Meet the legal expert and author Anupamaa V

Anupamaa V is a passion driven professional entrepreneur, over 2 decades as a corporate lawyer and over 15 years as a partner and managing partner, possesses a sharp acumen and in-depth legal knowledge in various branches of corporate laws. Passionately believes in equitable, respectful, inclusive and bias free workplaces, which resulted in the founding of UCS, possesses excellent leadership and communications skills, and in-depth knowledge in Industrial Psychology. Anupamaa is a certified mediation and negotiation expert. A professional mentor and guide to many.

Anupamaa came up with a book Ready Reckoner on Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplaces (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (the POSH Act). This book speaks about explanation to all provisions of POSH, frequently asked questions, case laws detailed explanation, act and rules. Anupamaa, in an exclusive conversation with The Hans India, shares some important things regarding her book and laws. Let's have a look into it.

While she was questioned what was the biggest hurdle towards writing this book, she says, "Actually there was no hurdle in writing this book, the hurdle was in publishing it. I finished writing this book in Feb 2020 and just as we thought of publishing it, we heard the word Covid 19 and the pandemic for the first time. However, as every rain sees the rainbow, because of the delay I actually factored in a few thoughts on sexual harassments during work from home as well."

The inspiration behind taking up POSH Act and sexual harrasment as the basis for your book is the fact that even after 8 years of the Act, coming into force and it is the least implemented law."

Anupamaa shares that POSH Act, becomes applicable to an organisation, even if there is one employee. "Because sexual harassment is not limited to our own office, it's in every office that the employee may visit. Hence in terms of awareness with respect to the provisions of the act, the number of employees have little consequences. The obligations increase if the number of employees are more than 10, in terms of setting up an external counsel etc."

Research is a crucial part to write a book. "Naturally to write a book, research is a crucial part along with experience. I love law and working on the POSH Act, it was not tedious at all. It was challenging and invigorating," Anupamaa shares.

While she was questioned what can bring a massive change when it comes to sexual harrasment at workplaces, Anupamaa said, "The day organisations recognise that speaking on this topic is not a taboo and when they understand that, the more one openly discusses this topic, there are less the probability of an act of sexual harassment happening at the workplace." Speaking about her future books, Anupamaa shares, "I love writing and that is my biggest strength even in my legal profession. We have experts that have written several books on several subjects of law, I am very keen to make law easy for the common man and that is something I want to work on. I have also written a few fictional short stories based on life experiences and wish to publish that soon."