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The rupee fell, trading at 61.98/99 versus Tuesday's (25 February) close of 61.9350/9450.A large state-run bank is on bid side, said dealers, likely to meet month-end importer requirements.The USD/INR pair is likely to trade sideways in 61.70-62.20 band.The yen was broadly firmer early on Wednesday (26 February), following a generally lacklustre session that saw investors give the dollar a wide berth on the back of a decline in US Treasury yields.Local stocks trading with minor gains, up 0.3 per cent.(Reuters)
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Clearly there are two angles to the case study and both are valid: One, was Dr Tara Chaitanya treated differently by the sales team because she was a woman?Two, is there a dire need to dramatically improve the level of service orientation and responsiveness in healthcare sales force in general?Attitude and beliefs towards women and potential discrimination in behaviour is a problem across the world. Currently, in the healthcare industry, the number of women radiologists is much lower (less than 10 per cent) than the proportion of women who are in medical schools (40 per cent). The ratios have increased in the past decade, but are still dramatically lower than what we find the world over. One of the reasons cited for women not gravitating towards radiology is because it lacks direct patient contact. Tara comes across as a very dedicated radiologist, very knowledgeable in the field, and also someone who knows her mind very well, having made a set of deliberate choices. In my experience, so far, in collaborating with women radiologists, they tend to be quite assertive in their opinions and needs. When I was presented this case, I called a few of my close radiologist friends who are women and got their input. They mentioned that they had to learn to deal with vendors and invest significantly in preparation, more than their male colleagues, by speaking to several radiologists on the deal before meeting vendors. It is unfortunate that women have to work harder than men, but are paid less than them. This is the collective responsibility of society, policy, HR and the individual to address the issue. Tara could have asserted herself as a customer to the sales team in tone and in approach. If I had been in her shoes I would have negotiated harder and perhaps prepared more thoroughly. It is not to say that women are poor negotiators, though some studies have suggested that. Was Tara right in giving in and involving her husband than directly negotiating herself, perhaps with support from her husband in the background? In this day and age of “leaning in”, did she sufficiently lean in? What was more apparent in the case was the lack of coordination and poor communication between the senior and junior sales team members in companies A and B. If the lack of customer orientation was due to the fact that the customer was a woman, it shows that the companies need to invest more in training their sales teams, and maybe their own overall mindsets, and invest in soft skills training and better responsiveness. Several companies have invested in a training function but more needs to be done to ingrain training not just for features and product differentiators but also for developing the emotional quotient of the sales team. No company today can ignore the need for gender inclusive training. For example, Walmart, Home Depot, IBM, Microsoft, etc., invest upwards of $300 million each year in training their sales teams. In some B2B companies, the proportion is sometimes as high as 10 per cent of sales. In the healthcare industry, more needs to be done by way of training. A good sales person at the outset should have had a conversation with Tara on her overall needs and addressed it 360 degrees as a solution tailored for her. The big three of the industry form an oligopoly in the medical equipment industry and if they do not invest enough in training, relationship building and retention, they could potentially lose share to the newer entrants in the market who come completely gender-sensitised.On the basis of this case, there are three key takeaways:— Women need to invest more in preparation and in asserting their roles to demand, command respect— Sales teams and sales representatives should be trained in gender inclusion as well as soft skills such as listening better and understanding needs before addressing the customers— Companies mentioned in the case, such as A and B, need to improve communication and coordination within their sales teams As an industry, healthcare needs to serve ALL — men or women! The writer heads marketing, strategy and is the oncology business head for Philips Healthcare in India. The views expressed are hers and not representative of Philips(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 19-05-2014)
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In a breakthrough, an Indian-American scientist at the prestigious MIT has developed a simple, cheap, paper test that could improve cancer diagnosis rates and help people get treated earlier.The diagnostic, which works much like a pregnancy test, could reveal within minutes, based on a urine sample, whether a person has cancer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced on Monday (24 February).This approach has helped detect infectious diseases, and the new technology allows non-communicable diseases to be detected using the same strategy, it said.The technology, developed by MIT professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator 46-year-old Sangeeta Bhatia, relies on nanoparticles that interact with tumour proteins called proteases, each of which can trigger release of hundreds of biomarkers that are then easily detectable in a patient's urine."When we invented this new class of synthetic biomarker, we used a highly specialised instrument to do the analysis," says Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science."For the developing world, we thought it would be exciting to adapt it instead to a paper test that could be performed on unprocessed samples in a rural setting, without the need for any specialized equipment. The simple readout could even be transmitted to a remote caregiver by a picture on a mobile phone,"?Bhatia said in a statement.Bhatia, a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, is the senior author of a paper describing the particles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published this week.The paper's lead authors are graduate student Andrew Warren, postdoc Gabriel Kwong, and former postdoc David Wood.(PTI)
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A huge gas find with the potential to cut India’s dependence on imports and fire its growth only ends up fuelling — over a decade — a series of controversies involving corporates, the government and courtsClick here to view graphicCompiled by P.B. Jayakumar Graphic by Prashant Chaudhary(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 19-05-2014)
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The rupee is trading at 61.98/99 per dollar versus Monday's (24 February) close of 62.07/08. Asian currencies trading with gains.Dealers said the market is likely to be flows driven, 61.85-62.20 band for the session.The pair is expected to trade in a 61.80 to 62.20 band during the session, dealers say.The dollar steadied against its rivals in early Asian trade on Tuesday as traders sought more clarity on the pace of the US economic recovery after a series of soft data releases in the past few weeks.Overseas investors have been net buyers of nearly $450 million over the last nine sessions.Asian share markets regained some altitude on Tuesday (25 February) courtesy of a tailwind from Wall Street which sped to historic highs amid more mergers buzz, while gold extended its recent rally.(Reuters)
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In a blow to Lalu Prasad's RJD ahead of Lok Sabha polls, the party split on Monday (24 February) with 13 of its 22 Bihar legislators pledging support to Nitish Kumar government. The 13, including five belonging to the minority community met at the residence of party MLA Samrat Chaudhary and wrote a letter to Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary withdrawing allegiance from the RJD and expressing support to the Nitish Kumar government. RJD MLA Javed Iqbal Ansari confirmed to PTI that 13 party MLAs wrote to the Speaker withdrawing their allegiance from the RJD and expressing support to the JD(U) government of Nitish Kumar. The RJD MLAs who walked out were Samrat Chaudhary, Raghvendra Pratap Singh, Durga Prasad Singh, Lalit Yadav, Anirudh Kumar, Jeetendra Rai, Akhtar-ul-Islam Sahin, Akhtar-ul-Iman, Abdul Gafood, Faiyazz, Javed Iqbal Ansari, Ram Lakhan Ram Raman and Chandrasekhar. Samrat Chaudhary, the son of senior RJD leader Shakuni Chaudhary, alleged that Lalu Prasad had turned his party into the 'B team' of Congress in the last three months. "The party which send him to jail by tearing up an ordinance has become the ideal of Lalu Prasad who is losing no opportunity to pester its leaders," Chaudhary told reporters. Chaudhary who flew with the chief minister in a helicopter to Khagaria yesterday to inaugurate a road bridge said, "It will be better for Lalu Prasad to merge the party with Congress instead of allying with it for the Lok Sabha elections." When pointed out that Lalu Prasad had sided with the Congress earlier also and asked the reason for leaving the party now, Samrat Chaudhary said the situation was different now. Javed Ibbal Ansari, RJD MLA from Banka, praised the chief minister. "By severing ties with BJP, Kumar has shown his commitment to fight a communal leader like Narendra Modi." Asked which party they would join, Ansari said "Obviously JD(U) to strengthen the hands of Nitish Kumar to fight communal forces." With support of the 13 RJD MLAs the strength of Nitish Kumar government will go up to 128 in the 238-member House, surpassing the magic figure of 122. JD(U) has 116 MLAs at present including Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary. It had support of four Congress MLAs, four Independents and one CPI MLA in the trust vote the Nitish government faced on June 19 last year after split in the NDA. (PTI)
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Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan said the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shared similar views on inflation management, while reiterating a call for the US Federal Reserve to be more sensitive to emerging economies. Rajan's comments, in an interview with CNBC, come after Finance Minister P. Chidambaram last week chided the central bank over its focus on fighting inflation, saying the RBI needed to abide by government policy to promote economic growth. An RBI panel last month proposed the introduction of inflation targeting into monetary policy, with the specific aim of a consumer price index (CPI) of 4 per cent, with a 2 per cent band on either side. The RBI has raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point since September to bring down consumer inflation, which fell to 8.79 percent last month from double digits in November, even as the government has traditionally preferred to focus on bolstering growth. "It's not as if the government is on a different page on what we've been doing on inflation thus far. They may have different views on what they would like to see done, but there is a process, there is a conversation," Rajan said in an interview with CNBC, broadcast by Indian channel CNBC-TV 18 on Monday. "I think there is fair amount of coordination at the highest level." The government and the central bank have often been at odds in fighting inflation. While the central bank has often blamed the government's expansive fiscal policy and failure to ease infrastructure bottlenecks for high inflation, a growth-obsessed government, at times, has found it hard to digest interest rate increases. "No Disagreement'The RBI is not technically independent - the governor and his deputies are appointed by the government - although it generally enjoys latitude in policymaking. Rajan said the central bank panel report on inflation was consistent with the government's stance. "We have a committee which has suggested a target, which is also by the way, consistent with the process the finance ministry's committee has suggested, so there is no disagreement about the broader need to get a framework in place," he said. "I think in terms of how I see the process, is really that the government sets the objective, and the central bank delivers on that objective," Rajan said. Rajan also reiterated his call for the Federal Reserve to take into account the impact of its withdrawal of monetary stimulus on emerging economies, despite saying he was comfortable with the current pace of tapering. "I actually welcome a measured pace of tapering. The only thing I have been calling for is that in the communication there should be some sensitivity to conditions in emerging markets," Rajan told CNBC. "And this is not from our perspective, this is broadly emerging markets, some of whom have been in trouble in the last few months. But I am fully prepared for a tapering that continues at this measured pace."(Reuters)
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The 28-member European Union has temporarily banned the import of Alphonso mangoes, the king of fruits, and four vegetables from India from May 1, sparking protests from the Indian community, lawmakers and traders.The recent decision by the grouping's Standing Committee on Plant Health came after 207 consignments of fruits and vegetables from India imported into the EU in 2013 were found to be contaminated by pests such as fruit flies and other quarantine pests.The temporary ban - proposed by the European Commission and endorsed by the Committee - includes mangoes, eggplant, the taro plant, bitter gourd and snake gourd, and prohibits the import to tackle the "significant shortcomings in the phytosanitary certification system of such products exported to the EU".Though the prohibited commodities represent less than 5 per cent of the total fresh fruits and vegetables imported into the EU from India, the potential introduction of new pests could pose a threat to EU agriculture and production, the committee noted.UK's Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) that is backing the ban said it was necessary due to pests which could threaten the country's 321 million pound salad crop industry of tomato and cucumber.The UK imports nearly 16 million mangoes from India and the market for the fruit is worth nearly 6 million pounds a year.A revision of the ban will take place before December 31, 2015.Businesses claimed they will lose hundreds of thousands of pounds due to the ban.Wholesalers and retailers in Indian-dominated regions of the UK have opposed the ban, which comes into effect on May 1, saying it will hit them hard."This is Euro-nonsense and bureaucracy gone mad. Indian mangoes have been imported to Britain for centuries. I am furious with the lack of consultation with those who will be affected by the ban," said Indian-origin MP Keith Vaz, who has written to the European Commission president after his constituents in the city of Leicester made a plea.He has also written to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ascertain if the Indian government was consulted on the matter."Leicester held the first UK Mango Festival last year and it was an outstanding success. I, and many millions of British people, have eaten these mangoes and they certainly don't seem to have had an effect on us. If this ban goes ahead we will have to cancel this year's festival," Vaz added.A shopkeeper in Leicester said the ban could see city retailers' profits fall by thousands of pounds.Rajesh Pabari said he can make 9,000 pounds from selling the mangoes during their eight-week growing season.Another trader Dharmesh Lakhanit said the fruits are "very valuable" to Leicester's economy, according to the BBC.UK's environment minister Lord de Mauley also waded into the controversy, stressing that his department is working on lifting the ban as soon as possible."India is a key trading partner and these temporary restrictions affect a tiny percentage of the successful business we conduct with them."We are working closely with our Indian and European counterparts to resolve the issue and resume trade in these select products as soon as possible," he said.Meanwhile, an e-petition titled 'Reverse Mango Import Ban' has gathered hundreds of signatures over its warning that: "The ban will severely impact importers and distributors in the UK and for some it will render their entire trade unfeasible."The ban has been undertaken hastily. Proven treatments have not been considered before an outright ban e.g. hot water treatment, irradiation which is approved for import into the USA and vapour heat treatments," adds the petition created by Monica Bhandari, who runs the London-based Fruity Fresh (Western) Limited import firm.(PTI)
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The rupee is marginally lower at 62.14/15 versus it Friday (21 February) close of 62.12/13."The dollar is looking biddish as some pressure is seen on Asian currencies," says the chief dealer with a private bank.Tips 62.05-62.30 range for the session.Most Asian currencies including won, baht and rupiah showing weakness.The euro held steady against the dollar, retaining its gains made late last week as political unrest in Ukraine showed signs of settling down for the time being.Asian stocks dropped and the dollar firmed as investors looked past the Group of 20's latest commitment to spur faster global growth and turned their focus back to the impact of the US Federal Reserve's stimulus withdrawal.(Reuters)
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Slamming the "delay" by UPA in granting 'one-rank, one-pension' for ex-servicemen, Narendra Modi on Sunday (23 February) accused Congress of playing "fraud" with the armed forces and mocked Rahul Gandhi's pitch on fighting corruption. Addressing a 'fateh' (victory) rally with leaders from the ally Shiromani Akali Dal on the dais, the Gujarat Chief Minister, who donned a saffron turban, also dismissed as "rumours and a pack of lies" the controversy about migration of Sikh farmers from Kutch region in his state, promising that no Sikh farmer will have to leave Gujarat. He described the BJP-SAD alliance in Punjab as a symbol of Hindu-Sikh unity which has put to end the "Congress' game of divide and rule". In his 30-minutes speech at a packed ground, Modi was unsparing in his attack on Congress and said the party was now throwing pepper instead of dust in the eyes of the people to befool them, a reference to the pepper spray incident in Lok Sabha involving an expelled Congress MP during the taking up of Telangana bill. The BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate took potshots at the Gandhi family and Congress for targeting other parties on corruption. "I am surprised that the leader of Congress is now engaged in raising fingers on other political parties on the issue of corruption, when the entire ABCD has become the identity of the corruption of Congress. When Rajiv Gandhi was ruling the country as Prime Minister, there was no other party but only Congress, which was in power from Parliament to Panchayat. "At that time he had said that when he sends a rupee from Delhi, only 15 paisas reach the village. What was this 'Panja' which used to rub the rupee (one rupee coin) and it would turn into 15 paisa," Modi said, vowing that if he is elected Prime Minister he will occupy the top seat as a "chowkidar" (warchman) and won't allow the 'Panja' (hand) to cast its shadow on the state treasury. He hit out Congress on one-rank, one-pension issue. After Rahul Gandhi's push, the government accepted the long-standing demand of ex-servicemen for 'one-rank, one-pension' and allocated Rs 500 crore for the fund a few days back. This decision is expected to benefit around 30 lakh retired personnel of the Armed forces. Modi wondered why the government did not bring this proposal in previous budgets even as it was in power for last ten years. "The government, which is sitting in Delhi has always been playing a farce with the Armed Forces. Before this also, a number of times, the Finance Minister of Congress had made announcements about One Rank One Pension (OROP) but never fulfilled it. "Even this time since I am repeatedly talking about it, they have announced it but this is a "fraud" (dhokha) with you. Had Congress party been honest, they had the chance to it in 10 budgets from 2004 to 2014. But they did not do it," Modi said. Maintaining that had the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee come to power in 2004, this would have been done, the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate, "only our government will be able to implement it." . (PTI)
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