Millions of people yesterday went on strike throughout India, unions said, as workers angry at the government’s labor policies brought travel chaos across the country.
The widespread action was in opposition to what unions called the “anti-worker and anti-people policies” of right-wing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
They highlighted the recent privatization of public firms and natural resources, and demanded an increase in the minimum wage and pensions.
Photo: AFP
Farmers and students joined some of the protests called by 10 trade unions that claim 250 million members between them.
Bus and train services and state-owned banks bore the brunt of the national strike action that was staged in defiance of government warnings of “consequences” for anyone who took part.
Protesters blocked roads and railway tracks, while those at rallies also chanted slogans against the nationality law passed on Dec. 11 last year that opponents say is anti-Muslim and has sparked widespread demonstrations.
In West Bengal state, strikers targeted railways and key highways and burned tires on a main road in the state capital, Kolkata. Protesters carried red flags at rallies in the city.
There had been some “clashes” in Kolkata and other districts between supporters and opponents of the strike, police said.
The eastern states of Bihar and Odisha, Maharashtra in the west, Haryana in the north and Kerala and Karnataka in the south were also hit by the action.
Some workers at state oil and coal firms joined the strike.
The government had warned strikers that they would face “consequences,” including having wages deducted and other disciplinary action if they joined the protest.
The strike has added to pressure on the Modi government amid protests over the nationality law, in which more than 25 people have been killed.
“The attitude of the government is that of contempt towards labor,” said the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, one of the groups organizing yesterday’s strike.
Opposition parties have backed the strikers. Rahul Gandhi, former leader of the main opposition Indian National Congress party, said that the government had “created catastrophic unemployment” in a Twitter message praising the action.
The government’s move to privatize big state-run firms as it struggles to get out of a severe economic slowdown has riled the opposition and unions.
The Indian National Statistical Office on Tuesday forecast that annual growth would slow to 5 percent this year, the slowest pace in 11 years.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
RSS