Water strike shuts Indian tech city
Source: Reuters
(Adds violence, quotes, byline) By Sumeet Chatterjee BANGALORE, India, Feb 12 (Reuters) - A general strike in Bangalore prompted by a long-running water dispute closed software firms and schools and prompted the postponement of an international women's tennis tournament on Monday. The 12-hour stoppage in the southern state of Karnataka, whose capital is India's technology hub, Bangalore, came a week after a federal tribunal ruled the state would get less water from the Cauvery River than neighbouring Tamil Nadu. The Cauvery has been a bone of contention and a hugely emotive issue in the region for nearly a century. In 1991, an interim court order for Karnataka to release 205 billion cubic feet of water to Tamil Nadu sparked riots against minority Tamils in Bangalore, leaving 18 people dead. Most of the 6 million residents in Bangalore -- home to more than 1,500 information technology and outsourcing firms -- stayed indoors with many fearing a repeat of the 1991 riots. The shutdown will have cost the state's industry around $225 million. On Monday, thousands of police officers patrolled roads in the city where traffic was sparse and manned barricades that were set up in areas where minority Tamils live. This is the third time in a month that social unrest has hit India's flagship technology city. Communal riots between Muslims and Hindus closed downtown Bangalore in January, and many firms closed shop on the day the tribunal made its Cauvery ruling. "It is time to chill at home," said Suresh, a shop-owner in Bangalore's fashionable Brigade Road, who like many Indians uses only one name. "There is no way you can venture out." A mob set ablaze some dozen motorcyles and scooters outside a government office in the city of Mysore, 140 km (90 miles) southwest of Bangalore. State Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said he would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh soon to discuss the issue of the disputed river. "We have taken security measures including over 1,000 preventive arrests of anti-social elements to prevent a repeat of 1991," M.P. Prakash, Karnataka's home minister, said. A spokeswoman for Infosys Technologies Ltd., India's second-largest software services exporter, said the company had closed its software development facilities for a day. "We are closed today on account of employee safety," she said. Offices of Bangalore-based Wipro Ltd., India's third-largest software exporter, and multinational IBM were also closed, as were factories across the state. "The manufacturing loss for the industry will be about $225 million," R.C. Purohit, president of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industries, said. A placard outside the office of a multinational software firm said in local Kannada language: "We support the strike. Our offices have been shut." Bangalore's WTA tournament, which was scheduled to begin on Monday was postponed until Tuesday after organisers said they would respect the strike. World number 23, Australian Alicia Molik, is top seed for the tournament. Political activists who had called the strike said it was a show of strength against the tribunal's "unjust and unfair" decision this month.
| AlertNet news is provided by |  |
