is it only in India that I see such binding agreements, or are they prevalent worldwide?
Holy crap, no.
In Sweden, you start out with one month notice on both parties. The time increases for the employer based on how long you've worked, but generally doesn't for the employee. The only exemption is for "critical" employees where it's hard to find a replacement and losing the person would endanger the company. In such cases I think the notice time for the employee can increase to three months or maybe six months.
Labour laws in the rest of the EU are pretty similar, what you describe is completely unheard of. If a company wishes to train new hires, they take the full cost, and they take the gamble of it working out or not.
Holy crap, no.
In Sweden, you start out with one month notice on both parties. The time increases for the employer based on how long you've worked, but generally doesn't for the employee. The only exemption is for "critical" employees where it's hard to find a replacement and losing the person would endanger the company. In such cases I think the notice time for the employee can increase to three months or maybe six months.
Labour laws in the rest of the EU are pretty similar, what you describe is completely unheard of. If a company wishes to train new hires, they take the full cost, and they take the gamble of it working out or not.