CORPORATE CITIZEN CLAPS FOR COVID-19 WARRIORS – SUHANI MOHAN, HER FELLOW IIT-IAN AND START-UP PARTNER KARTIK MEHTA AND THEIR BENEFACTOR, BUSINESS TYCOON ANAND MAHINDRA

Suhani and Kartik are co-founders of Navi Mumbai-based Saral Designs, manufacturers of menstrual hygiene products, who have shown their ingenuity in converting their sanitary pad machines into making three ply masks to overcome their shortage in the fight against the deadly Coronavirus. Necessity is indeed the mother of production as Suhani’s initial thoughts on the anticipated mask shortage stemmed from her concern for the safety of her doctor brother and sister-in-law which has now translated into ‘hope’ for the larger health workforce. “By March 15, the design of our mask was ready, but we got stuck as we needed some material and due to the lockdown, it was getting difficult to find it. I just thought that the big companies would be open,” said Suhani. Then began her relentless task of approaching people including her own junior Shruti Agarwal, an executive assistant to tycoon Anand Mahindra who supported her idea and grit too. “Within four hours, we got a reply and Anand connected us to the head of Mahindra Automotive. They helped us in a big way by supporting us in all our requirements. And within 100 hours after receiving that email, we were able to set up the manufacturing unit,” she said. “Mr Mahindra was generous enough to welcome us and told us to make use of his Kandivali plant,” she added. They are currently producing 3,000 masks a day, a feat that Anand Mahindra termed as a sequel to the Bollywood movie Padman. Plans are to boost up the production to 10,000 masks per day in the next 15 days. The surgical masks will be UV-sterilised and will come with a bacteria filter layer of 99.95 % efficiency. Mahindra was so impressed with Suhani that he called her a ‘hero’ and also mentioned Shruti Agarwal, Suhani’s junior at IIT, in his tweet. He tweeted, “Heroes continue to rise. @suhani is an IIT Bombay graduate who moved from banking to entrepreneurship.” Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) also announced the production of ‘Face Shields’ for healthcare workers. Mahindra thanked Pawan Goenka, Managing Director of M&M and Ford Motor for their contribution in the production of the face shields. Thank you Pawan & team for your swift action. And a big thank you to @jimfarley98 of Ford...”

CORPORATE CITIZEN SLAPS THE TENDENCY OF INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES TO DISCRIMINATE INDIVIDUALS BASED ON THE ARCHAIC ‘CASTE’ SYSTEM EVEN WHEN WE STAND AT THE THRESHOLD OF A NEW DECADE

A report published in the Economic and Political Review, March Edition, states that “The second wave of the India Human Development Survey data (HDS) has been used to generate a socio-economic profile of those who practise untouchability in India, and check the hypothesis that households with a wider network outside the community than with one within the community are less likely to practise untouchability, and uses a logistic regression model to measure this effect at the all-India level.” The deeprooted tendency of ‘casteism’ has been captured in the most recent 2012 HDS survey that states that about 24% of households in Haryana still practice untouchability. Amit Thorat of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), reiterated that untouchability prevails in Haryana even after 70 years of its abolishment in 1950. The survey provides a religion wise break-up stating that 30% Jains, 26% Hindus and 20% Muslims in rural areas continue to advocate untouchability. The debate brings to the fore the December 2019 tragic ‘wall collapse’ incident in Mettupalayam, Coimbatore, that led to the death of 17 Dalits, resulting in some 3,000 people within their fraternity to convert to Islam. Reports stated that post heavy rains that lashed Mettupalayam and the surrounding regions, the collapse of the alleged “wall of discrimination”, on three houses killed 17 people. “We decided to leave Hinduism according to what Ambedkar said. I need to lose my identity, which means I need to get rid of the caste remarks such as Pallar, Parayar, Sakkriyar. I can live with self-dignity only when I shed this cast-based identity. While following Hinduism because of our caste, we aren’t even treated like humans,” said Illavenil, a convert to Islam. As per the constitutional mandate, Parliament had made laws to uplift Dalits and backward castes but are they aware of the laws or are these implemented at all? “If the administration fails to implement a law, they can be taken to task by using the punitive provisions of laws such as Atrocities Act, Protection of Civil Rights Act and Safai Karamcharis Act,” said Raja Sekhar Vundru, Principal Secretary, Haryana.