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Context is everything.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
It is surprising that governor Gavin Newsom should grant so much importance to the word of one caste-privileged Indian-American against the lived experiences of many.
On 7 October, somewhat mystifyingly, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 403. The bill would have explicitly banned discrimination on grounds of caste. The official reason provided by the governor for the veto was that California’s existing anti-discrimination law was “liberally construed”, that is, it was capacious enough to provide protections against caste-based discrimination.
The decision was surprising for at least three reasons. First, the bill had overwhelming bipartisan support in the California legislature from both Democrats and Republicans, unusual in these times of extreme polarization in the US. Second, the Democratic party has usually been the party of …
Should the bill become law, it would mark a watershed in the history of human rights and civil rights in the US, not just for Americans of Indian and South Asian origin but also for stigmatized communities from other regions.
The costs of an instrumental understanding of STEM at the expense of the humanities have been significant, not just in particular societies like India, the US or China, but for the world.
Voting powers at Alphabet and Meta have ensured that shareholder proposals on human rights concerns in India hardly make a dent; separately, Reliance-owned Fynd finds itself in the soup.
