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.

An Auspicious August for Nifty?

TRUCE BE TOLD:

History is replete with many a truce, where two warring forces take a small break in the middle of a war, before resuming their hostilities. The most remarkable of these was the ’Christmas Truce’ between German and British troops during the Christmas of 1914, amidst the madness of World War I. For, not only did soldiers, who had been firing at each other relentlessly for weeks, come out of their trenches and share pleasantries and gifts, but they also had a party — sharing cigars and whisky. Ironically, the same soldiers got back to business the very next day and started gunning each other to death — because a truce was, after all, just a truce!

THE SETTLEMENT TRUCE:

In a similar vein, Nifty bulls and bears seemed to have called a truce last Thursday — the settlement day of the July series of derivatives contracts. For, not only did a series that gyrated all through its existence like a drunken reveller, end absolutely flat, but it also ended with one of the lowest rollovers in recent times. To top it all, the settlement day saw a boring session, with the typical expiry fireworks missing. Not that there was no reason for a massive bull assault. The previous day had seen massive buying in the 4300 call and an in-the-money put like the 4400 put had seen healthy build-up, ending the day even below its intrinsic value (the difference between the strike price and the price of the underlying).

Generally, a put option trading below its intrinsic value, particularly if it’s building up open interest while doing that, is seen as a very bullish sign. It suggests that stronger hands are writing these puts, knowing very well that their cash buying will push the underlying above the strike price, rendering them worthless. And so, even if they sell these puts dirt cheap, it’s a profitable trade. Even rollovers, at about 53.75%, were much lower than the last six month’s average of 61.72% on the day before settlement (S-1) day. So, there was enough ammunition (read short positions) for a sharp rise, which would have butchered many of these shorts.

However, that didn’t materialise and the Nifty ended almost flat on settlement day. It was quite like the 15th round of a heavyweight-boxing bout, where both the boxers have run out of gas and are just waiting for the bell. The fact that it was just a truce became amply clear by the bull assault that followed on Friday. That a large number of bears bailed out during the truce, is clearly reflected in July rollovers, which at 65.05%, were substantially lower than the last six months average of 70.13%.

THE FRIDAY PARTY:

Although Friday’s 80-point Nifty rally may not seem like much at first glance, in many ways, it’s the first real confident move by bulls in a very long time. While Nifty August futures added close to a whopping 20 lakh shares in open interest, the premium on them shot up to 19.3 points from just 2.15 points on Thursday — a clear reflection that most of the fresh build-up on Friday comprised long positions. If we add the fact that a majority of short positions have not got rolled over into August, we can conclude that the market is now net long in the Nifty.

The picture is even rosier for bulls when it comes to single stock futures, which added a whopping 8.8 crore shares in open interest on Friday — the highest single-day addition of open interest in recent memory. With it, stock futures have now cumulatively added close to a whopping 15 crore shares in open interest in the last three trading sessions. And given that the last three sessions have ended with handsome gains, a majority of these have got to be long positions.

The icing on the cake was that it came on a day when global cues were bad and the Nifty had opened with a massive gap down. The only cause for concern is that a majority of this buildup occurred in the momentum counters, though there’s hardly any momentum left in them.

FRESH TRADE:

Last week, we had suggested avoiding the July series, expecting high volatility, and had recommended going long in August futures on Wednesday. Both these calls were vindicated as volatility rose to never-before seen levels — the India VIX (volatility index of Nifty option contracts) closed at an all-time high last Tuesday. As for the long Nifty futures, anyone who would have gone long early on Wednesday is now sitting pretty with gains of 150-200 Nifty points. And since Friday saw the re-conquer of the 50-day moving average (DMA), one should ideally sit tight and just ride this tide, with a strict stop-loss at a close below the 50 DMA, which is currently at 4347.55. The next possible target for this journey should be the last top made at around 4540 on July 24, ’08.

What about a fresh entry? For those of you who have missed this bus, it makes sense to abstain from entering now, as most casualties take place when people try to board a moving bus. So, wait for the Nifty to take out this last top at 4540 and then wait for a pullback to go long. For, with a hit (preferably a close) above 4540, the Nifty would have made a higher top for the first time since May. With a higher bottom already in place, this will put the Nifty back on a bull market pattern of higher tops and higher bottoms. As for the bears among you, extend your holiday because life for you begins only below 4159 (the panic bottom created by RBI’s rate hike last Tuesday). That may also coincide with the 20 DMA, which currently is at 4317.6, and will mean that this bear market rally is over.

Lower cholesterol early for a long life

The best approach to reducing incidence of coronary heart disease, which kills millions every year, is by lowering cholesterol early on, according to University of California researchers. Pioneering lipid researcher Daniel Steinberg, professor emeritus of medicine, University of California and colleagues Christopher Glass and Joseph Witztum, dismissed current approaches to lowering cholesterol as "too little, too late".

With a large body of evidence proving that low cholesterol levels equate with low rates of heart disease, "our long-term goal should be to alter our lifestyle accordingly, beginning in infancy or early childhood" and "instituting a low-saturated fat, low-cholesterol diet in infancy is perfectly safe, without adverse effects..."

According to Steinberg, progress has been made in the treatment of coronary heart disease (CHD) in adults with cholesterol lowering drugs like statins.

However, while studies show a 30 percent decrease in death and disability from CHD in patients treated with statins, 70 percent of patients have cardiac events while on statin therapy.

Promising new therapies are under development, but with an alarming rate of CHD in the US today, action to curtail the epidemic is needed urgently.

In fact, the researchers propose that lowering low-density lipoproteins ("bad cholesterol") even in children and young adults is a safe and potentially life-saving standard, through diet and exercise changes if possible. Drug treatment may also be necessary in those at very high risk.

"Our review of the literature convinces us that more aggressive and earlier intervention will probably prevent considerably more than 30 percent of CHD," said Steinberg.

"Studies show that fatty streak lesions in the arteries that are a precursor to atherosclerosis and heart disease begin in childhood, and advanced lesions are not uncommon by age 30.

"Why not nip things in the bud? Such early signs of heart disease should be taken as seriously as early signs of cancer or diabetes," he said.

The UC San Diego team noted that studies of Japanese men in the 1950s showed that consuming a low-fat diet from infancy resulted in lifelong low cholesterol levels, and their death rate from heart disease was only 10 percent of the rate of cardiac-related death in the US

These findings were published in Tuesday’s issue of the American Heart Association journal Circulation.