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250M people participate in nationwide strike in India

peoplesdispatch.org

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Re: 250M people participate in nationwide strike in India

#21

Post by temp345675634 »

amriksohata wrote: post #12

Farmers have been commiting suicide since the west imposed the green revolution in India, offering pesticides and chemicals changing crop yields and creating a big disparity between farmers, some became very rich and some poor. As a result they were already angry, this bill now is being used by opposition parties to spread misinformation, which gives them a combined reason to go out and protest. It is also funded by…

Yes, blame everything on the "West", the missionaries, liberals and the "opposition". If India was on it's "own" it would have been richer than USA, more progressive than EU and pigs would be flying by now.

Re: 250M people participate in nationwide strike in India

#23

Post by oliTwist23 »

nervous_ring wrote: post #19
georgeplusplus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for elaborating, the article doesn’t really explain exactly what measures the Indian government did to inflame such a protest but between the communist flags the protestors hold, and what groups comprises the bulk of protestors I had an idea.

A)Funded by opposition and foreign players. Always a presence whenever civil unrest is involved. B)India has a love-hate relationship with communism. We are a poor country because of it, but poverty pushes more people to communism. C)Whenever you see an article about India, don't put it in white or black. With a country of about 1.5 billion, nothing is black or white, ever.

Very well put.

Re: 250M people participate in nationwide strike in India

#24

Post by AndrewBissell »

_iyig wrote: post #10

Any news articles or third-party reports to confirm that figure of 250M strikers? The only sources I've found on it so far are far-left political websites. I hesitate to trust e.g. Fox News when reporting on the size of Trump's inauguration; likewise, I am skeptical to trust far-left websites reporting on the size of a far-left rally (as pics of hammer-and-sickle flags seem to indicate). An independent report on the…

It's unfair to be downvoting you for this, even as the OP and someone sympathetic with the strikes I can acknowledge that this is a motivated source and the headline number is probably embellished. I can't edit now but it might be good for mods to just remove the specific number from the title.

Re: 250M people participate in nationwide strike in India

#25

Post by gurleen_s »

My father was a farmer in Punjab. I have family at these protests right now. I can tell you that the anger is very real. Their livelihoods are being stripped away from them just so Modi’s friends can make a quick buck. I like free markets, but it should not have to come at the expense of those at the bottom of the chain.

Re: 250M people participate in nationwide strike in India

#26

Post by nervous_ring »

kevingadd wrote: post #14
nervous_ring wrote: post #5

For the Western audience, tl;dr is that these reforms will allow free market to decide the price. This has made a lot of people very mad who had their own monopoly. Farmers do have legitimate concerns about predatory pricing by private institutions but as a whole, the agriculture employs 45% of the country's population and contributes a measly 14% or so to the economy. There's a big problem of hidden unemployment in…

According to the article there are many other objections/demands and this is not just about free market pricing: Some of the key demands contained in the 12-point charter put forward by the organizers include withdrawal of a series of laws recently passed by the Modi government repealing key labor and farm price protections, a rollback in the recent disinvestment policies in major government-owned enterprises, implem…

India is a mess precisely because of the never ending virtue signalling and good-on-paper rules.

We always have the most protectionist rules and then we wonder why industry isn't growing. Welfare schemes don't work, period. 99% money ends up in a politician's bank. Disinvestment is a necessity. Government-owned institutions provide sub-par service and are a huge money drain of taxpayer money. I live in a tier 2 city and get daily power cuts for hours. And then the "public servants" have the gall to screw up the power transformer for 30 hours after making thousands of millions of loss. Not acceptable anymore.

Idk the populist government is finally bringing on some unpopular policies to reduce tax wastage and the detractors are up in arms. Timing is horrible, I'll give you that.

Re: 250M people participate in nationwide strike in India

#28

Post by logicuce »

gurleen_s wrote: post #25

My father was a farmer in Punjab. I have family at these protests right now. I can tell you that the anger is very real. Their livelihoods are being stripped away from them just so Modi’s friends can make a quick buck. I like free markets, but it should not have to come at the expense of those at the bottom of the chain.

Anger can be real, but don't know if it is informed and rational. All I hear is that it is bad, but not able to find information how. Most of the protestors don't even know the details of what is being changed.

And, frankly, at this stage if you think somebody like Modi or Rahul Gandhi or Kejriwal is about helping their friends make quick buck, the story doesn't add up. In their position they would think and act for legacy and it becomes much more a capability issue instead of intent.

Re: 250M people participate in nationwide strike in India

#30

Post by andrewla »

The article is very passionate, and as a resident of the US, I don't have a lot of context here. Just wanted to dump out some of what I found when looking deeper into this.

Apparently 10 major unions have called for a strike for somewhere between 11-13 points of demands [1][2][3], though all sources seem to say "12 point charter of demands". Here are the 13, the first and the last are sometimes included and sometimes not:

0 (possibly just a preamble?): Urgent measures for containing price-rise through universalisation of public distribution system and banning speculative trade in commodity market

1 Containing unemployment through concrete measures for employment generation

2 Strict enforcement of all basic labour laws without any exception or exemption and stringent punitive measures for violation of labour laws.

3 Universal social security cover for all workers

4 Minimum wages of not less than Rs 15,000/- per month with provisions of indexation

5 Assured enhanced pension not less than Rs.3,000/- p.m. for the entire working population

6 Stoppage of disinvestment in Central/State PSUs

7 Stoppage of contractorisation in permanent perennial work and payment of same wage and benefits for contract workers as regular workers for same and similar work

8 Removal of all ceilings on payment and eligibility of bonus, provident fund; increase the quantum of gratuity.

9 Compulsory registration of trade unions within a period of 45 days from the date of submitting application; and immediate ratification of ILO Conventions C 87 and C 98

10 Stoppage of Pro Employer Labour Law Amendments

11 Stoppage of FDI in Railways, Insurance and Defence

12 (some documents omit this one) In addition to these the central trade unions are also demanding the withdrawal of the Land Acquisition amendment bill/ordinance.

It appears that there are 11 central unions [4], and all but one have called for a strike [5], at least as of January 2020, though it's unclear if that is still the situation.

[1] http://citucentre.org/389-12-point-charter-of-demands-of-joi... has 11 points, but maybe the introduction is a 12th?

[2] https://www.jornalet.com/documents/12-demandas.pdf has 12

[3] http://citucentre.org/component/k2/75-12-point-charter-of-de... has 13 lines

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_unions_in_India

[5] https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/why...

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