Tech Mahindra sacks diversity officer ‘who mocked gay people & called Islam a global pain’
New Delhi: TechMahindra has fired a diversity officer accused of making statements derogatory to homosexuals and Islam, the company announced in a tweet late Saturday.
The decision followed an internal investigation kicked up by tweets posted by a former employee, Gaurav Probir Pramanik, who is gay. Gaurav worked at the Noida office of the company between 2013 and 2016.
ThePrint was the first to report that Tech Mahindra had launched an investigation against the officer in question, Richa Gautam.
According to Gaurav, among other instances, Gautam had labelled him “effeminate” and implied that it affected his performance at work.
Gaurav alleged that in 2015, she asked a manager who was weeping whether he was “a gay” to be “crying like this”.
In one of her tweets from an account that has been locked to strangers since the controversy broke, she reportedly called Islam “a global pain”.
“I stand vindicated,” Gaurav told ThePrint after Gautam’s sacking. “I am grateful that the outcome came so fast. I have finally got some sort of a closure to the hurt and humiliation I was subjected to over an extended period of time.”
“My prime reason for leaving Tech Mahindra was the constant humiliation I had to face for being gay,” Gaurav had told ThePrint in a previous email.
Speaking to ThePrint, Tech Mahindra MD and CEO C.P. Gurnani reiterated the formal statement issued by Tech Mahindra on Twitter and sought to distance the company from Gautam.
According to her profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn, Gautam had been with Tech Mahindra since 2007.
Her alleged harassment of employees came to light earlier this month, after the historic 6 September verdict of the Supreme Court decriminalising homosexuality.
Three days after the Supreme Court’s Section 377 verdict, on 9 September, Gaurav wrote Gautam an email where he sought to call her out for her behaviour. In the email, which Gaurav tweeted after Gautam reportedly didn’t respond, he detailed the aforementioned instances of harassement.
Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra and Gurnani responded to the tweets, saying they would investigate the matter.
ThePrint reached out to Gautam through Facebook but is yet to receive a reply.
courtesy : theprint.in
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RR beat RCB by six wickets in IPL
Guwahati (PTI): Blistering fifties by Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Dhruv Jurel powered Rajasthan Royals to a six-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their IPL match here on Friday.
Sent in to bat, RCB rode on a fighting half-century by skipper Rajat Patidar (63) to post 201 for 8.
Virat Kohli (32), Romario Shepherd (22) and Venkatesh Iyer (29) also chipped in with useful contributions.
In reply, Sooryavanshi (78 off 26 balls) and Dhruv Jurel (81 not out off 43 balls) shared a 37-ball 108-run partnership for the second wicket to set the platform. Krunal Pandya (2/30) tried to bring them back with back-to-back wickets.
But Jurel, in the company of Ravindra Jadeja (24), completed the task with another 68-run stand, with two overs to spare.
For RR, Jofra Archer (2/33), Ravi Bishnoi (2/32) and Brijesh Sharma (2/37) took two wickets.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: 201 for 8 in 20 overs (Rajat Patidar 63; Jofra Archer 2/33, Ravi Bishnoi 2/32, Brijesh Sharma 2/37).
Rajasthan Royals: 202 for 4 in 18 overs (Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 78, Dhruv Jurel 80 not out; Krunal Pandya 2/30, Josh Hazlewood 2/44).
