Fuel price protests hit India, Malaysia

Police arrest left party activists during a protest against the rise in petroleum prices in Hyderabad, India, Friday, June 6, 2008. Angry consumers blocked rail tracks and roads and shut down businesses in several parts of India for a second day Friday, protesting a hike in fuel prices by the government. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A)

MUMBAI, India—Angry consumers blocked rail tracks and roads and shut down businesses in parts of India for a second day Friday to protest a hike in fuel prices by the government, while Malaysia defended its decision to end fuel subsidies.

Indian police detained 20 activists from a powerful hardline Hindu party called Shiv Sena after they disrupted train services in a Mumbai suburb, said Ashok Singh, a railway spokesman.

In Malaysia an opposition party held small protests Thursday to denounce that country's sudden fuel price rises as excessive and a burden for the poor after the government's move earlier this week to end heavy subsidies. A coalition of opposition parties and non-governmental groups has called for rallies on July 12.

India's federal and state governments scrambled to contain the protests there. The federal petroleum minister canceled a trip to Japan for the G-8 summit, The Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Several states lowered local sales taxes to lessen the impact of the rise in prices of gasoline, diesel and cooking gas.

India's government hiked gasoline prices by about 13 cents and diesel prices 8 cents for a liter -- about one-fourth of a gallon -- on Wednesday to partially offset soaring international oil prices. Fuel prices vary among states, which also impose their own taxes.

The price of cooking gas went up by about $1.25 per 31-pound cylinder.

About 300 million of India's 1.1 billion people live on less then a dollar a day. Millions of others live on the state-set minimum daily wage of $1.60 and cannot afford cooking gas at all.

But for a middle class family with a combined income that may range from $119 to $238, higher fuel and cooking gas prices have a significant impact on household budgets.

On Friday, police used water cannons to disperse demonstrators when the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party held a protest in India's capital, New Delhi.

Worst-hit was West Bengal state in eastern India, where schools and businesses were closed and several trains were delayed or canceled for a second day Friday, said Raj Kanojia, a police inspector-general.

Supporters of opposition Trinamool Congress pulled commuters out of cabs to enforce the party's 12-hour strike call in Calcutta, the state capital. They carried placards demanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government resign for hiking the fuel prices.

Angry protests also closed down several parts of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, while shops and businesses in several areas of state capital, Hyderabad, were shut Friday.

In Malaysia on Friday, Domestic Trade Minister Shahrir Samad defended the end of subsidies.

"I think it's wise," Shahrir told reporters. "It's the first time ever we can come to grip with the subsidy system."

But opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim called the government's decision "unconscionable."

"To decide summarily, without regard to the plight of the vast majority, particularly the poor and the marginalized, to me, is unconscionable," he said while speaking at a forum in the Philippines.

The pump price of gasoline rose Thursday by a whopping 41 percent to 87 cents a liter, or $3.30 a gallon. Diesel prices shot up 63 percent to 80 cents per liter.