-The Business Standard Hiring contract labour must come with more commitments Almost a third of India’s organised labour force is on contract. This is an inevitable consequence of archaic labour laws that make it impossible for India Inc to disengage permanent workers even if they can’t afford them, don’t need them or they don’t perform. Companies such as Maruti Suzuki India have thus used contract workers liberally — almost half the workers...

-The Times of India Preliminary findings into the violence at the Maruti's Manesar plant has disproved the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union's allegations that the mob fury was triggered by "casteist comments" allegedly made by a supervisor against a dalit worker. Investigators claimed that the supervisor, Sangram Singh, was also a dalit like his alleged victim, permanent worker Jiyalal, and therefore could not have made abusive comments against him. MSWU had alleged the casteist...

-CNN-IBN The mahapanchayat of 200 villages that met on Monday to discuss the violence at Maruti's Manesar plant demanded a CBI probe into the incident. Fearing job losses, the mahapanchayat came out strongly in support of the Maruti management and against the workers who are accused of wreaking havoc at the plant. The mahapanchayat also suggested recruitment of more locals to avoid similar incidents in future.   Meanwhile, the auto industry has said it will...

-Live Mint Maruti Suzuki India Ltd’s Manesar plant was witness to prolonged labour strife last year, but the violence unleashed on Wednesday that led to one person being killed caught its victims completely unawares. “Some of us jumped off the first floor to save our lives as we saw a mob of workers, hundreds of them, rushing towards us,” one of the injured Maruti officials told reporters at a hospital in Gurgaon...

-The Hindu Students turn up for classes but find errant school closed The Oxford English School on Nandini Layout, where the tuft of hair of some children admitted under the Right to Education quota for the disadvantaged children were snipped to distinguish them from the rest, remained closed on Thursday, even as protests were staged in front of it. In the morning, children who came to the school were turned away by the...