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India hit by general strike over economic "reforms"
A day-long, national strike in India has disrupted air, rail and banking services across the country.
Left-wing trade unions are protesting at the government's economic reforms. It is the first national strike since the Congress party won power in 2004.
Left-wing trade unions are protesting at the government's economic reforms. It is the first national strike since the Congress party won power in 2004.
Private airlines cancelled flights as airport staff walked out in protest at plans to privatise airports.
Indian communist parties are key supporters of the ruling coalition, but they oppose major economic reforms.
The BBC's Sanjeev Srivastava in Delhi says the government is in a tricky situation as it needs the support of the communists in the national parliament to remain in power.
But it also wants to press ahead with reforms to ensure that the Indian economy, now the fourth largest in Asia, continues to grow at a healthy rate.
'Success'
Domestic flights have been particularly badly hit, with thousands of travellers stranded.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) said international flights were operating normally. The government has drafted in 3,000 air force personnel in an attempt to avert major disruption.
Unions say the strike is affecting services in most of India's 78 airports.
"The strike is a 100% success," MK Ghosal, general secretary of the Airports Authority of India Employees Union, told Reuters news agency.
Airports are particularly affected as many employees oppose government plans to sell 74% stakes in the Delhi and Mumbai hubs.
The eastern city of Calcutta, home to a 28-year-old Communist government, was worst hit by the strike.
The BBC's Subir Bhaumik in Calcutta says operations at the city airport ground to a halt and public transport, including the city's undeground railway, did not operate.
Cargo handling at Calcutta's port also stalled after workers there joined the strike.
Government and private offices, including info-tech companies, remained closed. Schools and colleges were also shut.
The strike has also had a major impact in the southern state of Kerala, another left-wing stronghold.
In the capital, Delhi, riot police were deployed at airport terminals.
"The morning roster staff have all reported for duty," an airports spokesman said.
But reports said there were fewer passengers than normal.
The BBC's Monica Chadha in Mumbai says more than five million federal and state government employees in western Maharashtra state are participating in the strike.
Public transport services in Mumbai (Bombay) have not been affected, but government offices and banks are running with fewer staff.
'Warning'
Many bank workers also stayed at home to protest against foreign investments in pension funds.
"This will be just a warning for the government," said MK Pandhe, general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).
"Unless the government undertakes a comprehensive review of its policies, we will call for a much bigger action - we may go for longer strikes," he added.
India's communist parties have been leading protests across the country against the government's economic policies.
They oppose the government's policy of selling off some of its stake in state-owned corporations to raise funds for investment, privatisation of airports and allowing foreign investment in pension funds.
India's coalition government, led by the Congress Party, relies on four left-wing parties to maintain its majority in parliament.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4292484.stm
Indian communist parties are key supporters of the ruling coalition, but they oppose major economic reforms.
The BBC's Sanjeev Srivastava in Delhi says the government is in a tricky situation as it needs the support of the communists in the national parliament to remain in power.
But it also wants to press ahead with reforms to ensure that the Indian economy, now the fourth largest in Asia, continues to grow at a healthy rate.
'Success'
Domestic flights have been particularly badly hit, with thousands of travellers stranded.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) said international flights were operating normally. The government has drafted in 3,000 air force personnel in an attempt to avert major disruption.
Unions say the strike is affecting services in most of India's 78 airports.
"The strike is a 100% success," MK Ghosal, general secretary of the Airports Authority of India Employees Union, told Reuters news agency.
Airports are particularly affected as many employees oppose government plans to sell 74% stakes in the Delhi and Mumbai hubs.
The eastern city of Calcutta, home to a 28-year-old Communist government, was worst hit by the strike.
The BBC's Subir Bhaumik in Calcutta says operations at the city airport ground to a halt and public transport, including the city's undeground railway, did not operate.
Cargo handling at Calcutta's port also stalled after workers there joined the strike.
Government and private offices, including info-tech companies, remained closed. Schools and colleges were also shut.
The strike has also had a major impact in the southern state of Kerala, another left-wing stronghold.
In the capital, Delhi, riot police were deployed at airport terminals.
"The morning roster staff have all reported for duty," an airports spokesman said.
But reports said there were fewer passengers than normal.
The BBC's Monica Chadha in Mumbai says more than five million federal and state government employees in western Maharashtra state are participating in the strike.
Public transport services in Mumbai (Bombay) have not been affected, but government offices and banks are running with fewer staff.
'Warning'
Many bank workers also stayed at home to protest against foreign investments in pension funds.
"This will be just a warning for the government," said MK Pandhe, general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).
"Unless the government undertakes a comprehensive review of its policies, we will call for a much bigger action - we may go for longer strikes," he added.
India's communist parties have been leading protests across the country against the government's economic policies.
They oppose the government's policy of selling off some of its stake in state-owned corporations to raise funds for investment, privatisation of airports and allowing foreign investment in pension funds.
India's coalition government, led by the Congress Party, relies on four left-wing parties to maintain its majority in parliament.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4292484.stm
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The UPA, which is sustained in power by the parliamentary votes of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its allies in the Left Front, was propelled into office just 16 months ago on a tidal wave of popular anger at the social dislocation and misery produced by capitalist globalization.
But the new government has pressed forward with the very same program as that implemented by the previous coalition headed by the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although the Congress-led UPA refrains from the BJP’s “India Shining” celebration of rising stock prices and social inequality and routinely professes its concern for the 325 million Indians who live on less than a $1 a day, it, no less than the BJP, is determined to make India a cheap-labor haven for world capital and a base from which the Indian bourgeoisie can fight for profits and geo-political influence on the world stage.
The massive support for today’s protest across the length and breadth of India is testimony to the elemental urge of India’s workers and toilers to find a means to defend and secure their basic economic and social rights.
However, those who are leading today’s protest—the union bureaucracy and above all the CPI (M)-led Left Front—are adamantly opposed to mobilizing the working class as an independent political force and making it, through the struggle for a comprehensive program of socialist and democratic demands, the vanguard of a movement of all India’s toiling masses and oppressed against the capitalist social order.
Their aim in initiating today’s protest is to harness the growing social discontent to their leadership so as to be able to shackle it to the Congress-led UPA government.
The 16-point program adopted by “the National Convention of Trade Unions,” the ad hoc body through which the protest has been called, raises some of the urgent issues facing the working class. These include: opposition to privatization, contracting out and casualization; a halt to pro-employer changes to labor laws; enactment and enforcement of minimum standards and social benefits for agricultural laborers, the tens of millions of workers employed by small firms, and those working in the Special Economic Zones and Export Processing Zones; and the strengthening of the public distribution system which provides food to the poor.
But the Convention’s political orientation is summed up in its appeal to the big business Congress government “to immediately effect a directional change.” The CPI (M), for its part, has repeatedly proclaimed its intention to sustain the Congress-led UPA in power for a full five-year term and has formed an electoral bloc with the Congress and the casteist Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for the coming Bihar state election.
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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/indi-s29.shtml