There are two things here:

1. Microsoft does not make decisions (mostly) based on fairness to prospective employees. It DOES make decisions based on having a good public image, part of which is being seen as diverse and inclusive.

2. The reason being diverse and inclusive is seen as good is because of a ton of research showing that being diverse is good for companies, good for employees, and good for entire underrepresented communities.

So it's not fine, but the fineness or not does not exist in a vacuum. The two situations are not arbitrary, and therefore, not analogous.

What about YouTube? Or Zynga? Or Facebook for its photos?

I think when people hear the phrase "digital media", they think of it has traditional-media-delivered-digitally. But I think the internet enables entirely new variations of traditional media, tailor-made for our hypersocial, crowdsourced, and attentionless internet society.

China is less socialist than India? Citation?

I'm a professional programmer who feels like he maybe shouldn't be. Articles like these are encouraging, even if never wind up quitting.

Just one really shitty cubicle.

It's a big one, though.

C'thulu?

I especially love the part about Panchayats losing their authority -- those old fucks need to all resign, and quickly.

I'm not being anti-tradition or whatever. Panchayats routinely carry out horrific human rights violations against women and lower casts. This barbaric system has to be replaced by actual courts.

A very broad generalization. You are confusing Panchayats with "Khap Panchayats" and other traditional community panchayats which have been in news for honor killings and such. These panchayats are traditional bodies with no powers sanctioned by law or constitution.

Separate from that, there is a whole system of local governance based on panchayats. These bodies play a very important role in letting the local people participate in decision making process for things which are going to affect them. Members of these panchayats are elected through proper electoral process and are not "old fucks" usually. It is a form of decentralization of power which is sanctioned by law and is a good thing.

Ok, I looked it up, you're right.

I've never lived in a village, my perception of Panchayats was wholly informed by the news.

Let's not forget the slave trade.

No, resource strip-mining was a HUGE problem, and was compounded by the fact that India missed the Industrial Revolution at least partially because the British willfully sabotaged Indian attempts to gain technology.

(It was in the interests of the British to force India to sell them raw materials at low prices, feed it to industries in Britan, and sell it back to India as a finished product. In those days, gold was money, and India had a lot of gold.)

I take those literacy and poverty numbers with a grain of salt -- they're manufactured by the govt to make itself look good. While literacy and poverty have both been addressed somewhat, it's a far cry from the official numbers. And frankly I'm worried that the population is growing faster than people are falling out of poverty.