IT hub says no threat from language protest

Authorities have reassured investors that the protest was an isolated incidents and did not affect the industrial climate.

Authorities in India's technology hub of Bangalore reassured investors on Wednesday after a fringe group seeking jobs for local language speakers led a stormy protest at a leading software campus.

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Witnesses said activists seeking job quotas for Kannada language speakers threw stones at the campus of Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's second-largest software exporter, on Tuesday. No one was injured.

MK Shankaralinge Gowda, IT secretary in the Government of the rural southern state of Karnataka, told that he saw no significant threat from the incident.

"If there is a law and order problem, it will be treated as a law and order problem," Gowda told reporters, adding that such isolated incidents did not affect the industrial climate.

Nasdaq-listed Infosys offered no comment on the incident, but its chairman, NR Narayana Murthy, is a vocal opponent of job quotas based on caste, religion or native language as affirmative action.