Brazil citizens are hitting the streets in mass protests as they rally poor public schools, hospitals and transport.

The protests were spurred by soaring prices, crime and corruption in Latin America's biggest country.

Citizens are lambasting the political class that is termed as self-satisfied that they failed to see, much less address, the mounting dissatisfaction of the citizens that led to the protests. The protests show the concerns that reflect the growing unease among Brazil's estimated 200 million citizens from the country's long-promised leap to join the developed world which has fallen short from expectation.

The demonstrations took off, though, when Brazil's "new" middle class joined the fray. "This is the discontent of people for whom having enough rice and beans on the table no longer comes as a surprise," says Rodrigo Dutra, a documentary filmmaker in Duque de Caxias, another working-class Rio suburb, who is studying the differences between these protests and rioting that followed a 1962 food shortage.

Demonstrations took off when the "new" middle class joined the skirmish.

Documentary filmmaker and resident of the Rio suburb Duque de Caxias, Rodrigo Dutra commented, "This is the discontent of people for whom having enough rice and beans on the table no longer comes as a surprise." Dutra is currently studying the differences between the currents protests and the rioting made during the 1962 food shortage.