-PTI The 14-day-long strike at Maruti Suzuki India’s Manesar’s plant has been called off this morning following a tripartite agreement between the management, workers and the Haryana Government. As part of the agreement, the management has agreed to take back 64 permanent workers but another 30 will remain suspended. It has also been agreed that around 1,200 casual workers would also be reinstated, sources close to the talks said. Setting up of two...

Kiran Bedi, one of the most vocal members of Team Anna, who riled Members of Parliament with her Ramlila ghoonghat act, may herself have some explaining to do. The issue: the inflated travel expenses she has been charging NGOs and institutions which invite her for seminars or meetings.   Records of bills, invoices and copies of cheques with The Indian Express show that Bedi, who is entitled to a rebate on Air...

Centre delinks access to welfare schemes from poverty line NUMBER of people who can benefit from government’s welfare programmes is going to swell. Currently, the Central government caps the entitlements under most welfare programmes to those below the poverty line, which is as low as Rs 12/day/person for rural areas and Rs 18/day/person for urban areas. State governments have been opposing this mechanism. In future, the ongoing socio-economic and caste census...

In the brown smog that covers Manesar this late autumn, large trucks that pack half-a-dozen cars each into their containers queue on the broken highway from Delhi to Jaipur and park any which way they can. Their drivers loll in the teashops and dhabas. Few know when their containers will be loaded with Maruti Suzuki’s deliverables: cars named Swift and Dzire and A-Star and Sx4 that have been booked by tens...

-The Hindu   No talks were held on Tuesday between the management and the striking workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited's Manesar plant following the management's decision to go ahead with internal inquiries against three office-bearers of the unrecognised union that the workers have named Maruti Suzuki Employees' Union. However, negotiations between the striking workers of Suzuki Powertrain India Limited and that company's management continued for the second successive day on Tuesday. Workers of...