The power of democratic protests?
Yay or Nay?
Hello, hope you had a great week and weekend. This week we cover workplace politics, a new phase of Surveillance & Inflation in the USA.
The Prime Minister Speaks...
On 19/11/21, the Prime Minister addressed the nation with an interesting announcement that might bring a twist to the politics of the current day in hope of better electoral results and other speculations that your human mind can offer.
The PM stated that all 3 Farm Laws will be repealed.
“Today is Prakash Parv. It is not the time to blame anyone. I want to tell the country that we have decided to repeal the three farm laws, I urge farmers to return to their homes to their families, and let’s start afresh. A majority of farmers are small-scale farmers and to help them we took a multifaceted approach from seed technology, crop insurance schemes. We tried our best to explain to farmers. We were even ready to modify the laws and suspend them. The matter reached the Supreme Court as well. Maybe something was lacking in our Tapasya, which is why we could not convince some farmers about the laws.”
Farmers’ Respond
The Saiyuki Kisan Morcha, an umbrella organization of 32 farm bodies spearheading the agitation said in a joint statement that “The Samyukt Kisan Morcha welcomes this decision and will wait for the announcement to take effect through due parliamentary procedures. If this happens, it will be a historic victory of the one-year-long farmers’ struggle in India.”
The union has also asked the government to withdraw the legal cases filed against farmers during the protest.
Rakesh Tikait:
Rakesh Tikait, the national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, leading the farmers' movement took to Twitter to give his first reaction.
“The agitation will not be withdrawn immediately, we will wait for the day when agricultural laws will be repealed in the parliament. Along with MSP, the government should also discuss other issues of farmers.”
Setting the right example at workplaces
As per the HBR Ascend Youth Skills Survey, 2019, one in every four employees lacks in performance due to office politics. Hence, it is important to learn how we communicate with our colleagues and deal with the politics at play.
11 members of Forbes Human Resources Council share their expertise on how employees and leaders can manage office politics effectively, out of which, a few have been explained here.
Authenticity comes first: Victoria Pelletier of Accenture believes that being authentic and by meaning and following up on what you said will make the colleagues trust you more.
Listening is an Art: Bradley D. Soto of Anthem, Inc, explains that listening to the tone of the workers during video calling and email interactions with an intent to understand what it means and if there are any issues or not.
Neutrality wins the race: Dr Timothy J. Giardino of BMC Software highlights that remaining neutral in negative situations means de-escalating situations and avoiding additional conflicts.
Inclusion and Collaboration are the keys: Heather Smith, Flimp Communications, shares that people should be willing to share their ideas and collaborate to work together on projects which often helps the employees to navigate office politics.
Connect without an agenda: Pari Becker, Titan Machinery, explains one should make genuine efforts without any motives and intentions to connect with others in the organization which will show them that you care about them as a co-worker.
(Source: Forbes)
New Phase of Surveillance
Hyderabad, the 16th most surveilled city in the world has been in the limelight for installing facial recognition systems in the city. The Command & Control Centre will monitor data through Hyderabad Police’s Facial Recognition software from at least 600,000 cameras.
Interventions & the impact:
Internet Freedom Foundation stated that Facial Recognition Technology can impact people adversely- One, by excluding them from Government schemes and benefits.
Second, by affecting the rights of citizens which include the Right to privacy, the Right to freedom of speech & expression, right to dissent and protest.
Amnesty International organized a global campaign, ‘Ban the Scan’ to ban the use of FRT due to its adverse implications on the rights of privacy and freedom of expression. The campaign conducted by the NGO in Hyderabad found that during the second wave of covid police officers photographed citizens without their consent and even forced them to remove their masks.
Experts’ say-
Anushka Jain, the Internet Freedom Foundation associate counsel- stated that there is no legislation in place to protect the privacy of citizens from such a harmful and invasive technology.
Matt Mahmoudi, Amnesty International’s AI and Big Data researcher stated that Hyderabad is on the brink of becoming a total surveillance city as it is almost impossible to walk down the street without risking exposure to facial recognition.
(Sources: IndiaTimes, Print, The Hindu, Internet Freedom Foundation)
Inflation At Its New High
The world’s largest economy is witnessing a phase of inflation. The United States government on 10th November 2021, reported that their consumer price index soared 6.2 per cent from a year ago.
Its impact on India-
On12th November 2021, India’s National Statistical Office (NSO) data showed that retail inflation rose to 4.5 per cent in the same month of November as the United States. It impacts India in such a way that-
The increase in price, globally, will lead to higher inflation on imports, which will further increase India’s current account deficit (the value of the goods and services a country imports exceeds the value of the products it exports).
The central banks in the US will adopt a tight monetary policy which will lead to higher interest rates for the rest of the world.
That will affect the economy in 2 ways:
It will be costlier for Indian firms to raise money outside India.
The RBI will have to align the USA's monetary policy by raising interest rates domestically.
(Sources: Moneycontrol, Economic Times, Indian Express)
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