Whispers Forum

The L&T chairperson’s recent suggestion about introducing 90-hour a week in offices, is inhuman, anti-people, reflecting a capitalist mindset. The thoughtless limit is significantly higher than even the 70-hour work-week advocated by the Infosys chairperson. Let us look at it dispassionately with a 360 degree perspective.
The suggestion has sparked off a controversy about productivity, work-life balance.life-long consequences and future of corporate culture. Need it hardly be mentioned that the employees working in corporate sector do not get salaries and perks at par with their founders and top management?Large time is wasted by them for reaching offices due to inadequate transport facilities. In this context, China’s infamous ‘996’ work culture, expecting employees to work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, was condemned as modern-day slavery. Countries like Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Japan had once introduced long working hours. However, this was soon given up due to high social costs.
Worse, working beyond 40 to 50 hours a week, is fraught with diminishing returns leading to mental and physical stress and health issues resulting in negative impact in the form of accidents and even costly mistakes. Is this corporate culture?.Employees have to be treated with dignity and empathy instead of leaving them to die due to over-work at work places. By introducing a 7-day week with no week-ends off, how much time will be left to spend with families? Worse still, nuclear families, with no support services will be the worst-hit.
Having said that, I would urge the business honchos to refrain from making such sweeping statements without considering all relevant facts, unsupported by evidence to get cheap publicity. The government, as the model employer, one is sure, will never allow such top-down imposition of long working hours in office without consulting the stake-holders.
A K Saxena (Former civil servant)

Who is a Delhite? They promise to make Delhi a New York, London and Paris. They do not want Delhi to be Delhi. The great battle of the Mahabharat might have been fought in Kurukshetra but Delhi suffered collateral damage. It is suffering a different kind of continuing Mahabharat for votes. God! What can’t a vote make of a man or a woman? I can venture to say that the Vote Maketh the Man, not the tailor makes the man! Can someone please assure Delhi its millenniums long identity along with its Jamuna ji/Yamuna ji (according to choice)? Please do not make Delhi New York, London or Paris to create tourist attractions! Like in the Mahabharat, warrior kings from all states in India, along with their large private armies have gathered to fight the Vote Mahabharat, it is not to protect any Hastinapur but to make a ruin of Delhi. The Kaurav & Pandava, children of democracy, are determined to destroy each other in this vote Mahabharat, while the Guru, Kulguru, Dharma incarnate and the blind king watch helplessly and the Bhisma of a Constitution survives only for the power of death at will or Ichhamrityu. In these 75 years Delhi has changed so much that it is unable to recognize itself. Someone rightly said: Dilli ki loot machi hai, chaho so loot lo! Nobody owns Delhi, though those who could not make it London have built a poor replica of the Buckingham Palace which they pride in being called the Sheesh Mahal, invoking affinity with Mughal rulers like Shah Jahan to Aurangzeb. Such a virgin territory of a kingdom? Only Dushashan proclaims himself to be the Malik of Dilli. Everyone watches the goings on in silence in such an extraordinary situation knowing not which extraordinary remedy can bring order in Delhi. Unless Delhi is made a Mayor’s system, it may become Dilli once again to facilitate some Gulam Dynasty/Slave Dynasty to establish its rule forever!
M L Gupta

Over 40 people died due to stampede in Prayagraj Maha Kumbh. This accident has once again raised the question that why do fatal accidents keep happening in events with huge crowds in our country? It was already possible that eight to ten crore devotees could come to the Maha Kumbh on Mauni Amavasya. Obviously, no administrative staff could have had the prior experience of handling such a large number. In such a situation, the administrative officials made a mistake in estimating and planning. Vehicles coming from the surrounding districts had to be stopped after the stampede in the Maha Kumbh. It also highlights that when crowd management was looking to be a difficult and challenging task, then why no action was taken to restrict the number of people who could reach Prayagraj on Mauni Amavasya.
Ankita Malviya

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which is called the lifeline for rural livelihood, is once again struggling with lack of funds. There is no doubt that the MNREGA has played an important role in reducing visible and invisible unemployment in rural areas. While on the one hand this scheme has played an important role in providing employment to rural consumers near their villages, it has also reduced inter-state migration, and the purchasing power of rural consumers has also increased. The government should make a practical budget for MNREGA. Along with this, priority should be given to removing administrative hurdles for transparent implementation of the scheme. Undoubtedly, the allocation of funds in MNREGA is continuously decreasing in proportion to the demand. This is the reason why the expected crisis is arising in the middle of the year due to lack of funds.
Raj Singh Ahirwar

If we look at India's development journey from 1950 till now, we see many glorious achievements. Obviously all these achievements are glorious, yet a lot remains to be done. It is true that we are the fifth most powerful economy in the world, but the country also has a debt of lakhs of crores of rupees. In this perspective, the harsh truth is that since the size of our GDP is large, hence we are a big economy, but we are not a debt-free economy. Actually, freebie culture has also become a big challenge for the Indian economy. Economists are very worried about free schemes because they have far-reaching disadvantages. But unfortunately our political parties are not worried about it.
Neha Kumari