{"id":8102,"date":"2013-02-20T10:47:24","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T05:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.entecity.com\/?p=8102"},"modified":"2013-02-20T11:29:52","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T05:59:52","slug":"two-day-general-strike-the-city-comes-to-a-standstill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/two-day-general-strike-the-city-comes-to-a-standstill\/","title":{"rendered":"Two day general strike – The City comes to a standstill"},"content":{"rendered":"

The two day nationwide general strike called by 11 trade unions in protest against the anti-people policies of the UPA government starts today. It is for the first time that a 2 day nationwide strike is being called by the trade unions. The strike will affect functioning of various sectors like banks, insurance firms, transport, telecommunication, oil industry etc.<\/p>\n

The trade unions have raised a 10-point charter of demands which include steps to arrest price rise, strict implementation of labour rules, protection of public sector companies, revision of Minimum Wages Act etc. Trade unions leaders have appealed to the traders to down shutters and join the strike and have also requested the public not to travel on these two days.<\/p>\n

In view of the two day strike, the city will come to a stand still for the next 48 hours. Although hospitals, news papers, milks supplies have been exempted, it is certain that people will find it difficult to go about their daily activities. As usual, Universities and PSC have been forced to postpone the various exams scheduled for these two days. It can be expected that, tourists arriving the city from far-off places will be virtually stranded.<\/p>\n

Even though the demands raised by trade unions are justified, recurring strikes and harthals do no good to the economy of the nation. The disruption of common man\u2019s life should also be taken into account.<\/p>\n

EnteCity<\/a> asked Netizens on their take on the strike and here are some of their responses.<\/h3>\n

\"\"M.K. Kharim, Novelist<\/strong>\u00a0– “i know that we cannot gain anything from the 48 hour strike. But there should be a voice of dissent against this, or else fascism will thrive here. The strike is our voice against the imperialistic and corporate agents who mock the people”<\/p>\n

Rosh Bosh, Techie<\/strong>\u00a0– “It\u2019s a gimmick to sell products on inflated prices. They get to keep the bulk product out of the reach of people so they can sell it to them on higher prices”<\/p>\n

\"\"Devi Sree J, Social Media strategist\u00a0– <\/strong>For all the problems that we are facing in our society, i don’t really think a strike for a day or two can help us sort them out. Firstly, pulling a strike for anything and everything has a lot reduced the value and the necessity of having one! It has become more of a political game now – one party is governing the opposite protests and vice versa. Their agenda is not to give a peaceful life to the citizens out here, but to prove who’s better than who! Which we are all aware of! These strikes instead are disturbing the daily routine and lives of ‘aam’ janta big time.<\/p>\n

Reacting through a strike never helps; we definitely need to find a solution other than conducting strikes. In fact, we should all boycott what’s been happening for 2 days, but unfortunately, noone wants to be hurt by the so called protesters! Gone are those days of non-violence. It’s all about violence now. Sad that no one has the guts to REACT the way it has to be! Not even me!<\/p>\n

\"\"Orion Champadiyil , Graphic Designer<\/strong>\u00a0 – I am no expert in asserting what could be solved by the 48 hour strike and how effective it is going to be. I am not even sure how many of us even know what the real reason behind the strike is. A percentage of people hear about a strike and it is simply a black letter holiday for them. They sit back and enjoy the TV or sleep two hours extra. For many others, it is going to slow their lives down. There might be people waiting for a loan from a Bank so that they could pay their daughter’s fees before the last date. What happens to them?<\/p>\n

\"\"Shameer Thaha, Entrepreneur<\/strong>\u00a0–\u00a0The strike is counter productive to the growth of the economy. No one benefits but the laggards.<\/p>\n

There should be other ways of getting one’s point across to the government. This is a 2 day holiday – loss of pay for many.<\/p>\n

\"\"Brv Mangalasserril, Ad person & Screenplay Writer<\/strong>–\u00a0The ruling dispensation is so very insensitive to the suffering of the common man but then the people who think that a two day strike can solve all the issues of the common man are equally insensitive\u2026<\/p>\n

It makes only negative difference to people.. the daily labourer and the bottom of the pyramid that leads a hand to mouth existence will suffer even more\u2026 the 10 janpaths will never see this.. Life will go on but after a two day organised nonsense life will be even more merciless<\/p>\n

\"\"Christin Emmanuel George, CEO Mindhelix<\/strong> – \u00a0The economy of the country is in a mess as it is, people who live on daily wages are taking the hit. If anyone cared about the nation, there should be some other way of protest that does not include Rs 20,000 Cr as the national loss. I may be against a lot of government policies, but it does not mean that i can go with a bulldozer and dig a hole across an NH as protest. Protests should be organized by people who feel for the cause, it should avoid anyone who does not want to be in the protest.<\/p>\n

As a democracy, popular protests is a key factor in providing feedback to the rulers. But if I don’t want to protest, I should be able to live my day as I see fit. That is my fundamental right. These kinds of protests take out my fundamental right to move freely in the country. Protest to clean, not to cripple.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rittu J Jacob,\u00a0Trainee at Harrisons Malayalam Ltd<\/strong> –\u00a0“I have completely stopped following any news related to strike and hartaal as none in my memory has proved to be successful, India being the world’s largest democratic country, I strongly condemn protest which hand cuffs the freedom of citizens to do things they wish to”. Even the members of protesting organizations who call for strikes are affected as many live with money they earn through daily wages.<\/p>\n

\"\"Andrine Mendez , CEO, Salt Mango Tree<\/strong> – \u00a0Its an utter waste of time. our offices in delhi & mumbai are operational but the Kochi one is shutdown, 100% literacy yet no brainer ways of actually bringing in change. If you want to change how things are,do something constructive than disrupting the system & everything within it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two day nationwide general strike called by 11 trade unions in protest against the anti-people policies of the UPA government starts today. It is for the first time that a 2 day nationwide strike is being called by the trade unions. The strike will affect functioning of various sectors like banks, insurance firms, transport, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4],"tags":[192,452],"class_list":["post-8102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-news","category-general","tag-national","tag-trivandrum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}