India Strikes Over Retail Reforms

Opposition parties and trade unions in India are staging a day-long strike over plans to open the country’s retail sector to global supermarket chains.

Global Politics

No Wal-Mart poster (Photo: Andrew North/BBC/Twitpic)

Across India today, shopkeepers, traders, and laborers tried to show what it might be like if they weren’t around.

They closed markets in a nationwide day of protest against the possible introduction of big-box stores like Walmart onto their turf.

The BBC’s Rahul Tandon has been out on the streets of Kolkata.