| The proposal to allow 26 per cent FDI and 100 per cent private participation in defence industries should be withdrawn in the "national interest", demanded the speakers at the meeting. |
| The meeting urged the government to reject the reports of the Nair Committee and the JAFA Committee on staff reduction. Another Union government decision that came under fire was the rejection of the proposal that called for allowing accumulation of 300 days of earned leave and encashment of the same. |
| Liberalisation has sounded the death knell for employees' welfare, said veteran union leaders. Now, employees' rights do not matter to government and the younger generations, lamented M K Ravindran Pillai, chairman of co-ordination committee of the federation. |
| During his speech, he advised former defence minister George Fernandes, who was the chief guest at the meeting, to change his ideology and also join them in their struggle for better pay and more rights. |
| Fernandes in his speech said that he will be able to get into the activist mode now that he is not a union minister. "I feel like a bird freed from its cage now," he said. At the same time he expressed his frustration at not being able to do anything for workers' welfare while he was defence minister. |
| Accusing Congress president Sonia Gandhi of "sponsoring the Tehelka racket", former defence minister George Fernandes, on Tuesday, demanded that CBI should bring to book the "bribe givers" in its cases relating to the Tehelka expose on alleged corruption in defence deals. |
| Obviously targetting the Tehelka team which carried out the sting operation when he was defence minister, he said, "If anybody has taken bribe and someone has given it, then the bribe giver is the biggest offender than the bribe taker. What the government has done is to be very selective." |
| "A lot of money from various sources that came into this operation has not been made public still," Fernandes said. |
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