POEM ON STRIKE

THIS POEM GOT FIRST PRICE IN SINO-INDIAN INTERNATIONAL STRIKE FESTIVAL


When I born, there was strike
When I grow up, strike follows me
When I go to road, strike blocks me
When I scared, strike is the reason
When I travel, strike falls on me
When I sick, strike doesnt allow me to hospital
And when I die, I am still struck up in a strike

And you Leftist fellow
When you born, you were taken care from strike
When you grow up, you go abroad for studies
When you go to road, comrades protect you
When you scared, ideology saves you
When you travel, you know in advance when to avoid
When you sick, hospital comes to you
And when you die, you are given red salute and escorted

And you calling me your supporter? No way

(This is copied from a famous poem - you calling me colored?) Do not feel offended.

29th August, 2008 - 12-hour W Orissa bandh by lawyer

The central action committee (CAC) of the Western Orissa Bar Association (WOBA) has called for a 12-hour western Orissa bandh on August 29 to mobilise opinion over the establishment of a permanent HC bench in the region.

27th August 2008 - Small town bandhs, big time harassment

How do you communicate about a bandh call to the people? If no newspaper reports about the call, if no television breaks this news, any bandh will remain unsuccessful. Bandhs are made highly successful by the media because it gives prominent space to the call and thereby people stay indoors - especially in areas where newspaper penetration and literacy is high like Kerala, West Bengal etc. That is why a 12-hour bandh at Narhatta gram panchayat in protest against the murder of a CPI-M worker to mentioned in Kolkata and automatically those who called for bandhs got their due and recognition. Then why is this blog putting up this news is the next natural question. This is a documentation and not news gathering which means documenting bandhs happen after the bandh is over.

Nothing wrong till hartals boomerang on you

It is easy to call for a bandh because it takes just a moment of frenzy and a pinch of ideology. It is also very easy to find reasons for bandhs as there are plenty in this country. But it is not as easy to solve those problems and when your own weapon pinches you, it takes a new twist. This is exactly what happens to the Left parties who live in Stalin era in China and former USSR. Economic Times has reported that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who was being feted as West Bengal’s Deng Xiaoping by his admirers, has blamed his party for the image deficit of his government. He also came down heavily against his party’s practice of calling bandhs at the slightest provocation. “I am against bandhs. Unfortunately I belong to a political party which calls bandhs. I have kept quiet. But from now on, I’ll not keep quiet,” he said. The self-criticism did not end there. “Gherao is illegal and immoral. It is our contribution to the English language. It will not be allowed in the state,” he said. The chief minister was replying to a query by Biswadip Gupta, joint managing director and CEO of JSW Bengal Steel, who wanted Mr Bhattacharjee to react on state-sponsored bandhs and those called by different political parties at an Assocham interactive in Kolkata. This is not the first time that Mr Bhattacharjee has spoken out against strikes. Following a nation-wide strike in 2006, Mr Bhattacharjee had apologised to the infotech companies in Kolkata for the inconvenience caused by the strike. The chief minister also wanted his party’s polit bureau to decree that the IT industry should be kept out of union activities as it was not a traditional industry and could not be governed by the same rules. But Citu leadership forced party general secretary Prakash Karat to announce that unions had the right to organise themselves even in the IT sector.

27th August, 2008 - Jharkhand Bandh scheduled today

The Jharkhand Disom Party (JDP) is all set to make a debut albeit with a flimsy reason - into the Indian bandh arena. It has called for Jharkhand bandh in protest against the Jharkhand government's decision to appoint 4401 Urdu teachers, including 1074 posts reserved for scheduled tribe candidates knowing Urdu, in the state - sounds crazy??
Now the question JDP is asking is valid. How can the government reserve seats for scheduled tribe candidates knowing Urdu when it had not recruited a single Adivasi teacher ever since a separate Jharkhand state was created.

25th August, 2008 - Indefinite bandh in some Imphal areas

While the central government is promoting north east by putting it into the central government LTC scheme, the people in the region seems to be least interested to economically boost their regions from being cut off from rest of the country. That is the reason an indefinite bandh has been called from 6 am in the areas of Sangaiporou, Malom, Ningomthong, Mongsangei and Konjeng Leikai which the expansion of the Tulihal airport would affect, decrying the state authorities move to acquire lands for the expansion purpose. The bandh will also covered the Tidim road and Mayai Lambi road.

25th August 2008 - Orissa to bear the brunt of bandh

The killing of a Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader and some others by Maoists in Kandhamal district of Orissa is putting Orissa back to burner. Though the Church in India has already condemned the killing and mourned the death of the 82-year-old Hindu activist, a section of pro-Hindu groups are blaming Christians for the killings and called for a bandh today. The reaction is swift as two churches have been ransacked already.

23rd August, 2008 - Kashmir continues to burn

Bandh calls are given in Jammu & Kashmir the way pegs are ordered in a bar. Every day one group or the other is giving a bandh call and the situation has reached to such a boiling point that it has divided the state in religious lines. Now The Hurriyat Conference-led Coordination Committee called for a three-day general strike beginning today. The transport services, though, has been exempted from the bandh call. Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq reiterated the demands, including right of self-determination. He also demanded the withdrawal of troops and revocation of all the laws granting special powers to the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

22nd August, 2008 - Hills go the bandh way

A bandh has been called by the CPRM to mark Betrayal Day. “It was on this day in 1988 that Subash Ghisingh had signed the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council accord which sealed the fate of the demand for a separate state. We have decided to protest against the Betrayal Day through a general strike. The strike has also been called in support of Gorkhaland,” said D.S. Bomzom, the spokesperson for the CPRM. The bandh is also a demand for the speedy trial of Chattrey Subba, who has been accused of masterminding the assassination attempt on Ghisingh in February 2001 and has been lodged in Jalpaiguri District Correctional Home since then.Ghisingh in February 2001 and has been lodged in Jalpaiguri District Correctional Home since then.

20th August, 2008 - India again goes to dogs today

Again an all India bandh and again India goes to dogs. One wonders when will this protests end because these protests have no bearing and no impact. Gone are the days of British government which respected such protests. Today's administration hardly cares for such a call. Then why call for a bandh? A national time pass.

Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) — the CPM-backed trade union — is enforcing a strike at Haldia Petrochemicals Limited (HPL) plant from August 18 to 20. The three-day strike has been called by the CITU-backed Haldia Petrochemicals Employees union, demanding regularisation of 183 casual employees who they say are working with the company since 2000. Now this one plant hartal will spread to other parts of the state and imagine that millions will get affected for the plight of 183 people and that too against an establishment who sits in one single office. Long live democracy.

20th August, 2008 - Bihar - Can any one help?

What is the role of an opposition party? Does it mean that you have lost majority to form a government means you don’t have any responsibility towards a few section of people who gave you the votes? Well this is happening in India today. If you are not able to form the government means your job is to disrupt the governmental procedures and its functioning. Take the case of Bihar where a bandh is declared today. The bandh is to protest against price rise, crisis in agri sector, irregularities in BPL lists, black-marketing of ration and kerosene and waterlogging in the state capital. Cant these people who call for bandhs take efforts to minimize these problems?

20th August, 2008 - Bihar - Can any one help?

What is the role of an opposition party? Does it mean that you have lost majority to form a government means you don’t have any responsibility towards a few section of people who gave you the votes? Well this is happening in India today. If you are not able to form the government means your job is to disrupt the governmental procedures and its functioning. Take the case of Bihar where a bandh is declared today. The bandh is to protest against price rise, crisis in agri sector, irregularities in BPL lists, black-marketing of ration and kerosene and waterlogging in the state capital. Cant these people who call for bandhs take efforts to minimize these problems?

20th August, 2008 - Punjab AITUC to have bandh today

India's economic policy is the new reason for a bandh by Punjab AITUC and they say it will be a countrywide "bandh" during which rail and road traffic would be blocked. Now this is a policy that hampers economics. So who protests against whom and for what?

19th August, 2008 - M for Manipur and Monika's hartal

Manipur was shut today to protest against the exclusion of Monika Devi from the Olympics in what the Manipuris believe was a consipiracy hatched by Indian Olympic Association Chairman, Suresh Kalmadi and Director of SAI, R.K. Naidu. That may not be true because Kalmadi could not hatch a single sport person even after warming up the IOA seat for years, how can he hatch a conspiracy??

18th August, 2008 - Mayurbhanj celebrates another bandh

Bhanja Sena(sounds weird??), a newly formed social outfit organised a dawn-to-dusk bandh in Mayurbhanj district in protest against the alleged demand of Jharkhand Mukti Murcha (JMM) to transfer three districts~ Mayurbhanj, Sundergarh and Keonjhar of Orissa for creation of a greater Jharkhand state. Many more such bandhs are in the pipeline. The irony is that earlier political parties used to search for issues to disrupt public life. Now issues are made first and outfits are formed later to protest and disrupt the poor public.

18th August, 2008 - Jharkhand, Maoists and Bandh series

Maoists seems to be calling shots in Jharkand again and again even for petty causes. The Telegraph reports that death of a rebel in Hazaribagh in an encounter and disruption of road and rail traffic marked the 24-hour midnight to midnight bandh of CPI(Maoist) even as Naxalites blew up a petrol pump at Chatarpur in Palamau couple of hours before the strike began.

15th August, 2008 – Mizoram ritual bandh on I-Day

To counter a bandh call by four groups — the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, Manipur Peoples Liberation Front, Tripura Peoples Democratic Front and Ulfa- on the Indian independence day, the Meghalaya government has lined up a series of programmes on Independence Day, including rock concerts and a freedom run, to send out a message to the militant groups.Rock bands from the state, Mizoram and Nagaland will belt out hit numbers to celebrate the day.

14th August - Assam get into bandh gear

A 12-hour Assam bandh called by Muslim Students Union of Assam was marked by violence at a few places but the MUSA-sponsored bandh did not have much impact in the district today. Schools, colleges and business establishments and government offices in Udalguri town, Tangla, Harisinga, Khoirabari, Bhergaon, Orang and Mazbat functioned normally.

Hartal - offence under IPC?

Political parties waste a lot energy and time calling for hartals, people conserve a lot of energy and time by sitting at home, business establishment burn a lot of manhours by the total paralysed situation and now the judiciary is wasting its time and energy on hartals. Everyone knows this is not going to help because a hartal struck party will always use it as their potent weapon - whether the courts give its verdicts for or against it. A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court referred to a Full Bench a batch of writ petitions against holding of hartals by political and other parties in the State. The writ petitions were referred to a Full Bench by a bench comprising Chief Justice H. L. Dattu and Justice A.K. Basheer. The court was dissatisfied with the arrangements made by the government during hartals.The court orally observed that hartals were causing untold difficulties to people. People did not have confidence to come out of their homes on hartal days. The State was unable to create confidence among the public, it added.The petitions included those filed by Sathyavan Kottarakkara and the Anti-Hartal Campaign Committee. Mr. Sathyavan Kottarakara said that though bandhs and forced hartals were declared unconstitutional, political and other organisations still held such hartals.He sought to make forced hartals an offence under the Indian Penal Code. He also sought a direction for creating a separate fund for paying compensation to the victims of violence during hartals and bandhs and to recover the costs from persons who called such hartals by invoking the provisions of the Kerala Revenue Recovery Act.

12th August, 2008 - Assam's Barpeta under bandh grip

A 12-hour Assam bandh called by All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU) turned violent as the bandh supporters pelted stones at vehicles and manhandled commuters. Well what else can any bandh supporter do other than this?

Bandh against Olympic gold

No, this is not real but imaginary bandh. The left parties will leave no stone unturned to call for such a bandh because in one such event, India beat China. If India continues to deny China its gold medal tally from going up, gear up for such an eventuality. Brace upto such bandhs in future. Plus there could also be bandhs against individual glory that medal winners are bringing rather than team effort. The Left will ask for a Olympic Politburo to tackle these issues since left leaders believe individualism is against their ideology.

12th August, 2008 - Tea strike in Darjeeling

No, this strike is not for sipping trea but a call for the tea strike by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha is to protest against the planters’ refusal to accept proposed wages for workers. Going by its earlier assurances to keep the hills strike-free till Pujas for tourists, the Morcha has promised that the protest will not spill out of the gardens.

11th August, 2008 – Power project invokes protests

A group of organisations including the All Idu Mishmi Students’ Union, Downstream Anti Dam Committee, Dam Affected Citizens’ committee, All Assam Tai Ahom Students’ Union and Takam Mising Porin Kebang has called for a 12-hour bandh on Monday in Lower Dibang Valley district and Sadiya sub-division of Assam’s Dibrugarh district in protest against the construction of the proposed 3,000MW Dibang Multipurpose Hydroelectric Project in Lower Dibang Valley district.

10th August, 2008 - Imphal at its best again

So north east is becoming a hub or hartals, especially Imphal. From today All Tribal Students` Union Manipur, ATSUM is 'celebrating' a state-wide 96-hour total bandh pressing the state government to fulfill their demands which have been put forward since long. The demands of the ATSUM include state government`s intervention into the reduction of the quota of the tribal students from 31 percent to 7.5 percent after the conversion of the Manipur University into a Central university.

9th August, 2008 – Ranchi take a bandh call

The Jharkhand state capital of Ranchi was affected during a dawn-to-dusk bandh called by Adivasi-Moolvasi Janadhikar Morcha (AMJM) demanding cancellation of examinations for appointment of primary school teachers till the state government come out with a policy defining local citizenship on the basis of 1932 land records. Majority of the shops and markets, business establishments downed their shutters while road traffic was badly hit due to the bandh. Educational institutions were closed and university examinations were cancelled in view of the bandh, which evoked near total response, official sources said.

8th August, 2008 – Monika forces Manipur Bandh

Angry Manipur students today took out a rally to protest the ouster of Manipuri weightlifter L Monika Devi from the Indian Olympic contingent to Beijing on charges of doping. A civil organisation has also called for a 24-hour bandh on Aug 8

7th August, 2008 – Nandigram shuts down again

The CPI-M has called a 24-hour bandh in Nandigram and Khejuri blocks I and II and Chandipur for murder of one of their cadreds.

7th August, 2008 – North Chhotanagpur bandh by Maoists

A 24-hour bandh was ‘celebrated’ in North Chhotanagpur on a call by the Maoists to protest the killing of three of its cadre in an encounter in the district last week. But the bandh was peaceful.

7th August, 2008 : GJMM to reimpose bandh in Darjeeling

So the lull is over. Here is the Bandh time again. After postponing the Bandh again and again, it is the season again. As the GJMM re-imposes its declared bandh from 5 July in the Darjeeling hills, traders in Sikkim have started storing essential commodities to meet the impending crisis that would follow the bandh. So the trouble is back.

5th August, 2008: Literate state, literate bandhs

What do you do when a state is cent per cent literate? Yes, conduct education bandh because this is the only bandh that gels with the state of education that Kerala has. The more educated you are the more innovative you become – but only in destructive sphere. Today, functioning of educational institutions in Kerala was hit following the 'education bandh' called by pro-congress Kerala Student's Union (KSU) against the "wrong" educational policies of the LDF government and demanding withdrawal of the 'controversial' seventh standard social science textbook. All government run and aided education institutions and schools run by various private managements reamined closed following the bandh call. Now one wonders if the school students will be able to complete their curriculum because of these literate bandhs.

5th August, 2008 – Bandh in Mussoorie

If law and order situation can be a reason for bandhs, then the entire country should be under the spell of bandh. Today a bandh was called for the same reason by the Mussoorie unit of the Congress.

Another bandh case and another salvo from SC

No matter whatever the rulings or judgements from courts may be, India's bandh culture will never stop. We are ruled by a class who thinks of today. They dont have a tomorrow at all. Now another bandh case and another salvo from supreme court. The Supreme Court threatened to issue arrest warrants against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, Union Transport Minister T R Baalu and four others for ignoring its contempt notice. The case relates to the DMK Government organising a bandh in the state on October 1, 2007, in support of the Sethusamudaram Project though the court had forbidden it do so. Now the case is filed by no angel but opposition leader and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa who is also notorius in such activities. The Supreme Court served a contempt notice on Karunanidhi and others in October 2007 but only the Chief Secretary and DGP gave their replies.

4th August, 2008 - Jammu bandh extended by 5 days

A Cabinet Secretary can gets extension, your life can be extended by little care and anything and everything can be extended. But now even the bandhs are extended. The never ending bandh in Jammu has got another extension. Well, enjoy the protests, violence, tear gas shells, firing, stone pelting and other nation building activities for another week.

4th August, 2008 - One for Meghalaya - today and tomorrow

Annoyed by the lack of response from the Meghalaya government on its long-standing demands, the Garo Students’ Union (GSU) announced a two-day bandh, beginning Monday, in the three Garo Hills districts.

2nd August, 2008 - Jammu bandh may end tomorrow

Though the call of a week long bandh by Amarnath Yatra Sangrash Samiti which continues with protests and problems reported from all over is likely to end tomorrow, the controversy will not. So expect more bandhs and protests in days to come