India Unrest Puts 21 Million in Dark as Outages Threaten Google
Protests against a plan to split a southern Indian state entered a fourth day, leaving about 21 million people without electricity as outages threatened to affect technology companies like Google Inc. (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) Corp.
Striking workers shuttered power plants and impeded distribution, extending blackouts that started Oct. 6 in six districts of Andhra Pradesh. The protesters oppose Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s move last week to divide the state before national elections due by May.
“It’s as if the world has come to a standstill,” Buchi Babu Tanuku, who works with a local daily newspaper in the state, said by phone from West Godavari district. “Everyone’s staying indoors as there’s nothing much to do.”
The standoff risks disrupting the power supply to an area about the size of Spain that holds 20 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion people. The division will help Singh’s Congress party win some seats in the newly created state of Telangana as it pushes to extend its nine-year rule, according to N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the New Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies.
“The situation is becoming worse as there is no leader there having some credibility to tackle the problem,” Rao said. “This mess will not subside before the election. Protests will continue in one way or other.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-08/southern-india-protests-leave-21-million-people-without-power.html
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