‘Another one bites the dust…and another one gone and another one gone…Another one bites the dust…Hey, I’m gonna get you, too.’ a 1980 song by British rock band ‘Queen’ came to mind when the newspapers on 21st June read ‘Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned late Tuesday night from the company he cofounded in 2009.’ This was followed by the memory of 16th June news which said ‘The Viral Fever (TVF) co-founder and CEO, Arunabh Kumar resigned – he was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee.’
“Shivangi Prasad speaks (a corporate lawyer running a firm called POSH at Work for assisting organizations in prevention of sexual harassment at workplace)”: Are these resignations new? Not really and neither are they specific to any Country or Industry. In 2015, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who also got Noble Peace Prize for IPCC, resigned following an accusation of sexual harassment by a female researcher at The Energy research Institute (TERI). In 2016, he also resigned from TERI where he was Member of Governing Council & Executive Vice-Chairman. Similarly, in 2013, Tarun Tejpal, Editor of Tehelka stepped down due to a similar complaint against him.