-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Nearly two months after workers went on the rampage at its Manesar plant, Maruti Suzuki has doled out a bumper increment package in a new wage settlement agreement, offering salary increment of nearly 70%, apart from other benefits like interest-free personal loans. The agreement has been accepted by the company's labour union. S Y Siddiqui, Maruti's chief operating officer (administration ), said the company has signed...

-Outlook Amid furore over FDI in multi-brand retail, the politicians and farmers in the leading agrarian state of Punjab are speaking in different voices over the issue. While Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said the concept may be successful in developed countries like USA, he feared that it may not work in this country. "If the FDI comes, big players will eat into the share of small traders and that will be against...

-The Hindustan Times West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will lead the campaign in the Congress strongholds during the ensuing panchayat elections in early 2013. She will lead the Trinamool Congress campaign in the green belt in North Bengal, which has always voted for the Congress. Mamata has  earmarked Congress MP Adhir Chowdhury’s bastion, Murshidabad, MP Deepa Dasmunshi’s base, North Dinajpur, and the late ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury’s home turf, Malda, now...

-The Economic Times The government is pushing ahead with long-awaited reforms to boost finances of cash-strapped power utilities and to reduce food subsidy by raising the price of sugar in ration shops, but the cabinet meeting to consider these moves has been deferred to next week. Sources said the government was also considering a proposal to increase the dearness allowance for central government employees by about 7%. This should come as a...

-Economic and Political Weekly  The Government of India is considering a proposal to notify farming as an essential service. This is ostensibly to bring drought relief to farmers suffering from a weak monsoon - a laudable goal indeed. However, if farming is deemed an "essential service", farmers and farm workers could lose many of their political and civic rights because the government can then invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act to...