Strike caused economic losses: Govt

Criticising the nationwide agitation against FDI reforms, the government on Thursday blamed the parties behind the protest for causing economic losses and made it clear that there will be no backtracking on the reforms as the country needs 'massive' growth.

Senior Ministers maintained that there was no threat to the stability of the government even if Trinamool Congress quits tomorrow and hinted at scouting for new allies.

They insisted that the strike organised by eight non-UPA parties as well as NDA has had no impact except for causing economic losses.

"The net effect of this strike is greater economic loss. When you protest, you should not protest in a manner that causes economic losses," Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said that while limited protest was alright, it should not be to an extent that 'cause harm' to the interest of people.

Making it clear that government would not go back on FDI in retail decision, Law Minister Salman Khurshid said, "we have tried to bring reforms with a human face. Please don't ask whether we are going to change the human face. The human face remains."

He said the government was pushing reforms to give 'massive' economic growth to the country and 'if opposition slows down that, we won't get it by what they have done today'.

On the strike, he said the parties have "given their point of view, they have shown their protest, now let us go back to our factories, get back to our shops, get back to our schools and get back to our work."

On the stability aspect, he said, "we had enough friends today, we had enough friends yesterday... so I don't know why you should doubt our stability."

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/190082" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-e3985bb53516b7bc2bfef0cf822cacab" value="form-e3985bb53516b7bc2bfef0cf822cacab" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80473884" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.