…The coming together of Indian textile mills and western brands is the latest attempt to salvage the situation, even as lawmakers in India and Europe seem to have taken cognisance of the issue…The meeting, attended by the two retail biggies as well as by representatives of C&A, Primex, GAP, and three other brands, may help shape their collective response to this controversy, which however shows no signs of dying down anytime soon. That's because the NGO has indicated it isn't over yet…It all started in 2011, when the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN), an NGO, and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO)…published…an update…focus was on an employment scheme that is popularly known as Sumangali. Central to the scheme is the promise of a lumpsum at the end of a contract period, typically three years. The NGO report called the scheme exploitative and said it was "tantamount to bonded labour"…Spokespersons of Marks & Spencer, as well as of Walmart and Inditex, two companies that participated in that meeting with the Southern India Mills' Association, say they have checked and have ruled out the prevalence of such discriminatory practices among their Tamil Nadu suppliers. Marks & Spencer also says it uses "third-party, independent, highly trained auditors" to make such an assessment.