2020 Indian general strike

The workers' unions presented a list of seven demands: • Direct cash transfer of per month to all families who earn less than the income tax threshold • free grain ration per person every month to all in need. • Expansion of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to provide employment from the current 100 days to 200 days work in rural areas with enhanced wages, and extension of this programme to urban areas • Withdrawal of all anti-worker labour code changes and liberalizing agricultural reforms seen by the protesters as anti-farmer laws despite the proven hostile nature of Indian labor as a significant impediment to the growth of manufacturing sector in India. • Stop privatisation of public sector corporations, including those in the financial sector. Stop the corporatisation of government-run manufacturing and service entities in railways, ordnance manufacturing, ports and similar areas. • Withdraw the circular of forced premature retirement of government and public sector employees. • Provide a pension to all, restore earlier pension scheme and improve EPS 95. ==Organisers==

The trade unions involved included the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India United Trade Union Centre (AIUTUC), Trade Union Coordination Centre (TUCC), Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Labour Progressive Federation (LPF) and United Trade Union Congress (UTUC). by people who did not receive strike notice, such as informal sector workers, students, women, and peasants. Approximately a quarter of all working-aged people in India participated in the general strike. The date of the general strike converged with the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee's own strike calling for newly enacted anti-farmer agricultural laws to be repealed. The worker's unions and the AIKSCC declared their solidarity with each other in the days leading up to the general strike and the AIKSCC's "Chalo Delhi" ('Go to Delhi') mobilization. ==Strike and march to New Delhi==

The initial, 24-hour general strike took place all across India. Five states – Kerala, Puducherry, Odisha, Assam and Telangana – were completely shut down. Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh reported a 100% strike. By 3 December, BBC News estimated the number of farmers blocking New Delhi in the hundreds of thousands. ==Role of social media==

A "photograph of a paramilitary policeman swinging his baton at an elderly Sikh man", later identified as Sukhdev Singh, taken by Ravi Choudhury of Press Trust of India (PTI) went viral on social media. Politicians opposed to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) used the image to criticise police violence, while BJP members claimed that the Sikh farmer had not been hit. Choudhury said that the man had been hit by the policeman. A fact-checking website, Boomlive, interviewed Singh, who stated that he had been hit by two policemen, and sustained injuries to his "forearm, back and calf muscle". == See also ==