Tens of millions of public sector workers have gone on a day-long strike across India, protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic policies, particularly his plans to push for greater privatisation.

Thousands of state-run banks, government offices and factories were closed on Friday, and public transport disrupted, in the strike called by 10 trade unions.

"This strike is against the central government, this strike is for the cause of the working people," said Ramen Pandey, of the Indian National Trade Union Congress.

"Our strike will be 100 percent successful ... we will prove that this strike is the world's largest ever."

WATCH - India: The next global economic powerhouse?

Union officials said about 180 million workers, including state bank employees, school teachers, postal workers, miners and construction workers, were participating, but the figure could not be independently verified.

The strike was called after talks with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley broke down, with union leaders rejecting his offer to raise the minimum wage for unskilled workers from 6,396 rupees ($96) a month to 9,100 rupees ($136).

Workers are demanding the government dump plans to close unproductive factories, raise foreign investment caps in some industries and sell off stakes in state-run companies - over fears that creeping privatisation will jeopardise jobs.

The unions said the government should guarantee both social security and healthcare for all, and should be hiking the minimum wage to double what it is offering in order to keep up with inflation.

Indian media said transport and essential services such as power and water supplies were not affected in major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai. Private banks were operating and schools and colleges were open.

According to broadcaster NDTV, the strike had its greatest impact in the southern states of Karnataka and Kerala, ruled by the opposition Indian National Congress and Left Democratic Front respectively.

Daily life was also hit in the eastern state of Bihar, where shop and business establishments were shut and train and road services were disrupted by union activists.

More than 20 protesters were arrested after they damaged two government buses in West Bengal, senior police official Anuj Sharma told the AFP news agency.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a landslide victory in May 2014 general elections, promising business-friendly reforms to boost the economy.

According to the latest budget, the government aims to raise about $8.3bn through privatisation in 2016-17 and shut down some state-run firms, after losses exceeded $4bn in the last financial year. </s> New Delhi (AP) — Millions of public sector workers across India went on strike Friday to protest economic reforms, saying the government’s plan for raising the country’s minimum wage for unskilled workers did not go far enough.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government says the reforms, including opening some sectors to private and foreign investment, are needed to boost growth.

About a dozen of the country’s labor unions said the government should guarantee both social security and health care for all, and should be hiking the minimum wage to double what it is offering in order to keep up with inflation. Some states including Kerala and the territory of Delhi already have minimum wage levels that are higher than the new monthly target of 9,100 rupees to 13,598 rupees, or $136 to $204.

“The strike is on. We are getting good response,” said Tapan Kumar Sen, head of the Center for Indian Trade Unions, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

The unions are also unhappy about government plans to pull investments from public services and allow more foreign direct investment in certain sectors.

While the capital of New Delhi and the financial hub of Mumbai saw little impact from the one-day strike, normal life was severely affected elsewhere, including Kerala, where the state government led by the opposition Communist Party of India backed the protest. In badly affected regions, public transportation and government offices were shut down.

Union officials said about 180 million workers — including state bank employees, school teachers, postal workers, miners and construction workers — were participating, but the figure could not be independently verified.

The strike did not affect private banks or businesses. </s> FUELLING TROUBLE: The government backed down from a similar proposal in 2014 following union protests.

Senior government officials tasked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with reviewing energy security are recommending the break up of the country’s coal monopoly, Coal India Ltd., within a year.

Attempts to break up the world’s biggest coal miner would be met with strong resistance from powerful unions representing the company’s employees of more than 3,50,000. The government backed down from a similar proposal in the face of union protests in 2014.

About 70 per cent of India’s power generation is coal-based. The country is the world’s third-largest producer and its third-biggest importer of coal, which the government wants to change by boosting local coal production.

In a presentation seen by Reuters, government officials recommend that Coal India, with a stock market valuation of $28 billion, should be broken up into seven companies, which they say will make it more competitive and efficient.

The proposal, dated November 30, is expected to be presented to Mr. Modi soon, three government officials with direct knowledge of the situation said. Calls to a Coal India spokesman went unanswered.

A source close to Power and Coal Minister, Piyush Goyal, said the ministry would review its stand on Coal India depending on what the Prime Minister says. Coal India is the country’s second-biggest employer, but critics say it is bloated and inefficient.

Under Mr. Modi’s government though, production has risen sharply as environmental and other clearances to develop mines have been fast-tracked. The company is also spending billions of dollars on buying modern machinery to increase productivity.

The government wants Coal India to increase production of coal to 1 billion tonnes a year by 2020 from about 539 million tonnes in the fiscal year that ended in March.

Mr. Modi was exploring a breakup of Coal India before taking office, Reuters reported in 2014, but the government put the idea on the back burner following protests by unions.

Unions fear restructuring Coal India would almost certainly lead to job cuts and work being outsourced to private companies. “What happens is that once a big company is broken down, it is easier to control the smaller ones,” said D.D. Ramanandan of the All India Coal Workers’ Federation, which he said, represents more than 1,00,000 workers of the company.

“But if it happens, we will oppose it. We will oppose it through all ways possible, including strike.” — Reuters </s> It’s been a busy week for geopolitical meetings. While Western leaders convened in Washington and Korean leaders got together in the demilitarized zone, India’s Narendra Modi headed to the Wuhan province in China to talk with President Xi Jinping for a two-day informal summit beginning Friday. It’s a meeting worth watching: As a new world order takes shape, these two countries go from peripheral players to central drivers. These five facts explain what you need to know.

In 2000, China accounted for just 3.6 percent of the global economy; today it’s responsible for nearly 15 percent of the world’s economic output, and by 2032 it’s poised to surpass the U.S. to claim the world’s top spot. It’s done so by harnessing the power of state-capitalism, intertwining its political power with its financial clout at a scale never seen in the global free market.

India is still in the beginning stages of its economic ascent, but it’s unmistakably underway—over the next four years, the IMF projects the Indian economy will grow on average by nearly 8 percent annually. Modi has overseen a remarkable crackdown in corruption and bureaucracy in the world’s largest free-market democracy by population (1.32 billion people). He is also presiding over a much-needed modernization of the country’s infrastructure, and is shoring up its finances through an ambitious new goods and services tax. By 2027, India is expected to be the world’s third-largest economy behind only the US and China.

Between 1990 and 2011, nearly 450 million Chinese were raised out of poverty. Over roughly the same time period (1994 to 2012), more than 130 million Indians escaped poverty, a 50 percent reduction in its poverty rate.

For years, the consensus was that a rising middle-class would force Chinese leadership to reform its political system to accommodate an empowered citizenry that would demand more freedoms. That didn’t happen, although to Beijing’s credit, Chinese leadership proactively began addressing concerns like corruption and air pollution before they reached crisis levels. The recent (and continuing) political turbulence in the West has also dulled the appeal of free-market democracy in the eyes of many.

India is another story. Modi has failed to live up to his campaign promise to create 10 million new jobs a year; by some estimates, he hasn’t even been able to hit 10 percent of that mark. India’s healthcare system also remains underwhelming, and its issues will become more pronounced as the economic fortunes of average citizens continue to rise. (The government has announced plans to dramatically expand basic health coverage, but doesn’t have the resources to come close to fully delivering on those lofty promises.) Both these oversights have given Modi’s political opposition an opening ahead of Indian elections slated for spring 2019.

Yet Indians are still bullish on the future—70 percent of Indians today are “satisfied” with the way things are going in the country, up from 29 percent in 2013. Given the immense strides India has made in the last two decades, that optimism is understandable. However, while globalization has already begun roiling politics in the West, it has yet to do so in emerging markets.

That moment of reckoning is coming. According to the World Bank, 69 percent of jobs in India today are at risk of automation in the dawning era of AI. And automation isn’t just coming for India: 77 percent of jobs in China are also susceptible to the coming tech revolution. But China, maybe more than any other country in the world, is equipped to handle it. Beijing has shown time and again that it prizes social stability over economic gain, and given its unusual control over the entire Chinese economy, the country is positioned to ensure that mass-scale economic displacement remains carefully managed and in check. Free-market democracies, not so much.

Given today’s chaotic politics and the disruptive tech headwinds looming, the Chinese political model has never been more appealing. But that system comes at a cost—namely a growing surveillance state, spanning from a national video network of 176 million cameras nationwide (with a plan to install 250+ million more by 2020) to a “social credit system” that aggregates aspects of person’s history—from cheating on school exams to missing alimony payments to visiting “problematic” websites—into a composite score to assess a person’s trustworthiness. That in turn could determine what kind of doctors you can see, what dating websites you can join, or where you’re allowed to travel.

Such measures are fundamentally incompatible with liberal democracy, especially one like India where elections are regular and fiercely contested, speech is (mostly) free, and the courts are independent. That hasn’t stopped Modi from trying to assert more control, proposing a law earlier this month to strip any journalist that disseminated “fake news” (as deemed by the government) of their credentials. (That law was pulled following publicly outcry.) India’s much-vaunted Aadhar biometric identification system—intended to help authorities cut down on benefits fraud—was voluntary when first rolled out but is now effectively mandatory to receive essential government services. It is now being challenged in courts, but there is also a growing sense among some in India that democracy doesn’t bring the advantages it once did—a sentiment largely fueled by China’s meteoric rise. But while Modi may be willing to trade some of his citizens’ privacy for a more efficient government, it’s not clear that the Indian public agrees with him. Which leads us to this week’s “informal” summit, one with no set agenda. That’s by design—the goal of this meeting is to help Xi and Modi keep things cordial between the two growing economic powers. And there have been more than enough flashpoints in recent months to make a meeting like this necessary: in the Maldives, in Sri Lanka, even in sleepy Bhutan. But maybe the most contentious issue has been Beijing’s pursuit of a $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as part of its ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) plan intended to tie the economic fortunes of 70+ countries to Beijing through infrastructure investments; part of that corridor runs through contested-Kashmir. Beijing even wants India to sign up for OBOR as well, but India pointedly refused again just days ahead of the meeting. The reality is that China today has supplanted Pakistan as India’s chief rival in Asia—but neither sees great value in escalating tensions further. That starts with the meeting this week. </s> Overall, 1,600 coal plants are planned or are under construction in 62 countries

Coal is King in India and Elsewhere



 India is going to use coal as its backbone energy for the next thirty years, is buying coal mines all around the world, and will double production by 2020 to a massive 1,500 million tons per annum. 1 At present the country accounts for eight percent of the world’s total coal consumption. About two-thirds of India’s electricity generation comes from coal.

India’s population is 1.35 billion. It is forecast to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation around 2024 The Narendra Modi government, which had set an ambitious 63,000 MW nuclear power capacity addition target by the years 2031-32, has cut it to 22,480 MW, or by roughly two-thirds. The drastic reduction in planned construction of new reactors will diminish India’s plans to rely on nuclear energy from 25% of electrical generation to about 8-10%. The balance of new power requirements will likely be met by use of India’s enormous coal deposits and others it purchases. 2 Despite the Narendra Modi government’s claims of being committed to the Paris climate agreement, India registered one of the largest increases in greenhouse gas emissions in 2016.3 India’s population is 1.35 billion. It is forecast to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation around 2024. At last count, 20% of India did not have electricity, which is about 270 million people still to be connected, presumably thanks to coal. 1 Energy problems are massive in India. In July 2012, the country suffered the largest electrical blackout in history, affecting an area encompassing about 670 million people, or roughly 10 percent of the world’s population. Three of the country’s interconnected northern power grids collapsed for several hours, as blackouts extended almost 2,000 miles, from India’s eastern border with Myanmar to its western border with Pakistan. 4 It had all the makings of a disaster movie. More than half a billion people without power. Trains motionless on the tracks. Miners trapped underground. Subway lines paralyzed. Traffic snarled in much of the national capital. For a country considered a rising economic power, Blackout Tuesday—which came a day after another major power failure—was an embarrassing reminder of the intractable problems still plaguing India. 4

So what does this mean for the Paris accord? So what does this mean for the Paris accord? Despite promises made in the accord, global emissions of carbon dioxide have continued to rise. Among the main factors contributing to rising emissions is the growing use of coal in developing countries in Asia and Africa and even some countries in Europe. As a result, a number of governments, including those of Germany and France have announced their countries will miss the near-term emissions reduction targets they set for themselves. 5 Germany is building 23 new coal fired power plants to overcome the very serious deficiencies of green energy despite bragging about their being a leader in the green energy transformation. 6 Overall, 1,600 coal plants are planned or are under construction in 62 countries. The new plants would expand the world’s coal fired power capacity by 43 percent. The fleet of new coal plants would make it virtually impossible to meet the goals set in the Paris climate accord. 7
• Joanne Nova, “India meets climate goals early by doubling coal, and keeping it as main energy source for next 30 years,” joannenova.com, May 17, 2017
• Joanne Nova,” A not so dead stranded asset: India chooses more coal, cancels 57 nuclear plants,” joannenova.com, April 17, 2018
• Dan Yurman, “India slashes plans for new nuclear reactors by two-thirds,” energypost, April 16, 2018
• Jim Yardley and Gardiner Harris, “2nd day of power failures cripples wide swath of India,” The New York Times, July 21, 2012

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Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology. He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.

Please adhere to our commenting policy to avoid being banned. As a privately owned website, we reserve the right to remove any comment and ban any user at any time.Comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, anti-Semitism, or personal or abusive attacks on other users may be removed and result in a ban.-- Follow these instructions on registering </s> The men were traveling in convoy to provide reinforcement to a police post in the Gadchiroli district when a landmine detonated, killing all 16 men, including the driver.

Police have blamed the blast on Naxal militants known to be active in the region. In a press conference on Wednesday, the Director General of Police, Subodh Jaiswal said the insurgents "want to overthrow the state established by the constitution of India."

"We are very firm in our belief that they need to be dealt with the full power of the state behind us."

Militant attacks in several states, including Maharashtra, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, where the rebel movement still has traction, are common.

Indian Maoist -- or Naxalite -- groups have been active in the country since the 1960s, but the modern insurgency did not begin until the early 2000s with the emergence of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and its armed wing, the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army. More than 2,100 civilians in India have been killed in the Maoist insurgency since 2010. Security forces in the region, wary of a possible second attack, are cautiously making their way to the blast site, said Jaiswal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a statement on Twitter: "Strongly condemn the despicable attack ... I salute all the brave personnel. Their sacrifices will never be forgotten." Strongly condemn the despicable attack on our security personnel in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. I salute all the brave personnel. Their sacrifices will never be forgotten. My thoughts & solidarity are with the bereaved families. The perpetrators of such violence will not be spared. — Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 1, 2019 Shortly after the attack Jaiswal reiterated the commitment of security forces in the region to the counterinsurgency operations. "Whether it is a retaliation or not is not of much consequence to us. What is important is that we lost 15 of our colleagues who have made the supreme sacrifice and for us that is a very grievous loss," he said. The issue of local militancy has haunted successive governments in India for decades. In April 2017, 25 police officers were killed and six others injured when hundreds of suspected Maoist rebels attacked a convoy in central India. Suspected Maoists have also struck during India's elections, which are currently ongoing. On April 18, a polling supervisor was gunned down by alleged Maoist militants in the eastern state of Odisha. The supervisor, Sanjukta Digal, was leading a team to a polling station in the Kandhamal district on the eve of the second phase of voting in the state. India's tribal peoples caught between Maoist rebels and the state In another incident in the same district, alleged Maoists approached a vehicle heading towards a polling center and forced officials to disembark before setting fire to it. According to India's Ministry of Home Affairs, 90 districts across 11 states are currently affected by some form of Naxal or Maoist militancy. In 2017, 75 security force members and 188 civilians were killed in militant violence. The government has responded to the Maoist insurgency with a security crackdown in areas in which the groups are active, an approach that has been criticized by some observers as heavy-handed and prone to abuse. A 2012 Human Rights Watch report cataloged incidents where police and soldiers "have arbitrarily arrested, detained, and tortured villagers, who are mostly from disaffected tribal communities." </s> India has discontinued its two largest rupee notes in a shocking move against corruption.

Notes worth 500 and 1,000 rupees will be invalid starting at midnight local time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced during a televised address to the nation.

The unexpected move is designed to fight against corruption and money laundering, Modi said, calling them "diseases" and "obstacles" to the country's economic success.

Modi said that policy changes had largely failed to root out corruption. Two years ago, he said, India was ranked 100th in terms of global corruption perception, and the country has only improved to 76th.

The idea is that Indians who have stockpiled undeclared income will now be forced to come out of the shadows.

"This step will strengthen the hands of the common man in the fight against corruption, black money and fake currency," said Modi, who leads the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

But the ban could also spark a mad scramble as ordinary Indians seek to exchange or deposit their cash. Modi said citizens have 50 days to deposit at banks and post offices. Hospitals will be allowed to accept the banned notes for another three days, until Nov. 11.

That transition will not be an easy task. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) estimates that there are 16.5 billion 500 rupee notes and 6.7 billion 1000 rupee notes currently in circulation. ATMs will be shut on Nov. 9 and 10 to help implement the change.

The central bank is also preparing to issue a new series of 500 and 2,000 rupee notes, which are slated to enter circulation by Nov. 10.

Until then, the largest legal bill in circulation will be the 100 rupee note, which is worth only $1.50.

In a country where taxi drivers and shopkeepers are already reluctant to part with small bills, the sudden policy change could complicate business transactions in the short term.

Indian social media users widely praised the decision, calling it a "bold move." There were also, inevitably, plenty of jokes.

India is believed to have lost out on over $100 billion in uncollected tax, a large percentage of which is illegally stashed offshore.

Only 2% of Indians pay any income tax at all because most people work in the economy's informal sector that includes jobs such as construction laborers and road side food sellers.

Modi also touted the move as an anti-terrorism measure, saying that "enemies across the border have run their operations using fake currency notes," a reference to neighboring Pakistan.

"The 500 and 1,000 rupee notes hoarded by anti-national and anti-social elements will become just worthless pieces of paper," he said. </s> NEW DELHI: India on Saturday launched its biggest ever fiscal reform with the government promising a stronger, less corrupt economy while businesses are nervous about the new tax.The goods and services tax (GST) replaces more than a dozen levies imposed nationally and by the 29 states. It aims to transform the nation of 1.3 billion people and its $2 trillion economy into a single market.Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a special midnight session of parliament to launch GST which he called "a good and simple tax.""With GST, the dream of one India, great India, will come true," the prime minister said."GST is a simple, transparent system which prevents generation of black money and curbs corruption," said Modi who jolted the country last year by withdrawing more than 85 percent of India's banknotes from circulation in a clampdown on under-the-table dealings."The system gives the opportunity to honesty and people who do honest business."But the prime minister, who has put huge efforts into the economy as he targets re-election in 2019, acknowledged that it would have teething problems.Jammu and Kashmir state has refused to sign onto the one tax regime. And GST has sparked protests by traders, while the main opposition Congress Party boycotted the launch ceremony.Businesses are nervous about the imposition of GST, which sets out four different rates of between five and 28 per cent instead of the one originally envisioned.The GST rule book runs to more than 200 pages and last-minute changes were still being made late Friday.Textile traders and other sectors went on strike ahead of the launch and many businesses say they are unclear about what to charge.The Bhartiya Udyog Vyapar Mandal , a national traders association that claims 60 million members, called a one-day strike Friday to protest the GST.Many are worried because while returns have to be filed by computer, they do not have or do not understand computers."Since August last year we have put forward our demands on GST but the government has never responded," national secretary general Vijay Prakash Jain told AFP. "We told the government, either fix this, or we will strike."Most economists agree the reform -- first proposed in 2006 -- is long overdue, but warn the initial shock to the economy is likely to drag, rather than stoke growth, as businesses adjust.Credit Suisse managing director Neelkanth Mishra warned that "the next few months will be a period of uncertainty in which no company would want to invest, that slows down the investment cycle and acts as a drag on the economy."Rating agency ICRA said that while GST would lead to an increase in compliance in some sectors, it would also reduce the competitiveness of the informal businesses who are expected to lose out to the formal and organised players."Although it is still far from perfect, we realise how much better it is than the myriad taxes we've been subjected to over the last several decades," said Pratik Jain, Partner and Leader Indirect Tax, PwC India "The old India was economically fragmented. The new India will create one tax, one market for one nation," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. </s> Thousands of public workers have joined a general strike in Brazil against a controversial government proposal to reform pensions.

The strike, the first since far-right President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January, has affected public transport, schools and banks across the country.

Police used stun grenades on protesters in Rio de Janeiro. In several cities, roads were blocked with burning tyres.

Mr Bolsonaro says the reform is needed in order to restore public finances.

The plan includes raising the minimum retirement age to 65 for men and 62 for women and workers' contributions. Critics argue the changes, which have to be approved by both houses of Congress, would penalise the poorest.
• Read more about the proposed pension reform
• Is the honeymoon period over for Bolsonaro?

The one-day protest called by unions, the second general strike in Brazil in two years, affected public transport in São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, where subway workers joined the strike.

Transport had also been affected in other major cities, including Salvador, Curitiba and Maceió and the capital, Brasília. Many schools, universities, banks and parts of the state-run oil company Petrobras were also not working.

In dozens of cities across the country, protesters - who are also against cuts to the education budget - held demonstrations on the streets and in some blocked streets and roads with burning tires.

The government estimates the current plan for the reform will result in savings of $237bn (£188bn) over the next decade. The changes are seen as crucial to revive the country's economy, still struggling to recover from the 2015-2016 recession, the worst in more than a century.

Opponents say the poor would be the most affected, as they are more likely to start working at a young age and would now be required to work longer before being able to collect pension benefits.

Congress is expected to vote on the reform in the next few weeks, and the new rules would phase in over 12 to 14 years.

On Friday evening local time, Mr Bolsonaro is expected to attend the opening ceremony of the Copa America soccer tournament in São Paulo, where a special plan has been implemented for fans to arrive at the Morumbi stadium.
Around 180 million people are claimed to be striking in India against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic privatization plans. The strike is allegedly the largest in human history.