Tuesday, January 8, 2019

All India strike by the trade unions - day 1.

Yesterday, that damn guy, Elamaram Karim - he belongs to the  CPI(M) and is one of the office bearers of the national trade union leadership, facing charges of corruption for his acts during his tenure as the industries minister in the previous LDF ministry - had said that, "Unlike the other guys who call for hartals, ours will be a decent one. We shall permit shops to be kept opened. private vehicles to ply on the roads etc, etc", and let off a smile which said it all - the man was lying!

We'd got up at 7 AM, purposely late by an hour, as the day was gonna be lifeless and quiet with nothing much happening. We went through our chores and were ready on time. The devotional music from the system seemed to be louder than usual because the background noise of the numerous vehicles passing through the highway was totally absent.

In Kerala, the guys who'd called for the strike stopped personal vehicles from plying, sometime in the morning itself, the shops that were open were forced to put their shutters down and minor skirmishes between the 'strikers' and the general public were reported from various parts of the state on the interpretation of the former's ground rules regarding the strike.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has asked the central government to reinstate Aaloke Verma, the CBI Director who was removed from the post on corruption charges. For a layman like me, the judgement is not very clear....I believe it's to the effect that, "The government will take immediate steps to reinstate the individual, as the Director, but he'll not be able to take important decisions!" My doubt stems from the fact is as to why is he being reinstated if he's gonna be a lame duck chief? Aaloke Verma's tenure ends by the month end and one can expect fireworks between him and the government during the coming 22 days.

The day passed off on a rather dull note but Lekha and I got plenty of time to interact and exchange ideas! But the thought of tomorrow being a day on similar lines - the quietude and the dullness, that is - is an outright dampener!!  


Tailpiece.

Saw the episode of Crime Patrol on the Sony channel before hitting the sack.    

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