Protests rage over India’s new military recruitment policy

By ASHOK SHARMA
Associated Press

NEW DELHI (AP) — Hundreds of youths in India have burned train coaches, vandalized railroad property and blocked rail tracks with boulders as an angry backlash continued for a second day against a new short-term government recruitment policy for the military. The worst hit location on Friday was the Secundrabad railroad station in southern India where nearly 500 protesters stoned an empty train and set some of its coaches on fire. Train services were disrupted in the region for several hours. Under the new program announced by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, the armed forces this year can recruit 46,000 men and women but only for four years. Seventy-five percent of them will be retired after four years with no pension benefits.