Buddha dare not speak here: 75 strikes in Kerala already this year and losing count

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s remark against bandhs may be politically very incorrect for his comrades but, factually, it couldn’t have been more accurate.

Ask Rodiya, the mother stranded at the Thiruvananthapuram railway station barely eight days ago when Left unions called a 24-hour hartal — not a bandh since bandhs were effectively banned by the Kerala High Court in 1997 against the “economic policies of the Centre.”

Rodiya, from Kottayam, got the news that her five-year-old son had died. Roads being blocked, she rushed to the railway station where citing the “neoliberal” policies of the Centre, a group of comrades squatted on the tracks. Her tears were of little help. Kottayam is barely three hours away from Thiruvananthapuram but Rodiya reached her home only late evening and that, too, under police protection.

To read the full article, click here..
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.indianexpress.com

Strikes fit terror pattern: Mandir on Tuesday, Masjid on Friday 1

Be it the attack in New Delhi that came before Id-Diwali, the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi or the blasts at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad or the explosion today at the Hanuman Mandir in Jaipur, there's a chilling pattem to these acts of terror: target places of worship or "religious" occasions that draw the maximum people.

The intention is not only to cause maximum loss of human lives but also to inflame communal passions and hope it escalates to a bloody show down between communities.

Targets and dates have been carefully chosen. A close look at recent attacks reveals the sinister design: Hindu temples have been targeted on Tuesdays, an auspicious day for the devotees of Hanuman, while Muslims and their mosques have been attacked on Fridays.

To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.indianexpress.com