India’s Poor Cry Foul Over Fuel Prices
Posted on July 5, 2010, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Business, India, International.
MUMBAI, India — Kids played cricket on empty streets and motorbikes easily zoomed through normally congested intersections in Mumbai as opposition parties pulled off a nationwide strike Monday to protest a fuel price hike.
The strike, called by the main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the leftist bloc, closed businesses and schools and disrupted ground and air transportation. Police made thousands of arrests and sporadic acts of violence were reported in cities across the country.
The one-day strike represents a protest by the opposition parties and the nation’s lower and middle classes against the Congress-led government’s policies that have led to spiraling food and fuel prices.
While India’s economy, one of the fastest growing in the world, is expected to increase by more than 8 percent this year, much of the country’s poor are left out. India — where one in two children is malnourished — accounts for a third of the world’s 1.4 billion poor people, according to the World Bank.
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