Binayak Sen was found guilty of carrying messages and setting up bank accounts for the rebels who are active in large areas of central and eastern India.

The sentence for sedition and conspiracy handed down in a court in Raipur, capital of the east central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, ended three years of legal proceedings against Sen who received a major award from the Global Health Council in Washington in 2008.

Sen, 58, was presented with the Jonathan Mann Award for Health and Human Rights, named after the former head of the World Health Organization's global AIDS program.

Sen, a pediatrician, set up a community-based healthcare model used throughout India where a health worker advises the rural poor on preventive care, a first for many small villages.

He also has been a staunch critic of governments at the federal and state level for using armed forces, in particular through the military-led Operation Green Hunt, to track down insurgents.

He has argued against many local governments and big businesses for pushing villagers out of mineral-rich forests in order to develop land and to mine for scarce minerals -- the main issue behind the decades-long Maoists' bloody revolt.

Sen repeatedly denied all the charges against him.

Human rights activists and organizations in India -- as well as outside the country -- condemned the sentence, saying state evidence against him was slim as well as manufactured.

Amnesty International issued a statement that the conviction was politically motivated and intended to prevent Sen from "carrying out his legitimate human rights work."

A statement signed by U.S. Professor Noam Chomsky, Indian historian Professor Romila Thapar and dozens of other Indian academics said they were "deeply shocked by the judgment" of the court.

"As a doctor he served the people with devotion and helped to save many lives," the statement said. "As a human rights activist he stood up in defense of the rights of the downtrodden. And yet he has been handed down this sentence whose savagery is unbelievable."

The statement calls on the higher judiciary to "hear his appeal expeditiously, must grant him immediate bail till the end of the appeal process, and must judge his case with enlightened reason."

Immediately after Sen was sentenced, hundreds of activists outside the court began chanting anti-government songs and demanded that he be pardoned.

Also given life sentences were Narayan Sanyal, 74, and Kolkata businessman Piyush Guha, 30. All three were held by the judge to be helping establish a Maoist network.

Sen's relatives said they will seek an appeal of the sentence.

The trial has focused national attention the federal government's battle against the Maoists, often are called Naxalites after the village Naxal in West Bengal state where they were formed in the 1960s.

The Maoists demand that more wealth from the region's natural resources, especially from new mining projects, be spread among the poor. The issue is a sensitive one for state and federal governments, which have been trying to make it safe for large Indian and global mining companies.

A report last year by Forbes India said the state of Orissa alone has 60 percent of India's bauxite reserves, 25 percent of coal, 28 percent of iron ore, 92 percent of nickel and 28 percent of manganese reserves.

The intense but mostly jungle-based battles with the Maoists have claimed thousands of lives over the years.

Maoist activities over the years have meant many rural areas in eastern India have been no-go areas for government authorities and police. Last month, five children were among eight people killed when a bomb suspected to have been planted by Maoists in Bihar state, next to the border with Nepal, exploded.

More than 200 security forces personnel have been killed this year and police often are targets for hostage taking throughout the "red corridor," the name that security forces use to describe the states in which operation Green Hunt is taking place. The corridor, along India's eastern side, includes Chhattisgarh as well as the states of Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

An alarming surge last year to more than 1,130 deaths attributed to Maoist bombs and retaliation against the local population prompted the federal government to launch Operation Green Hunt in late 2009.

The goal of the two-year security operation is to regain the mostly rural territory lost to the insurgents. Around 50,000 federal paramilitary troops and tens of thousands of civilians have been drafted in for the operation.

Maoists often punish local villagers for helping the security forces.

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