Stockbrokers in India Go on Strike
Stockbrokers in India went on a one-day strike today to protest market regulator’s efforts to force stockbrokers to settle trades on the same day they are made. The market regulator banned the practice of badla, which allowed customers to postpone stock payments to allow them time to borrow money from brokers, but critics say the system allowed big traders to manipulate stock prices without risking their own money. The regulator’s changes are a part of a series of reforms to tame the volatile stock markets, which have recently “driven investors to bankruptcy and suicide.”
See "Stockbrokers in India Go on Strike", Saritha Rai, The New York Times, July 23, 2001