Fifty million Indians go on general strike against the Indian judiciary's opposition to the right to strike and the legislature's assault on social welfare: The strike, called by the central trade unions and industrial federations, was total in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura and resulted in a "bandh-like" situation in Assam, Haryana, Orissa and Jharkhand. In Tamil Nadu, Government employees and teachers did not participate as they had been penalised last year for abstaining from work. The Indian National Trade Union Congress, supported by the Congress, and the Sangh Parivar-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Hind Mazdoor Sabha also kept away. The president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), M.K. Pandhe, told presspersons that the working class had "magnificently responded" to the strike call. The working class had asserted its right to strike in the face of the prohibition by the Supreme Court, the "disastrous" economic policies of the Centre — which had resulted in deepening poverty, growing unemployment, reckless privatisation and closures — and the repeated attacks on the labour class. "The massive response to the strike by the working class thoroughly exposes the hollowness of the massive propaganda blitz by the National Democratic Alliance Government on the so called feel good factor." There were reports of lathicharge and large-scale arrests in Delhi, Haryana, Orissa and Pondicherry. No flights took off from Kolkata and rail traffic was disrupted at several places...