Jewellers call off 21-day strike after meeting with Pranab

Jewellers from across the country have called off their 21-day-old strike, after a long meeting with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today. A delegation of jewellers lobbied first with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and then Mr Mukherjee to drop a proposed levy of excise duty on unbranded jewelry and a proposed increase in the import duty on gold. They carried to that meeting with Mr Mukherjee a statement of support from his own party, the Congress, which asked him to "consider the demand of jewelers sympathetically."