Schools, shops and government offices were shut in some Indian states on Thursday as protesters blocked road and rail traffic as part of a one-day nationwide strike against sweeping economic reforms announced by the government last week.
Opposition parties and trade unions called for shopkeepers, traders and
labourers in India to block railway lines and close markets across India
on Thursday in a nationwide day of protest against the government's
economic reforms allowing FDI in retail sector, hike diesel prices and
cap the number of cooking gas cylinders to families.
- The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), joined by smaller parties from both the political left and right, called for the strike to protest against a 14 percent hike in heavily subsidised diesel prices, and a government decision that opens the door to foreign supermarket chains to invest in India.
- The measures, part of a package of big-bang economic reforms aimed at boosting a sharply slowing economy, have triggered a political firestorm.
- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's biggest ally pulled out of his shaky coalition on Tuesday, raising the risk of an early election. Bangalore, India's IT and outsourcing hub, was hard hit by the strike, but in Mumbai, the country's financial capital, banks and offices were open as usual. In New Delhi, shops were shut in BJP constituencies and there were fewer cars on the road, but the central business district was untouched.
Across the country, morning commuters were left stranded at train stations and bus-stops as protesters squatted on railway tracks and laid siege to some bus depots. Supporters of the right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP and other opposition parties also blocked some roads with burning tyres.
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