Dear Friends: Today (29 02 2012) has the following:
Yoga and sex scandals:No surprise here (Comment: It is revealation to me) Image of the Day:February 28 West Bengal's Babus brave Strike for Banerjee (Note:I reproduce the artil=cle below) From the International Herald Tribune: Blame the Victim Mentality: In India sexual violence throught the country has been variously attributed to women's dress, behaviour, caste and presence in insurgent areas. Now the Kolka Strike: -bhuban West Bengal’s Babus Brave Strike for Banerjee By ANURADHA SHARMA Bikas Das/Associated PressA policeman in plainclothes at a rally by supporters of the Communist Party of India during a strike in Kolkata on Tuesday. At the Writers Building in Dalhousie, West Bengal, about 500 people spent Monday night in their offices. They slept on desks, in chairs and on the floor. The office cafeteria stayed open until midnight and reopened at 5 a.m. to feed the crowds. The office sleepover was just one of many taking place in the state after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee warned the more than one million government employees against participation in the nationwide bandh, or strike, called for Tuesday by labor unions. Employees who participated in the strike were threatened with a “break in service,” which would mean their service record with the government would be set back to zero, wiping out their pensions, perks that come with seniority and promotion opportunities. Perhaps not surprisingly, estimates of state government employee attendance were as high as 100 percent in some offices on Tuesday. “As government employees, we are upholding what the government has directed us to do,” said Shipra Chakraborty, who works in the finance department at Writers Building. A resident of Jagatballabhpur, 35 kilometers, or 22 miles, from Kolkata, the state capital, she stayed at a family member’s place at Bowbazar near the office Monday night. “We are opposed to the politics of bandhs,” she added. In West Bengal, where residents have become used to, and regularly participate in, total labor shutdowns when strikes are called, Tuesday marked a sharp break with the past. Public transportation, including over 1,000 state-run buses in Kolkata alone, continued to operate, and the atmosphere was more like a relaxed Sunday than a battened-down bandh. Ms. Banerjee, who herself was a frequent caller of bandhs before she became chief minister in 2011, said Tuesday that West Bengal’s long history of “bandh politics” had ended. “The destructive culture of bandh has ended today. Let no one have the courage to call a bandh again,” she said. She toured government buildings, including the Writers Building, telling employees she was proud of them. Outside the government offices, and Ms. Banerjee’s direct control, much remained shuttered on Tuesday, and there were some violent clashes in parts of Kolkata and the rest of the state. Reports from some other parts of the state, including the industrial areas of Asansol and Durgapur and the tea gardens of North Bengal claimed that work continued as if no strike had been called. Outside West Bengal, the strike’s influence was noticeable but not crippling. Traffic in Mumbai and Delhi was thin, as were crowds on public transport. Banks were closed and ferry services less frequent. Labor unions are protesting what they call the central government’s anti-labor policies. The Center of Trade Unions, which is backed by the Communist Party of India, upgraded what started as an industrial strike to a general strike, citing overreliance on contract workers and privatization of state businesses. In Kolkata, many privately owned shops were closed Tuesday, often because the owners said they didn’t have insurance against damage that strike organizers might inflict if they had remained open. Uttam Sharma, owner of Shivam Furniture at Picnic Gardens, said he kept his shop and factory, which employs a dozen people, closed on Tuesday because of the bandh. “We do not get any insurance cover for bandh violence,” he said. “My workers would not have been able to reach either. That is what used to happen in all strikes. We did not want to take risk in this strike either and did not try opening the factory at all,” he added. At about 10.30 a.m. at Masterda Surya Sen subway station in Kolkata on Tuesday morning, there was no line at the ticket counter and about 50 people in a train compartment. On any other day at the same time, doors of the compartment would barely manage to close, squeezing people in like sardines. Buses plying the streets had just a dozen passengers, unlike normal days when people would be hanging from the doors. Atuk Bhutia, an employee for an Internet technology company, worked from home on Tuesday. “I did not want to take any risks,” he said. Leaders from Ms. Banerjee’s party, the Trinamool Congress, said people were not venturing out because of the fear instilled in them by the violent bandhs during that 34 years that the opposition had ruled the state. Madan Mitra, senior leader of the Trinamool Congress and the state’s transport minister, visited the Sealdah railway station in the morning, speaking to commuters and urging them not to be afraid to defy the bandh. “People are still scared. Slowly the fear will be overcome and people will feel confident to come out on a bandh day,” Mr. Mitra told reporters. Surjya Kanta Mishra, the opposition leader from the Communist Party of India, criticized the government for infringing upon state employees’ right to protest. Alluding to the “break in service” that employees where threatened with, he warned there could be a “break in government.” Just as Ms. Banerjee had declared the bandh a failure, he declared it a success Tuesday evening. _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
