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Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

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Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#291
post #41

Discrimination and biases are part of everyday life, whether we like it or not. This is an observation, not an endorsement. Ignoring them is akin to denying human nature or believing that the logical mind can fully control the entirety of our thinking. This is why there are a few academic papers that explore this often-taboo topic. I recommend reading Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange? [1] where there is a table o…

Sorry, nowadays we're supposed to believe everything is programmable/reprogrammable.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#292
post #66

This is obvious at a number of these big box consulting firms for many years (Tata, Cognizant, HCL, Capgemini). Its so easy to verify too - go on linkedin and comb through dozens of search results of exclusively Indians (I'm not talking about American-Indians who go to undergrad in the US like every other person). These firms also take a lions share of the h1b visas which is another conversation - why does India get…

> why does India get to have 75% of all h1b visas? Seems not very diverse.

Not to defend the Indians or their paymasters, but the H1B isn't diversity based, and there are a lot of Indians who also speak English, so...

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#294

I am a proud Indian-American (naturalized after h1b) and I think this kind of discriminatory mindset has no place anywhere, definitely not in the workplace. I think my community can be secure in its success and learn to do better and be open to critique. Let's work to abolish these attitudes by being more self-aware and raising awareness & use cautionary tales like this as a wake-up call.

[flagged]

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#295
The worst HR case I ever got involved in was a semi-onshore (Indian) development team who couldn't deal with having a female (Indian) tech lead. She was eminently qualified for the role, but they would attempt to undermine her at every turn, speak over her, hold meetings without her, always going over her head... Caste did not appear to be a factor; it seemed to be good old fashioned sexism.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#296
post #212

It's weird how racism against Indians online is so normalised. I see the same on reddit too.

[flagged]

Not the parent commenter, but from what I've seen, they are correct, and as far as Reddit is concerned, especially so.

Genuine criticism of India's government and some Indian/Hindu cultural practices can quickly devolve into disgusting racist diatribes and stereotypes that wouldn't fly against people from other countries. Try using the hard-r n-word as a non-black person, or calling someone with East Asian phenotypes a 'Chinaman', or any Native American stereotype today, and see how quickly you bring a firestorm upon yourself.

Meanwhile, people on Reddit call Indians street-sh*tters or cow pi*s drinkers, and no one bats an eyelid. I have seen these words verbatim on places like /r/worldnews, without censorship or bans whatsoever.

Racism against Indians is normalised, full stop.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#297
post #66

This is obvious at a number of these big box consulting firms for many years (Tata, Cognizant, HCL, Capgemini). Its so easy to verify too - go on linkedin and comb through dozens of search results of exclusively Indians (I'm not talking about American-Indians who go to undergrad in the US like every other person). These firms also take a lions share of the h1b visas which is another conversation - why does India get…

Because there are just that many applicants from India? The result of this is also that Indians have virtually no scope of settling down in the US, since the waitlist for green card for them goes beyond 134 years. Which means none of those H1B holders are going to stay.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#298
post #283

The comments on this story are very interesting - not in the good way. This rhetoric is very similar to previous ones that existed in over the decades like Jewish/Polish/Chinese/etc people only doing business with other people of their groups. Or democrats/republicans in deep blue/red states sticking with their own. Back to the topic: I know a lot of 2nd, 3rd generation Indians who definitely do not fit the stereotyp…

I think it's offloading well known problematic companies issues like Cognizant onto nationality. It's the nature of service that WITCH prefers to provide and puts people in position where it's hard to change it, and the executives who contract with WITCH.

Good point. That initialism is new to me, I can see how companies that fall into that group can be problematic.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#299

The waitlist for Indians to get a green card (i.e. second-class citizenship) is 134 years currently. By the end of this decade, it will touch 200. No regular Indian going on a work visa to the US currently has any significant scope of ever being recognized a citizen. Think of that what you will, but the list of incentives an Indian has to bother integrating into American society is rather short.

Genuinely asking as someone not deeply familiar with the complexities of Indian culture: India now has the largest population in the world, is the biggest democracy, and has significant potential for growth (e.g. reducing poverty). At the same time, we see Indian leaders in top positions in major U.S. companies, like the CEOs of Google (1st gen) and Microsoft (2nd gen). How do these factors all connect? What drives this mix of internal challenges and global success? I’m not naive in thinking that a few successful individuals represent an entire population, but I do see a signal there.

Re: Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

#300
post #291
post #41

Discrimination and biases are part of everyday life, whether we like it or not. This is an observation, not an endorsement. Ignoring them is akin to denying human nature or believing that the logical mind can fully control the entirety of our thinking. This is why there are a few academic papers that explore this often-taboo topic. I recommend reading Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange? [1] where there is a table o…

Sorry, nowadays we're supposed to believe everything is programmable/reprogrammable.

Discrimination has largely been "reprogrammable" though. E.g. America doesn't have segregation anymore.
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