Bank employees march through south Mumbai on Friday as they participate in a nationwide strike demanding a hike in wages. Pic/PTI 

The contrast could not have been starker: on Friday, while 180 million Indians went on strike, their main demand being a raise in the minimum wage, the newspapers had a front page ad for Reliance’s new telephony service featuring “Mr Reliance”, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s name for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Incidentally, Kejriwal, passionately hated by both BJP and the Congress, has proposed to raise the minimum wage; his Lt-Gov, a shameless marionette for Modi, has grudgingly agreed. Meanwhile, Reliance, whom Kejriwal said Modi was “modelling” for, was formally accused of stealing 11 billion cubic metres of gas from an adjoining ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas) block in the Krishna-Godavari basin; a committee headed by Justice AP Shah decided Reliance ought to pay the government Rs 11,000 crore. This did not stop ‘Mr Reliance’ from granting an interview to his government’s debtor’s TV news channel, though mercifully he answered insipid questions with blander platitudes.