Biocon name boards smeared with black paint over Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw’s views on Kannada reservation bill | Watch video

A video posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on July 20 showed a Biocon Biologics board getting smeared with black paint. The footage surfaced after the company's executive chairperson, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, recently posted her views on the new Karnataka reservation bill on social media. The video shows two boards with the Biocon logo on them getting smeared with a tin can of black spray paint in protest against the chairperson's opinions.

The reservation bill was cleared by the government of Karnataka on July 15. The bill mandates corporates to keep 50 per cent reservation for local Kannadigas in managerial roles and 70 per cent reservation in non-managerial roles.

"Any industry, factory or other establishments shall appoint fifty per cent of local candidates in management categories and seventy per cent in non-management categories," as per the Karnataka State Employment of Local Candidates in the Industries, Factories and Other Establishments Bill, 2024.

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, in her post on X, said the bill that aims to provide jobs for locals should not hurt the state's leading position in technology. Her post on X garnered mixed opinions from the netizens unlike PhonePe CEO Sameer Nigam, who faced trolling and backlashes for his take on the controversial bill.

“As a tech hub we need skilled talent and whilst the aim is to provide jobs for locals we must not affect our leading position in technology by this move. There must be caveats that exempt highly skilled recruitment from this policy,” said Shaw in her post on X.

Last week, PhonePe's chief executive officer issued an apology statement after people took to platform X to troll him for his views against the reservation policy. His argument was to provide jobs to the technologically capable person and not reservations based on where an employee is from.

The Karnataka government has delayed the implementation of the bill after the massive backlash from the industry. An official statement from the chief minister's office read,“The bill intended to implement reservation for Kannadigas in private sector institutions, industries and enterprises is still in the preparation stage. A final decision will be taken after comprehensive discussion in the next cabinet meeting.”