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Category: Awards & Recognition

  • Tata BlueScope Steel Recognized By CII HR Excellence Award 2023-24


    Tata BlueScope Steel Recognized by CII HR Excellence Award 2023-24

    PUNE: Tata BlueScope Steel, an equal joint venture between Tata Steel and BlueScope Steel and a leading manufacturer of coated steel products, has been acknowledged for its ‘Strong Commitment to HR Excellence’ at the CII HR Excellence Award for the year 2023-2024. The award ceremony, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), aims to celebrate organizations that demonstrate outstanding human resources practices, contributing to the development of high-performance workplaces.

    “We are honored to receive the CII HR Excellence Award, which underscores our unwavering commitment to fostering excellence in human resources practices,” said Neena Bahadur, Chief Human Resources Officer, Tata BlueScope Steel. “At Tata BlueScope Steel, we believe that investing in our people is pivotal to success. This recognition reaffirms our belief in the importance of nurturing a workplace culture that values inclusivity, fosters growth, cares for the community, and continuously strives for improvement.“

    The assessment process involved a comprehensive review of Tata BlueScope Steel’s HR policies, practices, and performance. The CII HR Excellence Awards serve as a platform to promote and benchmark HR practices across industries, fostering the growth of world-class standards in organizational management. The award also serves as a tool for self-assessment, enabling organizations to identify areas for improvement and chart a path toward greater excellence in HR management.

    Tata BlueScope Steel recognizes that employees are the cornerstone of the organization. To foster engagement and empowerment among the workforce, the company tailors policies to enhance the ’employee experience’ while building trust. Initiatives such as the ‘Buddy’ and ‘Sarthi’ mentoring programs have been introduced to cultivate camaraderie among employees, bridging generational and experiential gaps within the workforce.

    The company’s #SheAll initiative strives to build empowering workspaces for all, by creating a safe work environment- physically, emotionally & psychologically. They aspire to break down barriers and ensure that every individual, regardless of their background, has equal opportunities for growth, development, and success. #SheAll encompasses not just the employees, but also extends to vendors, channel partners, students, and the community. 

    Furthermore, Tata BlueScope Steel is committed to further diversifying its workforce by actively including individuals from the LGBTQIA+ community and persons with disabilities. The company has developed customized onboarding plans to ensure an inclusive and welcoming experience for all new hires.

    In addition to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace, the company prioritizes initiatives aimed at promoting work-life balance, offering remote work options, wellness leaves, maternity benefits, and providing essential amenities for construction site workers. The company also implements safe travel policies and offers accommodation for women apprentices, among other supportive measures.

    Additionally, the company’s reward and recognition initiatives play a vital role in cultivating a culture of excellence.

  • Fired American employees say TCS gave their jobs to H-1B Visa holders

    NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT

    A group of American tech professionals has accused tech giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of discriminatory practices, alleging that the company terminated their employment and replaced them with lower-paid foreign workers, primarily from India, who hold H1-B visas.

    Since late December, at least 22 American workers have lodged complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against TCS, according to Wall Street Journal. The allegations suggest that the company violated laws prohibiting discrimination based on race and age by dismissing these workers and substituting their positions with individuals from India on temporary work visas.

    The former TCS employees hail from diverse racial backgrounds, including Caucasians, Asian-Americans, and Hispanic Americans, with ages ranging from their 40s to their 60s. They reside across more than a dozen states in the U.S. Many of these professionals hold advanced degrees, such as master’s in business administration, and have garnered years of positive performance reviews and bonuses for their contributions in areas such as finance, operations, and supply-chain management.

    According to the complaints reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the dismissed workers were abruptly removed from projects last year, despite their history of commendable performance. The former employees have pointed to statements made by TCS’s global human resources head, Milind Lakkad, in an interview with Indian media last year. Lakkad purportedly indicated that TCS aimed to decrease its American workforce while providing more opportunities to Indian nationals in the U.S.

    One former employee, as detailed in a complaint, recounted how TCS human resources personnel disclosed in an all-hands meeting their intention to utilize funds saved from shuttering a unit that employed numerous American workers to facilitate employment for more Indian nationals in the U.S.

    TCS, a prominent player in the outsourcing industry with clients including major U.S. firms, has yet to respond publicly to these allegations.

  • Sports Illustrated CEO fired over AI scandal, Manoj Bhargava is the new interim head

    San Francisco, Dec 12 (IANS) The publisher of Sports Illustrated has sacked the magazine’s CEO Ross Levinsohn, after the magazine published articles with bylined non-existent writers and AI-generated profile pictures.

    The board of directors of The Arena Group terminated the employment of Levinsohn, and named Manoj Bhargava as interim Chief Executive Officer late on Monday.

    “This follows actions last week, in which the company terminated the employment of operations president and COO Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster,” the company said in a statement.

    The AI scandal sparked severe criticism of media coverage and outrage from the magazine’s staff, reports Futurism.

    “Effective immediately, Ross Levinsohn will be leaving the company and his role as CEO,” Grady Tripp, the company’s senior vice president of people, wrote in an email to staff.

    “This follows the recent departure of three senior executives last week.”

    Bhargava is the founder of the energy drink brand 5-hour Energy and majority investor of The Arena Group.

    The Arena Group has brands like Sports Illustrated, TheStreet, Parade, Men’s Journal, and HubPages.

    The company aggregates content across a diverse portfolio of over 265 brands, reaching over 100 million users monthly.

  • Indian-American executive sentenced to 24 months in jail for insider trading

    San Francisco, Dec 12 (IANS) An Indian-origin executive was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly a million-dollar fine in the US for misappropriating information about impending corporate transactions.

    Amit Bhardwaj, 49, former Chief Information Security Officer at Lumentum Holdings, was sentenced last week by US District Judge Gregory H. Woods for committing insider trading based on material, non-public information (MNPI) that he misappropriated from his employer.

    A resident of San Ramon in California, he previously pleaded guilty to 13 counts relating to the insider trading scheme.

    “Amit Bhardwaj violated the trust placed in him by his employer by tipping his associates with valuable, non-public information regarding Lumentum’s planned corporate acquisitions,” US Attorney Damian Williams said.

    “Today’s sentence should serve as a stark reminder to corporate executives regularly entrusted with confidential business information that if you try to illegally profit from this information, you will pay a stiff price,” Williams added.

    According to the allegations in the Indictment and statements made in public court proceedings, around December 2020, Bhardwaj learned that Lumentum was considering acquiring Coherent, Inc.

    Based on this information, he purchased Coherent stock and call options, then tipped three associates — his friend Dhirenkumar Patel, another friend, and one of his close family relatives.

    As a result, all these individuals traded in Coherent securities.

    As per their pact, Patel agreed to pay Bhardwaj 50 per cent of the profits he earned by trading in Coherent based on the MNPI provided by Bhardwaj. When Coherent’s stock price increased substantially following the announcement of the Lumentum acquisition, Bhardwaj, Patel and two others, closed their positions in Coherent securities and collectively profited by nearly $900,000.

    In October 2021, Bhardwaj learned that Lumentum was engaged in confidential discussions with Neophotonics Corporation about a potential acquisition. He provided this information to Srinivasa Kakkera, Abbas Saeedi, and Ramesh Chitor, and these individuals all subsequently traded in Neophotonics securities.

    In connection with Chitor’s trading, Bhardwaj and Chitor agreed that they would split the profits equally.

    When Neophotonics’s stock price increased substantially following the announcement of the Lumentum acquisition in November 2021, Kakkera, Saeedi, and Chitor closed their positions in Neophotonics securities. They collectively made approximately $4.3 million in realised and unrealised profits.

    After they were interviewed by the FBI voluntarily and served with federal grand jury subpoenas on March 2022, Bhardwaj took steps to obstruct the federal investigation of their conduct. On the day of the FBI interviews, he drove to the homes of certain of his co-conspirators to encourage them not to tell the federal authorities the truth about their insider trading scheme.

    Bhardwaj and his associates subsequently met in person on multiple occasions and discussed, among other things, potential false stories that would conceal their insider trading scheme. They also created false documents to buttress lies regarding payments that were, in reality, related to the insider trading scheme.

    In addition to the prison sentence, Bhardwaj was ordered to forfeit $547,286 and pay a fine of $975,000.

  • Georgia-based Ebix stock in record plunge after bankruptcy filing

    New York, Dec 18 (IANS) Shares of Ebix Inc. plummeted 54.6 per cent towards a 17-year low in premarket trading on Monday, after the Georgia-based provider of on-demand software for the insurance, financial services, travel and healthcare industries said it filed for bankruptcy, MarketWatch reported.

    The company said it will continue to operate “normally”, and that its affiliates outside of the US are not included in the bankruptcy. The company also announced a “stalking horse” agreement to sell its North American life and annuity assets for $400 million to Zinnia, which is a deal reached ahead of an auction.

    Ebix has retained Jefferies LLC to help with the sale process. The stock was headed for the biggest one-day percentage loss since going public in 1987, and was on track to open at the lowest price seen since October 2006. It had plummeted 75.3 per cent year-to-date through Friday, while the S&P 500 had rallied 22.9 per cent, MarketWatch reported.

    Ebix Inc. announced on Monday that it has reached a “stalking horse” agreement to sell its North American Life and Annuity Assets (NA L&A Assets) to Zinnia, an Eldridge business and leading life insurance and annuity technology and service company, as part of its efforts to strengthen its balance sheet and position the company for sustainable growth.

    This agreement is part of the strategic decision by the company to seek a value-maximising transaction that will benefit all the stakeholders and put the company on the path toward sustainable growth and profitability.

    The NA L&A Assets being sold, accounted for 14.5 per cent of Ebix’s worldwide GAAP revenues for the year-to-date nine-month period preceding September 30, 2023.

    To provide the time needed to identify and execute on its plans to effectuate the NA L&A Assets sale and to deleverage its balance sheet in a timely and efficient manner with the support of its key creditors and customers, US-based Ebix Inc. and certain US affiliates (the ‘Company’ or ‘Ebix’) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. Ebix’s approximately 200 affiliates outside the United States are not included in the US-only Chapter 11 filing and will continue to operate normally.

    Ebix’s international subsidiaries and their franchisees around the world are similarly not included in the Chapter 11 filing. All worldwide operations of the company will continue to operate in the ordinary course and without any interruption.

  • Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora becomes a non-founder billionaire

    San Francisco, Jan 3 (IANS) Nikesh Arora, a SoftBank veteran and now the CEO of cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks, has entered the billionaires’ club after a hefty paycheck he received from the firm.

    He had received a $125 million stock and options compensation package from Palo Alto when he was hired in 2018.

    Since then, the company’s share price has more than quadrupled and Arora’s stake is now worth $830 million ($1.1 billion Singapore dollars), reports Bloomberg.

    At Google, his compensation package was about $51 million in 2012 and he received stock awards worth at least $200 million by the time he left.

    He joined SoftBank Group in 2014 and amassed a $135 million first-year compensation package.

    Arora was president and chief operating officer of SoftBank Group from 2014 to 2016 and received a total compensation of over $200 million, a Japanese record at the time.

    If we combine the pay awards Arora received in his career, his net worth stands at $1.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

    “That makes him a rare non-founder billionaire tech chief executive,” the report noted.

    On June 1, 2018, Arora took on the role of CEO and chairman at Palo Alto Networks.

    Arora began his career at Fidelity Investments in 1992, holding a variety of finance and technology management positions, ultimately serving as vice president, finance of Fidelity Technologies.

  • Indian economist Geeta Batra named as first woman director of World Bank’s GEF

    Mumbai, Feb 25 (IANS) Geeta Batra, an Indian economist, has been named as the new Director at the Independent Evaluation Office of the World Bank’s Global Environment Facility (GEF), making her the first-ever woman from a developing country to hold the coveted post.

    Batra, 57, is currently the Chief Evaluator & Deputy Director for Evaluation at the GEF’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), affiliated to the World Bank.

    Her name was unanimously recommended for the coveted position at the 66th GEF Council Meeting held in Washington on February 9 and was announced last week.

    “My top priorities will be to deliver sound evaluative evidence on the results and performance of the GEF, provide leadership to ensure that the GEF IEO stays at the forefront of environmental evaluation and strengthen the IEO teams and invest in skills,” Batra told IANS from Virginia, US.

    She will also build partnerships with multilateral and bilateral agencies, foundations and networks, and share knowledge of what works, where and why.

    Born in New Delhi, Batra studied at the Villa Theresa High School (1984) in Mumbai, then completed her Economics from the Stella Maris College, Chennai (1984-1987), followed by an MBA in Finance from the NMIMS, Vile Parle (1990) in Mumbai.

    After her MBA, she was inspired by one of her professors, Harkant Mankad, to go to the US (August 1990) to pursue a PhD in Economics.

    Armed with a doctorate, she worked for a couple of years as Senior Manager, Risk, at American Express, before joining the World Bank’s Private Sector Development Department in 1998.

    Serving there for seven years till 2005, she implemented competitiveness projects in East Asia and Latin America.

    Subsequently, she took over as the Head & Chief Evaluator at the International Finance Corporation, for its advisory services portfolio, before moving to the World Bank’s IEG as Chief Evaluator and Manager for country and corporate thematic evaluations.

    In 2015, Batra joined the GEF’s IEO (established in July 2003) – which assesses the progress and impact of GEF interventions – where she manages a team of evaluation professionals, providing oversight on the design, implementation and quality of evaluations.

    Since the Rio Earth Summit (1992), the GEF has been one of the largest players in the environmental sector, providing around $24 billion in grants, plus marshalling an additional $138 billion in co-financing over 5,700 projects in 170 countries till 2020.

    Through the GEF’s Small Grants Programme (SGP) more than 20,000 grants were given to civil society and community-based organizations totalling over $1 billion.

    The GEF is a partnership for international cooperation with 183 countries working together with international institutions, private sector and civil society to address global environmental concerns.

    For the past over 23 years, developed and developing countries have provided funds to support activities pertaining to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, chemicals and waste in the context of development projects and programs.

    Batra has co-authored books and articles, plus managed over 100 evaluations, and is “interested in development issues with a particular focus on promoting the use of feasible and practical approaches in monitoring and evaluation, to help achieve better outcomes”.

    She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband Prakash and their daughter Roshini.

    When she is not working, Batra loves the outdoors, goes hiking in national parks, reads historical biographies, besides tries out different types of mouth-watering cuisines.

    However, she confessed with a smile that her all-time favourite foods include India’s good old pav-bhaji, pani-puri- puri and chhole-bhature…

  • Ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal sues Musk, billionaire responds with emoji

    San Francisco, March 5 (IANS) Indian-origin Parag Agrawal, former CEO of Twitter (now called X), and three other employees have sued Elon Musk for about $128 million in unpaid severance.

    Agrawal, along with ex-chief financial officer Ned Segal, former Twitter head of legal and policy Vijaya Gadde and former Twitter General Counsel, Sean Edgett, have filed the lawsuit against the billionaire.

    Musk on Tuesday reacted with just an emoji, when a follower posted: “Parag Agrawal is suing Elon Musk claiming that he did in fact get a lot done that week”.

    The lawsuit claimed that the Tesla CEO showed “special ire” towards them by “publicly vowing to withhold their severance payments of around $200 million”, when he took over Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion.

    “Under Musk’s control, Twitter has become a scofflaw, stiffing employees, landlords, vendors, and others. Musk doesn’t pay his bills, believes the rules don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to run roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him,” read the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

    In October 2022, Musk informed Agrawal, Gadde and Segal that their employment with the company was terminated.

    According to reports, the three top executives had an exit package of more than $100 million when they left the company.

    Agrawal was set to receive the largest payout at around $40 million, largely due “to the entirety of his shares vesting upon his firing”.

  • OpenAI lawsuit: Elon Musk, investor Vinod Khosla trade barbs on X

    New Delhi, March 7 (IANS) Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla on Sunday got engaged in a public spat on X as the billionaire sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman over alleged breach of original contractual agreements around AI.

    When Khosla accused the X owner of exhibiting “sour grapes” behavior by suing OpenAI, the billionaire replied that the Indian-origin investor does not have any idea about the issue.

    “With @elonmusk, feels like a bit of sour grapes in suing @OpenAI, not getting in early enough, not staying committed and now a rival effort,” Khosla posted on X.

    “Like they say if you can’t innovate, litigate and that’s what we have here. Elon of old would be building with us to hit the same goal.”

    Musk replied: “Vinod doesn’t know what he is talking about here.”

    According to Khosla, Musk would have worked collaboratively with OpenAI towards reaching shared objectives around AI.

    Musk was an original board member of OpenAI until 2018 while Khosla had invested around $50 million in OpenAI in 2019.

    Khosla further attacked Musk, saying the billionaire “got in early and bailed early when it seems the going got tough and keeping the mission required real scale money to be able to have any benefit to society”.

    The Musk lawsuit, filed in a court in San Francisco in the US, revolves around OpenAI’s latest natural language model titled GPT-4.

    Musk alleged that OpenAI and Microsoft (which has poured billions of dollars into Sam Altman-run company) have “improperly licensed GPT-4” despite agreeing that artificial general intelligence (AGI) capabilities “would remain non-profit and dedicated to humanity”.

    Khosla said that “these lawsuits are a massive distraction from the goals of getting to AGI and its benefits”.

    “Yet, even with all these hurdles, especially given this week, Sam, Greg and team have pushed out better products faster than anyone in AI”.

    “For all the baseless accusations being made about @OpenAI, we were the first venture check in and were never felt misled by Sam or the company,” he added.

  • Does Yoplait yogurt contain beef? Hindu activist calls for apology and recall from General Mills

    NRI Pulse Staff Report

    Cover photo: Screenshot from a Yoplait commercial.

    Atlanta,
    GA, March 8, 2024: Does Yoplait yogurt contain beef? Rajan Zed, president of
    Universal Society of Hinduism is asking for the resignation of General Mills
    CEO Jeffrey L. Harmening with an official apology from the company for
    non-disclosure of beef in its Yoplait yogurts, and their immediate recall from
    the market.

    In a
    statement in Nevada today, Zed said, “it was shocking for Hindus to learn that
    popular Yoplait yogurts, which they had been eating for years, contained beef;
    while beef was not explicitly mentioned under the ingredients listed on the
    Yoplait packages/boxes.”

    Zed said Yoplait yogurts contained gelatin, but their source was not mentioned on the packages/boxes.

    When Zed
    contacted General Mills, its consumer care department responded: “The source of
    Gelatin in all Yoplait Yogurt Products is beef.”

    “Consumption
    of beef is highly conflicting to Hindu beliefs. Cow, the seat of many deities,
    is sacred and has long been venerated in Hinduism,” Zed said.

    “General
    Mills, which claims to be an “innovative company that stands for
    good”, should not be in the business of hurting the sentiments of trusting
    consumers and communities and contradicting its own statement “Do the
    Right Thing, All the Time”, Zed noted.

    “Now was
    the time for General Mills to admit their serious error of not being
    transparent enough to mention in clear and simple terms what was inside the
    package/box so that an ordinary consumer could make right and appropriate
    choices,” Zed said.

    “Moreover, in the future, General Mills should explicitly list beef in the ingredients on the package/box when beef was present in the product,” Zed added.

    Besides the
    resignation of its CEO and an official apology; Zed urged General Mills to
    recall all Yoplait packages/boxes containing gelatin where the source of
    gelatin was not clearly mentioned.

    General
    Mills, headquartered in Minneapolis and founded in 1866, generated fiscal 2023
    net sales of US$20.1 billion. It won the award “America’s Most Responsible
    Companies, Newsweek 2022 and 2023”, and claims: “we make food with
    passion that brings goodness to people, communities and the planet”.

    Yoplait
    was officially launched in 1965 in Paris. In 1971, it reached the USA and
    Canada. General Mills acquired a majority stake in Yoplait in July 2011.