Things that matter

Recall the time of Anna Andolan, Nirbhaya's case, Ramdev Andolan. Could those movements have gain that significance had media polarized the issue and kept different intentions and didn’t give sufficient coverage? We never felt pride in our media houses, but we were too not ashamed of these at that time. We never blamed it for being pro-government or pro-corporate. At that time as well, many politicians owned some stakes in media houses but they didn’t dare to interfere with their working, or at least it was not apparent enough. There was a strong coherent voice against the government, raising questions on everything that matters. Media houses didn’t have notions of nationality, right conduct. Professionals, subject matter experts' views were respected. They intended to bring new perspectives into the country, not to streamline all ideologies in one direction. We need to check how this polarization of media started and where are we heading? Can we draw parallels with some...

The world of social media and democratic politics was rocked on March 17, 2018, when THE NEW YORK TIMES reported the Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics consulting firm misused the personal information of over 50 million Facebook user to influence the results of US presidential election and the Brexit referendum in the UK. The source for the story of our decade was a whistleblower named Christopher Wylie, an ex-Cambridge Analytica employee. The first indication of the misuse of personal information by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook was first reported by the Harry Davies, a reporter at The Guardian in 2015, concerning the election campaign by US Senator Ted Cruz for his bid for the president of United States. Facebook initially refused to comment on the story in the follow-up of the story by the various News Organizations. The theft started innocuously with a data scientist at Cambridge University, developing a Personality Quiz mobile app, "thisisyourdigitallife", wh...

The Trump administration's 2017 travel ban against the seven Muslim-majority nations was a shocking event in many ways. Besides the widespread public outrage, the overwhelming response by the business leaders against the ban was commendable. It was not a singular instance when profit-making and shareholder's value-maximizing companies went out of their way to take a stand. Over the past two decades, there are several instances where the heads of the companies have strongly represented their stance on a political or social issue. However, the situation was drastically different if we look further into history. Traditionally, companies have seen themselves as profit-makers. Their sole purpose of existence has been to maximize value for their shareholders. If they spoke their minds, they risked alienating their customers having differing views and opinions and invited a negative impact on their topline and bottom-line. As such, businesses have conventionally tried to mai...

Gender Equality The sustainable development goal SDG 5 addresses gender inequality. This goal aims to eliminate discrimination against women in both public and private spheres. It also aims to provide equal rights to women in terms of economic resources and undertake reforms for the same. We chose to discuss this goal because achieving this goal is crucial for the world to become not just socially responsible but also economically responsible as well. About half of the population consists of women, and the percentage of women in the workforce is whimsically low. Ignoring these facts will be the biggest mistake we’ll make. Hence we tried to see this area in terms of the impact it has on gender inequality with some personal examples, proceeds which some countries/companies have achieved and their impact, and the steps which can be taken to improve the situation. We were also personally attached to this issue because of a few incidences that we experienced in the past and a few t...