In December 2024 the news agency IANS shared a clip of Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, on work-life balance. “Your work-life balance should not be imposed on me, and my work-life balance shouldn’t be imposed on you,” he said.
He added in Hindi that if one spends eight hours with the family, biwi bhaag jayegi, the wife will run away. The remark came during the national debate about a 70-hour working week.
In July 2024 Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder of Ola, gave an interview to the news agency ANI. “I don’t agree with this work life balance concept,” he said, according to The Register. He called the idea an outcome of “Western thought process of the post-industrial era.”
March 31, 2025, was Id-ul-Fitr, a holiday in many states. It was also the last day of the financial year. The Reserve Bank of India advised all agency banks “to keep all their branches dealing with government business open on March 31, 2025.”
The Income Tax Department ordered that “all the Income Tax Offices throughout India shall remain open on 29th, 30th and 31st March 2025.” These were a Saturday, a Sunday and the Eid holiday.
In 1884 Narayan Meghaji Lokhande, a leader of the mill workers of Bombay, began to campaign for a weekly holiday on Sunday. According to a document of the V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, cited by The Quint, the demand was accepted on June 10, 1890.
The sources differ on whether the mill owners or the workers’ association announced it. It applied to the mills of Bombay.
On May 21, 1985, the Department of Personnel and Training announced that “the Government of India are pleased to introduce 5-day week in the civil administrative offices.” The change took effect on June 3, 1985. To make up for the lost Saturday, the working day became an hour longer.
In November 2024 Narayana Murthy, a founder of Infosys, said that the move from a six-day to a five-day week, which he dated to 1986, had disappointed him. “I am sorry, I have not changed my view. I will take this with me to my grave.”
On November 5, 2024, the Supreme Court of India amended its rules. The word “vacation” was replaced by “partial court working days.” The period may not exceed 95 days, not counting Sundays.
The court had been criticized for its long breaks. Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said that judges “are not gallivanting or goofing off during vacations.”
At 3:20 a.m. on July 30, 2015, the Supreme Court sat in Court Room 4 to hear the last plea of Yakub Memon, who was to be hanged that morning. “The Supreme Court has never before been opened in the wee hours for a hearing,” PTI reported. The hearing ended at about 4:50 a.m.
On May 17, 2018, at 2:11 a.m., three judges began to hear a challenge to the swearing-in of B.S. Yeddyurappa as Chief Minister of Karnataka. They sat for nearly three and a half hours.
Indian banks close on Sundays and on the second and fourth Saturday of each month.
On January 27, 2026, the bank unions held a one-day nationwide strike for a five-day week. The unions said that about 8 lakh bank employees, 800,000 people, took part.
On October 11, 2023, the Election Commission of India moved polling day in the Rajasthan assembly election from November 23 to November 25. November 23 was Dev Uthani Ekadashi, which opens the wedding season. The Commission cited “large-scale wedding/social engagement on that day,” which “may lead to reduced voters participation during poll.”
In January 2022 the Commission had moved polling in Punjab from February 14 to February 20, after parties asked for a delay because of Guru Ravidas Jayanti.
In November 2020 the Board of Control for Cricket in India announced: “The BCCI has granted paternity leave to the Indian captain.” Virat Kohli would fly home from the tour of Australia after the first Test in Adelaide for the birth of his first child.
Sunil Gavaskar compared this with the treatment of T. Natarajan, a bowler who had also just become a father and was kept in Australia as a net bowler. “And there is the captain going back after the first Test for the birth of his first child. That’s Indian cricket.”