Water protests in tech hub expose urban India's growing pains

Bengaluru

ORACLE employees were at work on Monday when protesters entered their nine-storey building in India's technology hub, Bengaluru, and asked them to leave in support of demonstrations that had erupted across the city over a water dispute.

By early afternoon, one of the US software giant's biggest overseas offices had been evacuated, two employees there told Reuters, as had the Bengaluru premises of dozens of multinationals and Indian firms that stayed shut on Tuesday to ensure staff safety.

A spokeswoman for Oracle in India said no one was available to comment on the incident.

Two days of violence, in which protesters torched buses and clashed with riot police after a court ordered Karnataka state to share wate…