Fuel Price Strike Cripples Cities Across India

[Watchman]

Fuel Price Strike Cripples Cities Across India


<--- http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/07/05/world/20100706-Strike-India-ss-7.html

Protests against a recent increase in fuel prices shut
down markets, schools, airports and businesses across
India on Monday. At left, stranded passengers at
a railway station in Gauhati.

The size of the nationwide strike far exceeded
expectations, although no official estimates of
crowds were immediately available. Fear of
violence or transportation snarls kept some of
India’s largest companies closed Monday,
including the information technology giants
Wipro and Infosys in Bangalore.

Republican Party of India workers stopped trains in
Mumbai. Opposition parties, including the Bharatiya
Janata Party, or B.J.P., and the Communist Party
of India (Marxist), say the reforms and fuel price
increases are misguided and harmful to the
average citizen.

Indian police clashed with protesters in Mumbai.
Thousands of people were arrested as violence
flared in some cities.

The demonstrations were spearheaded by political
parties that oppose the governing coalition, currently
led by the Indian National Congress. Taxi drivers
kept their cars off the road, making it hard for people
without vehicles to move around the city.

Buses and commuter trains were running much less
frequently than usual after protesters attacked
some buses and blocked train tracks.

Despite the scope of the protest,
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that the
fuel price increases would not be rolled back.

 

[longbow]

India has huge budget deficit as well as high debt/GDP. They need to try and reduce some of the fuel subsidy to reduce deficit but citizens are too poor to afford it. Unlike China where there is already an inbalance in wealth, India's situation is even more chronic.

Beijing has been actively bumping up workers' pay, imposing minimum wages. This reduces exploitation by employers.