I've learned a new word: bandh. We are having one today in Bangalore, indeed it's going on all across Karnataka. Can you guess what it is yet?

According to Wikipedia, bandh "originally a Hindi word meaning 'closed', is a form of protest used by political activists in India. During a Bandh, a large chunk of a community declares a general strike, usually lasting one day."

Jez told me that Gandhi began them as an act of non-violent civil disobediance. Turns out they were a pretty effective way of sticking it (non-violently) to the (British) man. Nowadays they have been declared illegal but, like today, they still occur and are efficiently (if unoficially) organised by the main political parties to make whatever point they want to make. The roots of this particulary bandh seems pretty random. Apparently "Kannada activists" (that's the language of Karnataka) are outraged by neighbouring Maharashtra's intentions towards the border town of Belgaum, which they believe are not entirely honourable. Read all about it in your soaraway Deccan Herald.

Pretty much everything is closed. Only Kannada language television channels are broadcasting - everything else has been taken off air. Our office is officially closed today as bandhs are sometimes accompanied by aggression towards scabs and strikebreakers. That is apparently very rare though, more pressingly from our point of view people who live beyond walking distance just can't get in as the buses aren't running and the strike is being rigorously adhered to by the auto-rickshaw drivers...


This has lead to an almost eerie quiet and calm on the streets. Airport Road runs outside our office and crossing it is typically an adrenalin inducing rush somewhere between bungee jumping and facing a firing squad. Normally more crowded than George Osborne's plate at a Tory party fundraiser, today one could stroll across in a leisurely manner and even pause to take photographs: