The note is long, repetitive across years, and carries four things worth extracting every time.
What do the assumptions and sensitivities show?
The assumption table gives the discount rate, the salary escalation rate, the expected return where the filer is American, the attrition rate and the mortality table. Track the discount rate and the salary rate as a pair. A company that cuts its salary assumption in the same year it cuts its discount rate has offset a liability increase with an assumption change, and both moves are disclosed but neither is highlighted.
The sensitivity disclosure states what a movement in each significant assumption does to the obligation. IAS 19 and Ind AS 19 require one for every significant actuarial assumption, quantified in both directions, and that's where the Indian examples get their numbers. ASC 715 carries no general equivalent for a pension plan, so on a US filer the sensitivity usually has to be built from the assumption table and an estimated duration instead of being read off the page. Two cautions on the disclosure you do get. It covers the obligation and not the expense, so an expense effect has to be constructed. And the sensitivities are computed one assumption at a time, so combining two of them by addition understates the joint effect. At Nandan Forgings, stressing the discount rate down 100 basis points and salary growth up 100 basis points together gives ₹56,04,79,961.16 against a naive sum of ₹55,72,04,600, a difference of ₹32,75,361.16.
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What else is worth checking in the note?
The asset allocation tells you how the plan is invested, usually split between equity, debt, insurer-managed funds and property. A plan matched to its liability with long bonds behaves very differently from one holding 60% equities, and the second will produce large remeasurements in both directions that a reader who only looks at profit will never see. An American sponsor's expected-return assumption should be defensible against its own asset mix, and a sponsor claiming 8.50% on a portfolio that's three-quarters investment-grade debt is claiming something.
The expected contribution for the coming year is the cash number, and it's the one the treasury department cares about.
Indian filers need one more check. The note will separate gratuity from leave encashment and often from the provident-fund trust, and the three behave differently. The gratuity accounting page explains how.