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| India-Pakistan |
| Shiv Sena to press for 80% job quota for local people |
| 2007-03-22 |
| Mumbai: The Shiv Sena will hold a massive convention of its senior party representatives on Sunday to chalk out a new strategy to ensure that 80 per cent of jobs are reserved for local Maharashtrians. After Raj Thackeray, the rebel nephew of Sena chief Bal Thackeray, kicked up a controversy over "teaching Biharis a lesson" if they did not respect the local Marathi-speaking people, the Sena is raising its pet demand in a more organised manner this time. Around 10,000 party functionaries from across the state will attend the convention organised by Sthaniya Lokadhikar Samiti Mahasangh, a Sena unit to protect the rights of Marathis. The Sena wants to launch a fight for a quota for Marathis in the state in all sectors - in government and semi-government organisations, railways, postal department, private enterprises, oil and insurance companies, hospitals as well as Indian and foreign banks. The party already has its trade union presence in Indian Airlines, Air India, hotels and some oil companies. "We want economic development for Mumbai and Maharashtra but not at the cost of local people's livelihood," says Rajan Tulaskar, Vice-President of the Mahasangh. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Not to mention the packs of stray dogs that roam Mumbai and other cities, and which have killed children recently. Animal rights activists have prevented a cull of these feral dogs, and roundups of monkeys and cows. All are free to roam the cities, obstruct traffic and terrorise residents. |
| Posted by: John Frum 2007-03-22 15:16 |
| #2 An attempt to stifle India's richest city like this will give a fillip to the campaign for statehood for several Indian cities. Delhi is alone in being a full state of the Indian Union. The other cities see their tax revenue diverted to the vast rural hinterlands of their host states with state political power held by non city folk. Combine this drain of resource with rent control laws and you have the urban decay that is the typical Indian city. Throw in court ordered "rights" for "pavement dwellers" and you have a disregard of private property rights and the slow urban blight of India. There is no incentive for the property owner to upkeep his building. A contractor laying sewer pipe that stops work for the weekend may return to find people living inside stored pipe, claiming tenancy rights. Now the rural yahoos want quotas. The cities will have to break free. |
| Posted by: John Frum 2007-03-22 15:09 |
| #1 Oh, that's just wonderful. Sri Lanka ("Home of the Tigers") did the same thing a few decades ago. The result: economic stagnation and hatred between groups that previous got along fine. Malaysia did it to discriminate against the ethnic Chinese, though the existence of devil-worshippers make it more complicated. Oh, and our universities do it, too. Thomas Sowell wrote Preferences and Policies about this and how it never works. It seems to be out of print. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2007-03-22 08:03 |