India petrol price SOARS to record high: Chaos on streets – ‘Rupee has never been WEAKER’
NATIONWIDE protests against record high petrol and diesel prices shut down businesses, government offices and schools in India today, and in some places protesters blocked trains and roads and vandalised vehicles as the leader of congress fumed the “rupee has never been weaker”.
Express.co.uk
Mon, Sep 10, 2018
Gearing up for a general election less than nine months away and provincial polls expected in some states later this year, opposition parties banded together to organise their first protest action in a joint campaign to stir discontent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
Opposition Congress party activists marched, blocked roads and disrupted trains in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, while other opposition parties protested outside offices of oil marketing companies.
Today fears over a rapid escalation of trade wars hit emerging markets, sending stocks to a fresh 2018 low and hurting major currencies with India’s rupee tumbling to record lows and Russia’s rouble at its weakest in two years.
Facing a widening emerging market selloff, India’s rupee plumbed a fresh record low, with nationwide protests adding to the pressure.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi blamed the higher fuel prices and a falling rupee currency on the prime minister’s policies.
He said: ”The rupee has never has been weaker in 70 years of independence.
“Farmers, labourers see no light at the end of the tunnel. Only 15-20 big industrialists are prospering.”
Protesters burnt tyres and blocked traffic in the north eastern state of Assam. Several people were arrested in Assam and West Bengal, officials said.
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