-PTI   The ongoing strike at Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant entered its sixth day today, with no production taking place at the unit, as workers continue to demand that the management take back all suspended and casual employees.  The strike by workers at Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd (SPIL) and Suzuki Motorcycle India Pvt Ltd (SMIPL) in support of their colleagues at Maruti Suzuki India's (MSI) Manesar plant has worsened the situation.  "The plant is...

-The Hindu Business Line   Labour shortage, wage bill, loss of orders hit industry, says survey Labour shortage, wage increases and loss of confirmed orders are hitting industry hard, says a survey by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce of India (FICCI). If this were not enough, the UPA Government's flagship rural job scheme, MGNREGA, is adding to industry's labour woes by luring away casual workers, it adds. The survey, which found the impact of...

Amid policy battles over food production, energy resources and economic decline, one untapped natural resource that is guaranteed to boost production on a global scale has been stubbornly overlooked – the power of women in the labour force. According to the World Bank's 2012 World Development Report (WDR) "Gender Equality and Development", ensuring equal access for women farmers would increase maize yields by 11 to 16 percent in Malawi and 17...

Degraded soils, depleting groundwater, and chemical pesticides are playing havoc, placing agriculture in terrible distress. I haven’t forgotten that night. Sitting with a group of farmers in a village in Ludhiana district in Punjab, at the height of the Green Revolution, a farmer showed me a bag of fertiliser that he brought from the market. “Why are you showing me this bag”, I asked. “Wait”, he said, and began to open the...

Country's top carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, plunged into another crisis as production at its Manesar plant was abruptly stopped for the second time in past two months after its sacked around twodozen workers. The assembly lines for Maruti's top selling cars such as the new Swift, AStar hatchbacks and Sx4 sedan came to a grinding halt after it terminated services of 11 workers and also suspended another 10, on charges of indiscipline...