Friends at the workplace

Friends at the workplace definitely play a major role in one’s career. A friend on the job can keep you informed on the inner workings of your company, provide feedback on your performance or act as a sounding board. Having a pal at work can make the job more enjoyable and can even enhance the productivity by stirring your creativity. Also friends often can get you new jobs; companies even have programmes to reward employees for referring their friends for employment.

Although finding someone on the job can spark a friendship, whether to invest in the relationship or not is a major issue. As Purna, an advertisement executive says, “You make friends at work and may reveal what you really think about managers, colleagues and the job, thinking that they will not divulge any information to anyone else. But if they are not committed to the friendship, they may let personal information you’ve discussed go beyond the circle of friendship.”

“Workplace friendships are great, but will burn out quickly, too,” says S. Kumar, a bank employee. “If you leave a department or change positions, the circumstances that brought you together will vary and so the friendship.” Lakshmi S, accounts executive differs from this and says that sometimes the casual friendship deepen when one person moves out because then the other one no longer feels inhibited by the environment. “In workplace, it is the same-level friendships that are the easiest to maintain. Problems may arise if one friend has to supervise or evaluate the other. And if you try to befriend the boss, your colleagues may see it in another light. Similarly, if your boss befriends you, he may be accused of showing favouritism,” points out S. Krishnan, an HR executive.

The friendship one develops at work is different from other friendships, says a noted psychologist. “A job provides financial security. If one has to choose between keeping job and friendship, most people would choose to keep their job. While the right group of friends can be a great influence in your career, the wrong group can cost you your job,” he adds.

Then, how to handle friendships at workplace? Be discreet about the confidences you share, and think carefully about the type of information you want to divulge. If the friendship puts you or your friend in a complicated position, then talk about it. Avoid circumstances that might create a conflict situation. Again, too much socialising hampers productivity and revealing personal or professional information can cost you your job.

Is your hubby working overtime?

Women whose hubbies put in long hours at the office are more likely to quit their jobs, according to a group of researchers. However, men’s careers are not impacted when their wives put in long hours, it was found. Researchers at Cornell University say that working overtime has a disproportionate impact on women in dual-earner households, exacerbating gender inequality and supporting the "separate sphere" phenomenon in which men are the breadwinners while women take care of the household.

The study has been presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. "Women whose husbands work long hours are more likely to quit their jobs, yet men’s careers are not impacted when their wives put in long hours," said Youngjoo Cha, author of the study and a doctoral candidate in sociology at Cornell University. "This suggests a potential return to the "separate spheres" arrangement — breadwinning men and homemaking women — as long hours become increasingly common,” Cha added.

To determine the impact of longer work hours on dual-earner households, Cha analyzed data from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, a longitudinal household survey conducted by the US Census Bureau that covers calendar years - 1995 to 2000.

The sample was limited to dual-earner married couples in professional and non-professional employment. Cha found that women whose husbands worked more than 60 hours per week were 44 per cent more likely to quit their own jobs. However, there was no impact on husbands’ odds of quitting when wives worked long hours.

Results were even more pronounced when Cha isolated professional workers. Professional women were 52 per cent more likely to quit their jobs when their husbands worked more than 60 hours per week. As in the case of all workers, overworking wives did not affect the employment status of professional men.

Among professionals, husbands were more than twice as likely as wives to work more than 50 hours per week (30 per cent of husbands compared to 12 per cent of wives). According to Cha, this suggests that in professional occupations, women are less likely to expect spousal support than men.

In India, even God is helpless, says SC

In India, even God cannot help. He will be a silent spectator as He will also feel helpless" — this observation came from the Supreme Court on Tuesday as it expressed its frustration over the reluctance of the Centre and state governments to take tough measures against bureaucrats and others unauthorisedly overstaying in government accommodation.

The remark indicated what the apex court must be feeling after failing to goad the governments to amend laws to treat squatting in government premises as criminal trespass of public property, an offence which may attract arrests.

The bench of Justices B N Agrawal and G S Singhvi was reacting to the government’s decision, conveyed by additional solicitor general Amarendra Saran, not to amend Section 441 of the Indian Penal Code to make overstaying in official bungalows an offence.

Following the refusal of the Centre and states to make the squatters pay, the dejected court dropped its advocacy for a stronger law. "In our view, the stand of the Centre and the states is condemnable in view of the galloping trend of unauthorised occupation of official accommodation, which neither the Centre nor the states are in a position to contain," it said.

Amicus curiae Ranjit Kumar, however, exhorted the court not to drop the ante, saying there should be some accountability fixed on delinquent bureaucrats as government accommodation were national assets which could not be squandered away.

Following the refusal of the Centre and states to make the squatters pay, the SC court dropped its advocacy for a stronger law. The bench comprising Justices B N Agrawal and G S Singhvi pointed out that a law, however tough, could never be implemented if the government was not keen on it.

"The whole government machinery is corrupt. We may lay down the law, but who will implement it? It has to be done by the clerks. The secretaries and joint secretaries have no guts to go against the clerks. The law is there, the statute is there, but the governments have become non-functional," it said. The court slammed the government for being obstinate towards implementation of laws. Because of this, those in the corridors of power were able to continue occupying government accommodation unauthorisedly without fear, it said.

The SC, frustrated by the determination of politicians and bureaucrats to stay put in subsidised accommodation beyond their eligibility, had proposed amendment last year, saying that only "third degree method" would work with the heedless and well-connected lot.

If it had thought that its tough posture would work with regimes indulgent of powerful squatters, it was to be disappointed. Most of the states did not respond to suggestion. Those who did, toed Centre’s line. There were two exceptions though — Orissa and UP — which have tough laws in place making squatting in government bungalows a non-bailable offence.

Govt approves Daiichi-Ranbaxy deal

India has approved Daiichi Sankyo’s stake purchase in the country’s top drug maker by sales, Ranbaxy Laboratories, the finance ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.Japan’s Daiichi has agreed to buy a 34.8 percent stake in Ranbaxy and aims to take up to 20 percent more from the open market in deals worth up to $4.6 billion.

The Japanese drug maker will also make an open offer to buy up to 20 percent of shares in another Indian firm, Zenotech Laboratories, which is 47-percent owned by Ranbaxy.

Reliance Power to raise $2.5 bln loan - sources

Reliance Power Ltd is planning to raise as much as $2.5 billion through India’s largest rupee-denominated loan this year to fund a power project, two bankers familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.Reliance Power, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has hired SBI Capital Markets, a unit of State Bank of India, to raise the funds for its 3,960 megawatt coal-fired plant at Sasan in central Madhya Pradesh state, the sources said.

"The loan is open and we are hopeful of closing it in early October," one banker involved in the deal said. He declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The loan priced at 11.75 percent will be for a tenure of 15 years, they said.

Sterlite Industries has said it plans to raise $1.6 billion in a syndicated rupee loan to build a power plant in the eastern state of Orissa.

Reliance Power, which raised $3 billion in India’s largest ever IPO in January, would contribute about 54.6 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) from the issue as equity for the project, it said in its IPO offer document.

India’s power sector needs 10 trillion rupees of investment in the five years to 2012. Asia’s third-largest economy suffers from peak power shortages of about 12 percent and an overall energy deficit of about 10 percent.

Reliance Power is also talking to Standard Chartered Bank, Daiwa Securities SMBC and India Infrastructure Finance Co Ltd for a foreign-currency loan of up to $1.5 billion, sources said.

Demand for syndicated loans in India has remained strong, in sharp contrast to global volumes, as an equity market down by more than a quarter this year has eroded enthusiasm for share sales.

Indian firms raised loans worth $21.4 billion in the first half of 2008, up 70 percent over the year-ago period, according to Thomson Reuters data.

State Bank of India, India’s top lender, was the most active, participating in almost half of the nation’s deals in the first six months of the year, the data showed.

Global offshore loan volume in the first half slumped 23 percent to $9 billion from the same period in 2007, data from Reuters Loan Pricing Corp showed, largely due to risk aversion in the wake of credit problems in the United States.

Traces of HIV drug in mother's milk

A drug used in the developing world to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child persists in breast milk, exposing their newborns to risk of developing drug-resistant strains of the virus. Researchers found that the drug nevirapine stays in the blood and breast milk of the infected mothers for at least two weeks.

During that time, the virus has ample opportunity to transform itself into drug-resistant strains of HIV that causes AIDS, which can be very difficult to treat.

"In the short term, nevirapine is better than nothing," said David Katzenstein, professor of infectious diseases and principal investigator of the study.

"But in the long term, I’m concerned about conferring resistance. If you’re talking about resistance on a broad scale, it could jeopardise future treatment for mothers and infants."

Last year, 420,000 babies were born HIV-positive, the large majority of them to HIV-infected mothers in sub-Saharan Africa, according to figures from the UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS.

The centre-piece of public health programmes in the developing world to stop mother-to-child transmission of HIV are both zidovudine (AZT) and nevirapine, which have been used as preventive tools in nearly 900,000 women and infants worldwide.

The drugs are relatively inexpensive and easy to administer, and nevirapine is typically given as a single pill as the mother goes into labour and as a liquid to the baby just after birth.

Use of the drug reduces the chance of HIV transmission by half, to about 13 per cent. However, not all HIV-infected women have access to one or both of these drugs, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the latest study, the Stanford scientists set out to better understand this problem.

They looked at a group of 32 HIV-positive pregnant women in Zimbabwe, where Katzenstein and his colleagues have had ongoing research and clinical programs in HIV/AIDS for more than a decade.

The only drug they received was the single dose of nevirapine when they went into labour, largely for the sake of their babies.

The researchers found that the drug persisted in the body for weeks, with more than half of the women having detectable levels in their blood within two weeks after delivery. Two-thirds had measurable levels in their breast milk at two weeks, the researchers found.

Seble Kassaye, co-author of the study, presented the results Tuesday at the International AIDS Conference here.