 1859. John Mowlem was prominent in generating local support. The scheme involved about 4 mile of line, running on to the pier at Swanage, from which coastal vessels would be loaded directly.

In fact, only a short section was built, from the pier to an area on the sea front called The Bankers where stone blocks were prepared for transit. Horse traction only was used.

A second jetty, forming a fork, was added to the pier in 1896, to cater for the growing pleasure steamer passenger business, and the truncated tramway was re-gauged in about 1900 to the track gauge of 2 ft 6 in (750 mm). It was used for bunkering the pleasure steamers, but it fell into disuse at the end of the 1920s.

Connecting to the main line
A scheme for a branch line was successful: the Swanage Railway obtained an authorising Act of Parliament on 18 July 1881, with share capital of £90,000 and permitted debenture borrowings of £30,000. It was built under the supervision of consulting civil engineer W. R. Galbraith.

The line was opened on 20 May 1885 and was operated from the start by the LSWR. The branch diverged from the main line at Worgret Junction, over 1 mile west of Wareham station; the branch was 10+1/4 mile in length and single track. An extension from Swanage station to the pier tramway had been authorised by the Act, and would be built "if required by the LSWR", but the larger company did not activate this requirement and the pier line was not proceeded with.

The branch intersected the pre-existing Furzebrook Railway, a narrow gauge industrial tramway concerned with conveying ball clay to a river wharf, and the Middlebere Plateway which conveyed the mineral to Poole Harbour; however the proprietors of those lines were slow to arrange interchange facilities with the Swanage Railway. There was one intermediate station, at Corfe Castle. Gradients were undulating, with a ruling gradient of 1 in 76 or 1 in 80, falling for 1 mile from Worgret Junction and then rising to a summit at Furzebrook; falling again to Corfe Castle and rising to a summit about halfway to Swanage, and then falling.

The first train service consisted of five passenger trains each way and a daily goods train; the latter was amalgamated with the passenger service by the operation of mixed trains from 1 August 1885.

The Swanage Railway was amalgamated with the LSWR by Act of Parliament of 25 June 1886. This merely formalised the de facto position, as the LSWR had taken over Swanage Railway liabilities of £2,914 in 1881 and was effectively its paymaster from then.

The existing small Wareham station east of the level crossing was superseded by a larger station west of it, capable of acting as the junction interchange point. The new station was opened on 4 April 1887.

The twentieth century
In the first decade of the twentieth century, taking holidays at seaside resorts became a major pastime, and through trains from London were instituted in this period. The train service was gradually augmented; in the winter of 1931 there were thirteen daily passenger trains on the branch. The ball clay and other mineral workings on the Isle of Purbeck had not been connected to the branch at first, but by this time rail connections were made and the minerals were transported away by rail.

The railways of Great Britain were subject to the Railways Act 1922 by which most of them were "grouped", and the LSWR became a constituent of the new Southern Railway (UK). The Transport Act 1947 imposed further reorganisation, taking the railways into national ownership under British Railways in 1948.

In the period after 1945, the local trains on the branch were operated as push and pull trains. Through carriages from Weymouth trains were conveyed by some branch trains and if the branch engine was propelling the branch coaches, the attached main line coaches would be behind the locomotive, which was sandwiched.

In the 1960s, usage of rural branch lines declined rapidly as road transport for both goods and passengers improved. However, the line was not mentioned in the report The Reshaping of British Railways, published in 1963, which recommended the closure of many such lines.

From 1966, steam traction was eliminated from the area, and the branch passenger service was operated by a diesel-electric multiple-unit set of BR Class 205. In 1969, a through train from London was operated on summer Saturdays, worked by a diesel locomotive.

In May 1967, the government announced passenger services to Swanage would end after a review of unprofitable branch lines. In late 1967, British Railways issued a notice that the Swanage line was to be closed by September 1968. However, due to opposition focused on the problems in providing a replacement bus service during the summer months, the closure was deferred. A Department of the Environment Inspector ruled that the line should remain open, but that decision was later overturned by the Secretary of State for the Environment.

The line closed to passenger services from 3 January 1972, this was standard phrasing which meant no trains ran on the 'from' date. Because there was no winter Sunday service, the last trains actually ran on 1 January. Composed of two three-carriage 1957 British Railways diesel-electric multiple units No. 1110 and No. 1124, the last train left Wareham at 9.45pm bound for Swanage.

With 500 passengers on board, who had each purchased a specially printed British Rail Edmondson card ticket costing 50 pence for an adult and 25 pence for a child, the last train departed a gas-lit Swanage station platform at 10.15pm before passing through Corfe Castle at 10.24pm and pulling into Wareham at 10.40pm.

Furzebrook
At Furzebrook, the railway crossed the mineral tramway belonging to Pike Brothers, known as the Furzebrook Railway; the tramway was used for the transport of ball clay. No connection was made at first, and the Furzebrook line used the track gauge of 2 ft 8½ in (825 mm), but a transfer siding was later installed.

Norden
The Middlebere Plateway connected for transshipment purposes with the branch line at Norden; the plateway was operated by Benjamin Fayle and his successors. The location was used during World War II for separate War Department sidings in connection with rail mounted artillery guns.

After passenger closure
When the line closed to passengers, freight continued to operate from Furzebrook Sidings, where Pike Brothers dispatched clay.

In 1978, further sidings were installed at Furzebrook for the loading of crude oil from the Wytch Farm oilfield; the wells were 3 mile distant, oil being brought to the site by pipeline. The sidings were adjacent to the clay trans-shipment site on the branch.

Preservation
In May 1972, the Swanage Railway Society was formed with the objective of restoring an all-the-year-round community railway service linking to the main line at Wareham, which would be 'subsidised' by the operation of steam-hauled heritage trains during the holidays.

However, during the summer of 1972, BR hired contractors to lift the track between Swanage and Furzebrook sidings. Protests were orchestrated by the Society and an agreement between the Society and BR followed, leading to all the ballast being left in situ plus an extra 1/2 mile of track at Furzebrook. The track from Furzebrook to the main-line junction at Worgret remained in use for ball clay traffic, later also serving the oilfield at Wytch Farm. BR had intended to sell the Swanage station site to a property developer, but, after the intervention of Evelyn King, the MP for South Dorset, at the Society's request, it was offered to Swanage Town Council (STC).

At first, neither the Dorset County Council (DCC) nor the STC backed the Society's plans to restore the railway. DCC planned to build a by-pass for Corfe Castle on the railway land, while STC started to demolish Swanage station. To break the impasse, the Railway Society formed two daughter organisations: the Swanage and Wareham Railway Group, composed of local residents prepared to lobby the local authorities, and the Southern Steam Group, to collect historic railway rolling stock and establish a museum of steam and railway technology. In 1975, after many interventions by local residents, the STC finally granted the Society limited facilities on the Swanage station site. In 1975, DCC acquired the railway land between the end of the line at Furzebrook and Northbrook Road bridge in Swanage, and undertook to "give further consideration" to routes for a Corfe Castle by-pass. The Society piloted a successful application by the Southern Steam Group to the Charity Commissioners for charitable status, and subsequently both the Society and the residents' group joined the new Southern Steam Trust.

Restoration
In 1979, a short line was re-opened the length of King George's playing fields. This was extended, first to Herston Halt, and then to Harman's Cross in 1988, neither of which had been stations previously. In 1995, the railway reopened from Swanage to Corfe Castle and onwards to Norden Park and Ride, another post-BR station. The reopening of the station at Corfe Castle was delayed until Norden was ready, as DCC had concerns about the effects of traffic on Corfe's narrow main street (the A351 road between Wareham and Swanage). On 3 January 2002, the track was temporarily joined with the Furzebrook freight line at Motala and the Purbeck branch line was once again complete, thirty years to the day after it was closed.

Motala and Worgret Junction
On 8 September 2002, a brand new Virgin CrossCountry Class 220 Voyager diesel multiple unit, no. 220018, became the first mainline train to use the new temporary track, when it made a special journey to Swanage, where it was named Dorset Voyager. On 10 May 2007, the permanent connection with Network Rail network was used for the first time, allowing four ex-BR diesel locomotives running from Eastleigh Works to participate in the diesel gala and beer festival. They were later accompanied by a preserved four-carriage electric Class 423 unit provided by South West Trains.

The first public passenger service between Wareham and Swanage since 1972 was "The Purbeck Pioneer", a 12-coach diesel-hauled railtour from London Victoria on 1 April 2009, with a repeat service on 2 April 2009. The first public passenger-carrying steam service since 1967 was "The Dorset Coast Express" from London Victoria on Saturday 2 May 2009, which was hauled by a Southern Railway Battle of Britain class Bulleid Pacific locomotive number 34067 Tangmere. The first Swanage-to-Wareham steam service since 1967 was "The Royal Wessex" on Monday 4 May 2009, hauled by 34067 Tangmere.

Operations
Trains operate between Swanage and Norden Park & Ride every weekend and Bank Holiday from January to the end of the year, and every day of the week from Easter to the end of October. Each year during December, the railway runs Santa Special services as a seasonal attraction. At summer peak times, trains operate up to every 40 minutes, which is one of the highest-frequency operations on a heritage railway in the UK.

As well as the main Society, other groups are based at the Railway. The Southern Catering Project Group has railway wagons stored on the railway.

The railway works at Herston, on the outskirts of Swanage, are not physically connected to the running line. Movements of locomotives for overhaul are carried out by road transporter as the Swanage Railway has been unable to reach agreement with local landowners to build a branch connection into Herston Works.

Aims of the Society
In addition to running the regular service between Swanage, Corfe Castle and Norden, these are:

 * The restoration of the rail link between Swanage and Wareham and the re-establishment of a daily service to connect with main line trains. Recreating 11 mile between Wareham and Swanage on selected dates, initially in 2017.
 * The creation of a comprehensive historical record of steam railways and steam technology in Southern England.

Norden – Wareham restoration
There were no regular timetabled trains between Swanage and Wareham, as the rail service from Swanage operated only as far as Norden. The Society continued to work with Network Rail and the local authorities to identify suitable rolling stock and the infrastructure needed to enable regular services. In July 2010, DCC and Purbeck District councils voted to allocate up to £3 million over three years, to part-fund re-signalling work by Network Rail at Worgret Junction, which connects the Swanage branch to NR's main line near Wareham. The upgrade enables scheduled train services to operate between Wareham, Corfe Castle and Swanage. Swanage Railway ran its first diesel-hauled passenger train into Wareham station on 13 June 2017, to mark the start of a two-year trial public service using diesel trains operating on 60 days during that summer. Trains with diesel locomotives at each end were used because of delays in the refurbishment of the diesel multiple units (dmus) planned to operate the service; passenger loadings were good but the cost was uneconomic. In 2018, as the dmus were still not ready, South Western Railway ran trains to Corfe Castle on summer Saturdays; these were noteworthy for their low price (£10 return from Salisbury and westwards, £5 from Weymouth and Wareham) and involving a record number of reversals for any scheduled service (4, at Yeovil Junction, Yeovil Pen Mill, Weymouth and Wareham). Due to industrial action, these ran on fewer Saturdays than intended. Periodically, railtours from other parts of the country operate over this section.

The Swanage Railway has won the annual Institution of Civil Engineers' (ICE) South West Engineering Award 2017 in ICE's projects costing less than £1 million category. Part of the Swanage Railway's "Project Wareham", the £950,000 work took place over two years between Norden station and half-a-mile short of Worgret Junction: three miles of little-used former Network Rail line restored to a passenger-carrying standard, overgrown embankments and drains cleared, a quarter-mile-long embankment upgraded, and half-a-mile of new railway track laid. The £950,000 work also involved the installation of a level crossing across the Wytch Farm oil field access road near Norden station, and the creation of a nearby road-rail interchange for locomotives and carriages. The interchange construction involved the excavation of 2,500 cubic metres of earth that was recycled and used to extend a quarter-mile-long embankment near Furzebrook.

In 2021, the government announced that the line had been approved for additional funding as part of its "Reverse Beeching" proposals to restore lines closed by the Beeching Report (though the Swanage Railway was not included in the original report). Regular summer services were planned to start in 2022: however, they were then postponed to 2023. A four-day-a-week service has been announced to run between 4 April and 10 September 2023.

Heritage Coach Project
The railway has numerous heritage carriages and a project has been started to restore them. 4 out of the 11 are complete, with 1 currently being worked on:
 * LSWR Ironclad Third Corridor No. 728 is awaiting restoration.
 * SR Maunsell Open Third No. 1323 is awaiting restoration.
 * SR Maunsell Open Third No. 1346 is operational, having entered traffic on 15 October 2022.
 * SR Maunsell Open Third No. 1381 is operational, entering service on 16 July 2019.
 * SR Maunsell Brake Third No. 2768 is awaiting restoration.
 * SR Maunsell Brake Composite No. 6697 is awaiting restoration.
 * SR Maunsell Brake Composite No. 6699 is awaiting restoration.
 * BR Bulleid Brake Third No. 4365 is operational.
 * BR Bulleid Brake Third No. 4366 is undergoing restoration.
 * SR Bulleid Composite No. 5761 is operational.
 * SR Bulleid Open Third (Restaurant) No. 1457 is currently in use as a workshop

Water Tower Project
Swanage Railway recovered a stone based LSWR water tower from Salisbury, and is currently relocating the tower to the South East side of Northbrook Road Bridge. It will also install a Spring Water Extraction System which will save money in the longer term because it is currently dependent on treated water from the mains which causes damage to the steam locomotive boilers.

Rolling stock
For a full list of locomotives, carriages and wagons

title: Swanage Railway


text: User talk:83.99.48.152

title: User talk:83.99.48.152


text:
Talk:A Special Sesame Street Christmas

Untitled
Is there anywhere that I can purchase the video of " A Special Sesame Street Christmas?" Thanks! It really would mean a lot to me  Esther L. Hall  500 North Front Street  Wheeling, West Virginia  26003      easterbunny2955@myway.com
 * Hi, just saw you comment on the A Special Sesame Street Christmas page of Wikipedia. As its a TV special of little real note, it's not on video or DVD currently, nor has it ever. However, tapes of the show still exist in fan's homes. If you try contacting the forum at Muppetcentral.com, or Toughpigs.com, someone might be willing to duplicate their's and sell it to you. -- user:zanimum (I emailed her a version of this response.)

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title: Talk:A Special Sesame Street Christmas


text:
Elizabeth Packard

Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard (28 December 1816 – 25 July 1897), also known as E.P.W. Packard, was an American advocate for the rights of women and people accused of insanity. She was wrongfully committed to an insane asylum by her husband, who claimed that she had been insane for more than three years. At her trial, however, a jury concluded that she was not insane after only seven minutes of deliberation. She later founded the Anti-Insane Asylum Society, campaigning for divorced women to retain custody of their children.

Life
Elizabeth Packard, born in Ware, Massachusetts, was the oldest of three children and the only daughter of Samuel and Lucy Ware. Samuel was a Congregational minister in the Connecticut Valley of the Ware Congregational Church from 1810 to 1826. She was educated at the Amherst Female Seminary, where she studied French, algebra, and the new classics, thanks to the "adequate wealth" of her parents. In 1835, at age 19, she was diagnosed with brain fever, a nineteenth-century term for an illness thought to be caused by a severe emotional upset. When the family physician failed to help her, Samuel Ware decided to admit her to Worcester State Hospital, with Dr. Samuel Woodard at the helm; he was highly regarded for patient care. On the admission papers, Samuel Ware wrote that she suffered from "mental labor" from her occupation as a teacher. She remained in the hospital for six weeks.

At the insistence of her parents, Ware married Calvinist minister Theophilus Packard, fourteen years her senior and said to be "cold and domineering", on 21 May 1839. The couple had six children: Theophilus (b. 1842), Ira Ware (b. 1844), Samuel Ware (b. 1847), Elizabeth Ware (b. 1850), George Hastings (b. 1853), and Arthur Dwight (b. 1858). They lived in Western Massachusetts until September 1854. Beginning in 1857, after having lived in Ohio and Iowa for short periods, the family moved to Manteno, Illinois, and appeared to have a peaceful and uneventful marriage.

Theophilus, however, held quite decisive religious beliefs. After many years of marriage, Elizabeth Packard outwardly questioned her husband's beliefs and began expressing opinions that were contrary to his. While the main subject of their dispute was religion, the couple also disagreed on methods of child rearing and managing family finances, as well as the morality of slavery, with Elizabeth defending abolitionist John Brown, which embarrassed Theophilus.

When Illinois opened its first hospital for the mentally ill in 1851, the state legislature passed a law that within two years of its passage was amended to require a public hearing before a person could be committed against their will, with the exception that a husband could have his wife committed without either a public hearing or her consent. In 1860, Theophilus Packard judged that his wife was "slightly insane", a condition he attributed to "excessive application of body and mind". He arranged for a doctor, J.W. Brown, to speak with her. The doctor pretended to be a sewing machine salesman. During their conversation, Elizabeth complained of her husband's domination and his accusations to others that she was insane. Brown reported this conversation to Theophilus (along with the observation that Mrs. Packard "exhibited a great dislike to me"). Theophilus decided to have Elizabeth committed. She learned of this decision on June 18, 1860, when the county sheriff arrived at the Packard home to take her into custody.

Elizabeth Packard spent the next three years at the Jacksonville Insane Asylum in Jacksonville, Illinois (now the Jacksonville Developmental Center). She was regularly questioned by doctors, but refused to agree that she was insane or to change her religious views. In June 1863, due, in part, to pressure from her children, who wished her to be released, the doctors declared that she was incurable and discharged her. Upon her discharge, Theophilus locked her in the nursery of their home and nailed the windows shut. Elizabeth managed to drop a letter complaining of this treatment out of the window, which was delivered to her friend Sarah Haslett. Sarah Haslett in turn delivered the letter to Judge Charles Starr, who issued a writ of habeas corpus ordering Theophilus to bring Elizabeth to his chambers to discuss the matter. After being presented with Theophilus' evidence, Judge Starr scheduled a jury trial to allow a legal determination of Elizabeth's sanity to take place.

Packard v. Packard
At the subsequent trial of Packard v. Packard, which lasted five days, Theophilus's lawyers produced witnesses from his family who testified that Elizabeth had argued with her husband and tried to withdraw from his congregation. These witnesses concurred with Theophilus that this was a sign of insanity. The record from the Illinois State Hospital stating that Mrs. Packard's condition was incurable was also entered into the court record.

Elizabeth's lawyers, Stephen Moore and John W. Orr, responded by calling witnesses from the neighborhood who knew the Packards but were not members of Theophilus' church. These witnesses testified they never saw Elizabeth exhibit any signs of insanity, while discussing religion or otherwise. The final witness was Dr. Duncanson, who was both a physician and a theologian. Dr. Duncanson had interviewed Elizabeth and he testified that while not necessarily in agreement with all her religious beliefs, she was sane in his view, arguing that "I do not call people insane because they differ with me. I pronounce her a sane woman and wish we had a nation of such women."

The jury deliberated for only seven minutes before deciding the case in Elizabeth's favor. She was legally declared sane, and Judge Charles Starr, who had changed the trial from one about habeas corpus to one about sanity, issued an order that she should not be confined. As scholar Kathryn Burns-Howard described it, "we will never know Elizabeth's true mental state or the details of her family life."

Life after the trial
When Elizabeth Packard returned to the home she shared with her husband in Manteno, Illinois, she found that the night before her release, her husband had rented their home to another family, sold her furniture, had taken her money, notes, wardrobe and children, and had left the state. She appealed to the Supreme Courts of both Illinois and Massachusetts, to where her husband had taken her children, but had no legal recourse, as married women in these states at the time had no legal rights to their property or children (see Coverture). As such, the Anti-Insane Asylum Society was formed.

Packard did not return to her former life, but became a national celebrity, publishing "an armload of books and criss-crossing the United States on a decades-long reform campaign", not only advocating for married women's rights and freedom of speech, but speaking out against "the power of insane asylums". She became what some scholars call "a publicist and lobbyist for better insanity laws". As scholar Kathryn Burns-Howard has argued, Packard reinvented herself in this role, earning enough to support her children and even her estranged husband, from whom she remained separated for the rest of her life. Ultimately, moderate supporters of women's rights in the northern United States embraced her. Some argued that in the midst of the Civil War that a country in the midst of freeing slaves should do the same for others who suffered from abusive husbands. Some argue that she seemed oblivious to her racial prejudice in arguing that White women had a "moral and spiritual nature" and suffered more "spiritual agony" than formerly enslaved African-Americans. Even so, others say that her story provided "a stirring example of oppressed womanhood" that others did not.

Packard petitioned the Illinois and Massachusetts legislatures, and in 1869 legislation was passed in those states allowing married women equal rights to property and custody of their children. Upon the passing of this legislation, Packard's husband voluntarily ceded custody of their children back to her, and her children came to live with her in Chicago.

Packard realized how narrow her legal victory had been, and that the underlying social principles which had led to her confinement still existed. She founded the Anti-Insane Asylum Society and published several books, including Marital Power Exemplified, or Three Years Imprisonment for Religious Belief (1864), Great Disclosure of Spiritual Wickedness in High Places (1865), The Mystic Key or the Asylum Secret Unlocked (1866), and The Prisoners' Hidden Life, Or Insane Asylums Unveiled (1868). In 1867, the State of Illinois passed a "Bill for the Protection of Personal Liberty" which guaranteed that all people accused of insanity, including wives, had the right to a public hearing, as did Massachusetts.

Packard also saw similar laws passed in three other states. Even so, she was strongly attacked by medical professionals and anonymous citizens, unlike others such as Dorothea Dix, with her former doctor from the Jacksonville Insane Asylum, Dr. Andrew McFarland, who privately called her "a sort of Joan D'Arc in the matter of stirring up the personal prejudices". As such, Elizabeth's work on this front was "broadly unappreciated" while she was alive. She only received broader recognition, starting in the 1930s, by a well-known historian of mental illness, Albert Deutsch, and again in the 1960s from those who were "attacking the medical model of insanity".

She died on July 25, 1897. In her obituary, The Inter Ocean described her as "the reformer of insane asylum methods".

Scholarship and legacy
Scholars have written various books and articles about Elizabeth Packard. This has included articles by scholars Myra Samuels Himelhoch and Arthur H. Shaffer in 1979, Paul A. Lombardo in 1992, and Jennifer Rebecca Levinson in 2003. In 1991, Barbara Sapinsley wrote the first book which focused on Elizabeth Packard, entitled The Private War of Mrs. Packard. It was informed by Packard's family in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and took 20 years to find a publisher. Linda V. Carlisle wrote another biography, published by University of Illinois Press in 2010, entitled Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight. In part, she focuses on individual legislation that Packard campaigned for and/or helped bring about. In 2021, Kate Moore wrote a detailed and highly researched story highlighting the character of kindness, service, and perseverance of Elizabeth Packard entitled The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear. Previously, in 2005, Barbara Hambly had referred to Elizabeth Packard, in some detail, in her novel on the insanity of Mary Todd Lincoln, entitled The Emancipator's Wife: A Novel of Mary Todd Lincoln, since the 1867 law Packard advocated for required a jury trial for anyone who was "committed to an insane asylum." Moore would later say that Packard was not mentally ill and was "merely independent," and argued that people should "take inspiration from women like Elizabeth." Troy Rondinone, a professor at Southern Connecticut State University, made a similar argument, arguing that people should remember "Packard’s battle for women in the mental health care system."

Emily Mann wrote the play Mrs. Packard, which premiered in May 2007. In Mann's play, Packard describes her life fully in the insane asylum; it is considered historically accurate.

On August 10, 2023, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker renamed the mental health hospital in Springfield Illinois from Andrew McFarland Mental Health Center to the Elizabeth Packard Mental Health Center, in Packard's honor.

title: Elizabeth Packard