Full story at http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGI6XUERI3C.html

"India's Most Populous State Hit by Power Outage The Associated Press

LUCKNOW, India (AP) - Police arrested four trade union leaders as power outage and water shortages hit India's most populous state, where more than 95,000 electricity workers have begun an indefinite strike, officials said Sunday.

With four of the six power plants stopping power generation, many parts of the sprawling northern Uttar Pradesh state were plungedinto darkness.

State authorities met some of the shortfall by obtaining supply from power plants run by the federal government, the officials said. The state has a population of more than 140 million."

-- Meg Moss (meg@y2k.am), January 16, 2000

Answers

95000 electricity workers on strike - I have a feeling there demands are going to be met fairly quickly.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), January 16, 2000.

FYI: Uttar Pradesh is a very large state, and Delhi is in the northern part of it. Also included in U.P. are major industrial cities, as well as the beauty of Agra with the Taj Mahal.

Also, it is not such a big deal for Indian workers to strike, as they do it with great frequency. And also this, many many families as well as businesses have their own generators, since brownouts happen frequently there.

-- formerly (formerly@nowhere.zzz), January 16, 2000.

Looks like the overflow buffers in 95,000 embedded chips in the brains of 95,000 Indian electrical workers simultaneously failed, causing them to go on strike. What a shame.

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 16, 2000.

I suspect this would become y2k only if this unusual stress on their grid causes domino outages that prior to rollover would have been prevented by existing safeguards?

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 16, 2000.

"India hit by power outage"....hmmmm - they run outta those cow patties or something ? Sh!t happens... or, to be more precise, in this case it doesn't !

-- Curly (Oh-no@its.mo!), January 16, 2000.

Maybe they went on strike because they go tired of working extra long hours, running things manually?

WW ;)

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 16, 2000.

I don't think India HAS any existing safeguards on the grid to fail :- )

Only a fraction of India's population has any electricity at all, and, for those that do, only having power for as little as 1/3 of the day and having things catch on fire or blow out due to power surges has been a fact of life since there's been electricity in India.

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 16, 2000.