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Shutdown brings India's Silicon Valley to halt

Xinhua, September 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

India's "Silicon Valley" - the city of Bengaluru - has come to a grindling halt following a shutdown in the southern state of Karnataka in protest against release of river waters to the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu.

In Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, which is home to software majors like Infosys and Wipro and nearly 400 multinational companies, the Indian information technology industry has declared a holiday for its employees.

Schools and colleges in the city as a major education hub are also closed due to the shutdown, while local TV channels showed footage of the city roads wearing a deserted look with no public or private vehicles plying, and reported that the Metro railway was also not operating.

What is only visible are protestors at every taffic junctions, though the state government said that essential supplies like milk and hospitals will be unaffected, and deployed a huge police force across the city to quell any major violence.

The protests that culminated into a shutdown of the state, started Monday after India's Supreme Court ordered Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of water from the river Cauvery to Tamil Nadu for the next 10 days.

Both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu say they do not have enough water for drinking or irrigation, and went to the top court for a solution, which ruled in favor of the Tamil Nadu and directed Karnataka to release river water to help its neighbor tide over the crisis. Endit