AFP November 6, 2020, 11:53 AM IST in Foreign Media, India, TOI FACEBOOK TWITTER LINKEDIN EMAIL Foreign Correspondent Foreign Correspondent A winner of industry awards, Snehapoo Padavattan should have raced up India’s corporate ladder. There was just one problem. She belongs to the country’s lowest caste, the Dalits. At 35, the Chennai-based communications executive has been forced to repeatedly change jobs to escape persistent discrimination and has battled stress-related health issues. A sixth of India’s 1.3-billion population are Dalits, whose low status in Hinduism’s hereditary social hierarchy exposes them to daily violence and abuse. India’s President Ram Nath Kovind is Dalit, as was B.R. Ambedkar, architect of its constitution, yet as researchers, activists and HR professionals reveal, caste-related stigma remains pervasive across the corporate sector. The centuries-old scourge has even hit Silicon Valley, where tech giant Cisco is facing a caste discrimination lawsui...