In a democratic country, freedom should be absolute. The moment a restriction is placed on its head, the meaning of democracy vanishes.

In February 2016, police in Delhi arrested Kanhaiya Kumar, a student union leader at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, after members of the student wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused him of making anti-national speeches during a meeting organized on campus. This unjustified act of filing sedition cases over him dilutes the form of democracy. The sedition law, section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), was introduced by the British in 1870. The British used the law as a tool of repression to maintain colonial control, including against Indian freedom fighters. The regulation of free speech provokes dictatorship.

Another example is the frequent use of criminal defamation charges by the Tamil Nadu state government, led by former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, against journalists, media outlets, and rival politicians is illustrative of how the law can be used to criminalize critics of the government. “The Tamil Nadu government reportedly filed nearly 200 cases of criminal defamation between 2011 and 2016. The Tamil-language magazines Ananda Vikatan and Junior Vikatan, both published by the Vikatan group, face charges in 34 criminal defamation cases, including for a series of articles assessing the performance of each cabinet minister” reported Human rights watch in one of their articles. The Supreme Court judges replied that “These criticisms are with reference to the conceptual governance of the state and not individualistic. Why should the state file a case for individuals? Defamation case is not meant for this.”Any stringent guideline on free speech is outrageous and is disgraceful to the democracy.

The extent of free speech and expression in itself is limited in India. In 2012, two girls in Mumbai were arrested for their facebook (Social Media) post questioning the shutdown in the city for Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray’s funeral. In 2015, the Tamil Nadu state police arrested a folk singer Kovan for composing songs that criticized the government for allegedly profiting from state-run liquor shops at the expense of the poor. He was released on bail after a year.

The sudden demonetisation move by the prime minister remains unquestionable till today.The democratic nation created by the people will be in jeopardy with regulations imposed on the free speech.

Source: Human Rights watch, scroll.in

It is one of the world’s oldest sports surviving since the Indus valley civilisation. There are several poems written about “Eru Thazhuvuthal” in the sangam literature of tamil. The state of Tamil Nadu celebrates, pongal festival, to mark the winter harvest and to begin a fresh harvest for the upcoming year. The second day is observed as ‘mattu pongal’ where bulls play a significant role in raising the crops to help farmers. This 5000-year-old, ancient sport is celebrated on the mattu pongal. Virile bulls are in great demand as they are used to sire calves. During the sport, the bull’s horn is tied with bag of coins (these days it’s a cloth) and the herder is supposed to slow down the bull and embrace the hump removing the bag. It requires a great valour to calm down a bull running at a high speed from the vaadi vaasal (entrance) towards the person, who is ready to tackle bull. There were allegations that the animal is let in an open area, as young men throw themselves onto the bull, in an effort to “tame” it and grab prizes or cash affixed on the animal’s body. Jallikattu, do not offer any major monetary benefit like other sports. If that is the case, then why do we have cricket matches? Isn’t there a price set for players in the team ? But still we have cricket matches.

The farmers spend huge amount in bringing up a bull and their only gain is the incentive by letting the bull participate in the sport. I have heard from my grandparents that it takes huge money and great patience to rear the cattle. The male bovines which displays their agility and celerity in the field are the main reason for the existence of native off-springs. Tamil Nadu had six native cattle breeds a century ago out of which the alambadi breed is now extinct. According to the data released in 2012 by livestock and poultry population of the Animal Husbandry department of Tamil Nadu, there has been a 21.22% decline in the cattle growth. The districts popular for the Jallikattu— mainly Madurai, Tiruchirappalli, Theni, Pudukkottai and Dindigul had recorded a decline in the growth of cattles by 38%, 17%, 22%,23% and 70% respectively. The native cattle serve multiple purposes: they provide milk and farmyard manure, they are used for ploughing and transportation.
With the reduced availability of the native male breeds, farmers are opting for artificial insemination. This has lead to the increase in the production of artificially yield milk as the quality of the native breed cows is declining yet the latter is still considered more healthy. The cows of the native breed do not yield good quality of milk as artificial one’s produce milk yet they are healthy. Some cattle research organisations claim “The cross-breed cows produce high quantities of milk (not necessarily healthy- mostly A1 type -cause of a number of major diseases.) They cannot withstand the high temperature in India. Most of them suffer in silence to produce more milk to cater to our greed. In most cases the banned drug “oxitocin” is injected to the cows to produce more milk further weakening them and affecting our health.”
Here is my view- I agree to respect the arguments given by the PETA in videos, showing in some parts of the country, bulls are ill-treated. In that case, we should figure out ways to test, bulls before they participate in the sport. I would not agree with the ban. If they want to ban the sport, reasoning the animal cruelty, here are my further opinions. Some women in the country are being raped by men every day, so kill the male infants at birth.There are some unnoticed and uninformed incidents of a man being harassed and raped. Kill the female infants too from this day on.
There are ways to treat a sport and give justice to it. Does the centre expect to protest for years as we did for Hindi-not-to-be-a-national language?

It is remarkable to see women achieving and excelling in different fields. They go to space (Kalpana Chawla), are appointed at Governance (Hillary Clinton, Nirmala Sitharaman), are journalists (Burkha Dutt), break Olympic records (PV Sindhu), own companies (Indra Nooyi, Christine Lagarde) and are lawyers, doctors, artists, musicians, dancers.

Article 15(1) of the Indian constitution mentions equality of opportunities for all citizens on the grounds of employment.  However, there is no constitutional law that states the equality of men and women. There are ministries such as Women and Child welfare in the constitution. There is no Ministry of welfare for men. Both are different sex and indeed women are physically the weaker sex. Let me substantiate it with a reason why women should not be allowed to go to temples during their menstrual cycle and should be deprived of equality. Women are impure and unholy at those times as they shed blood which renders weakness. According to ancient Indian Science, humans’ existence and movement were recognized with “Energy.” According to the 5000-year-old, Ayurveda, menstruation is the process of monthly cleansing. Scientifically, within hours of bleeding, estrogens level slowly begins to rise and women tend to feel discomfort as it removes all impure, waste blood from the body. This is considered as removing negative energy from the system. Based on the law of attraction, during this time it is obvious to attract all the positive forces. To be precise, positive energies rise up from the temples (through light and idol), and negative energy goes downwards in menstruation. More than discomforting the body of women, it neutralizes the energy in the idol. Hence they should not be allowed to the temples when they bleed.

It is not the battle of sex. It is the battle of practicality. However, women are the reasonable existence of creating the other. According to the physical definition of equality, “Two quantities or things are approximately equal when they are close enough in value so the difference is inconsequential in practical terms.” Men and women differ widely in their values both physically and mentally and thus the concept of equality is a false notion. Apples are not equal to oranges. They are fruits, but not all oranges make an apple pie and neither the converse is true.  It is worth remembering that the term ‘gender’ came about in the early 1960’s in an attempt to differentiate between one’s biological sex and imposed socio-cultural roles.

According to me, women should not demand equality. They should continue to achieve at greater heights to prove that they are not equal and are just greater than men. India, “Bharat Matha”, by name gives a high reverence to women. When a society fails to understand the nature of men and women, everything turns unfair and the demand of equality rises.

On 24th October 2016, the India’s biggest conglomerate, the Tata Sons ousted its Chairman Cyrus P Mistry who has been on the Tata son’s board since 2006. Ratan Tata, who was preceded Mistry, announced his colleagues about the removal of Mistry “is in the interest of the stability and reassurance to the Tata Group.”

Fearing a plunge in the stock market, he was appointed as an interim Chairman and it is said that he will head the group for four months till the next chairman is found. The team of four (Section panel:  Ratan Tata, Ronen Sen, Venu Srinivasan, Amit Chandra) is set for this decision.

However, the share prices at the Tata Steel fell 4%, Tata power 2%, TCS 1.2%, Tata Motors 2.2% after the announcement.

This shock removal of the Chairman, who plays a decisive lead role in Company’s development and strategy, has set off a no-holds-barred skirmish within the company. Mistry’s tenure at the Tata sons has been the shortest at the conglomerate. In an interview by the NDTV, a trust member VR Mehta says that it was the concerns on the company’s declining performance, from the Tata Trust that built up a decision to oust Mistry. Some reports say that Cyrus had a weak team unprepared for the new challenges and the Tata trust was unhappy with break-up of Tata and Docomo . Also Mistry’s decision to sell Tata steel UK in the wake of amounting loss, might have been a sore spot.

It was reported that out of the nine board members, eight voted. Six voted for removal, two including Mistry-abstained.

Following Mistry’s removal as Chairman of Tata sons, the Tata Trusts sought his removal as chairman from the boards of listed companies. After a bitter eight-week boardroom battle, he resigned from the boards of all listed companies of Tata Group in December. He also took the battle to National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) by filing a suit against Tata Sons for “oppression and mismanagement”.  NCLT’s next hearing in the current case up for hearing on 31 January, according to the reports.

This Irish-Indian Businessman was the sixth Chairman of the group and the second outsider(not from Tata family) after Nowroji Saklatwala in 1932. Although an outsider, Cyrus Mistry, Managing Director of construction firm Shapoorji Pallonji & Co is the largest shareholder of Tata Sons, with a stake of around 18.4 per cent.
Cyrus during his tenure:

Mistry focussed on tackling mounting debt by raising cash, refinancing loans and selling assets after writing them down. During the four-year-long tenure, Mistry raised the market capitalisation to 8.5 lakh crore whose value was 4.62 lakh crore before he took up the position in 2012.

According to a letter issued by the Mistry’ office, “He added a few senior positions such as Group CTO and Group Strategy Head. These positions were aimed at enhancing the group central capabilities to future-proof the group. The Group CTO Office works on technology projects relating to multiple group companies. This focus on technology will be a differentiator for the Tata Group, and pay dividends in the years ahead.”

Adding to it, the dubious investment by Tata sons in the aerospace sector, Piaggio Aero, resulted at a distressing exit and loss of Rs. 1,150 Cr.

Sources quote that the dividend earned pre-Cyrus was Rs. 1212 crores (FY 2009-2012) and Post-Cyrus was approximately Rs. 1600 Crores (FY 2013-2016).

In a media release, Tata sons announced that “Mr. Mistry was replaced after four years in that role because the board of Tata sons lost confidence in him and the ability to lead the Tata group in future.”

It is the corporate ethics to explain the reasons for expulsion of the chairman with the achievements that he failed to make. It is a governance breach and violation that Corporate has not heeded to it.  Also, Tata sons constantly promote TCS, Tetley and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), as its hugely successful investment. But it was achieved on the later part of the 11-year-old (1991-2012) Ratan Tata’s chairmanship that JLR was bought from Ford in 2008.

But after 2012, the company was not dysfunctional and utterly in loss. Instead, between FY11 to FY15, Tata Sons net worth, after considering impairments increased from Rs 26,000 Cr to Rs 42,000 Cr, significantly strengthening the ability to absorb future shocks.

Sanjoy Bhattacharya, managing partner at Fortuna capital said in an interview that “Whose bread you eat, his song you sing.”

Is it that Independent directors are supposed to sing the song of the people who are giving them the bread?

Time Line of the Corporate Surgical Strike in 2016:

 October, 24 -Cyrus Mistry removed as Tata sons chairman & Ratan Tata appointed as interim chairman

October, 26– Mistry’s letter to Tata sons board becomes public, reveals a series of allegations against Ratan Tata. Says he was pushed into a situation of “lame duck” chairman

November, 1– Ratan Tata writes to employees that Tata Sons board felt Mistry’s removal was absolutely necessary for the future success of the Tata Group

November, 9– Tata sons sacks Mistry as chairman as TCS, replaced by Ishaat Hussain

November, 15– Tata beverages sacks Mistry as chairman and replaces Harish Bhat

November, 21– Nusli Wadia, an independent director in Tata Steel, Tata Motors, and Tata chemicals serves defamation notice on Tata sons board

November, 25– Tata steel removes Mistry as chairman, appoints independent director O.P Bhatt in his place

December, 5– Mistry seeks government’s intervention to remedy and repair breakdown’ in the governance of trusts managing Tata sons

December, 13– Mistry removed as director of TCS after shareholders vote in EGM

December, 19– Mistry quits as director from boards of key operating Tata companies before scheduled EGM’s describe his sacking from Tata group as “illegal coup”

December, 20-Mistry moves NCLT against Ratan Tata and some of its directors,

December, 23– Ratan says- However painful the fight with Mistry may be but the truth will prevail

December, 27– Tata sons breach legal notice on Mistry for alleged breach of confidentiality

References:

1. http://www.tata.com/
2. http://www.livemint.com/Companies/1MW7bYVYjyv4eiDytu2ZQN/Indias-corporate-governance-challenge.html
3. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
4. http://www.outlookindia.com/
5. http://www.business-standard.com/
6. http://www.ndtv.com/
7. http://www.bseindia.com/
8. http://www.piaggioaerospace.it/
9. http://www.jaguarlandrover.com/gl/en/about-us/our-history/
10. https://www.thequint.com