NEWS ASIA
HONG KONG
SHELL INCREASES MATERNITY OFFER ENERGY CONGLOMERATE Shell is now offering staff at its Hong Kong office 16 weeks of paid maternity leave. The new scheme, which kicked off on July 1, is up from the 10 weeks that all female employees were entitled to previously. Paternity leave for new fathers was not altered, and remains at five days. Shell Hong Kong was one of the first Shell businesses to implement the scheme, which will roll out globally from January 1 next year. Shell says it hopes that the increased benefit will encourage female employees “to remain with us and to continue to develop their careers, if or when they have children”. Other companies to offer 16 weeks maternity leave benefits from this year include Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, and Maybank in Malaysia.
NEW DELHI, INDIA
SPEAK OUT AND LOSE BENEFITS INDIA’S NATIONAL CARRIER has warned
BANGALORE, INDIA
SPECTACULAR CYBERCRIME FAILURE A COMPUTER ENGINEER has been jailed after attempting to sell his firm’s
data to a supposed competitor. Incredibly, the data Shreesha Rao tried to sell was actually already owned by the intended recipient. The New Indian Express reported that Rao, a design and drafting professional for a company called New Generation, contacted rival SBT Associates and offered to sell his company’s data. After SBT Associates concurred, he sent the data as an attachment to his personal email, and then forwarded it to the buyer. However, unbeknown to Rao, SBT Associates was a vendor of Next Generation, and the target data was actually sourced from its software. The CEO of SBT Associates subsequently tipped off New Generation about the data breach, which then lodged a complaint with cybercrime authorities in Bangalore.
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HRM ASIA.COM
AUGUST 2017
former staff they will face serious repercussions if they criticise the airline publicly. Air India says it will even withdraw post-retirement benefits from critics in print, electronic, and social media. The warning was disseminated as a corporate order by the executive director, and approved by Air India’s managing director Ashwani Lohani. “It has been noticed in the recent past that a few retired personnel of Air India are tarnishing the image of the company by posting negative remarks about the company on
social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, and also in electronic and print media. It is unacceptable that a person who is availing post-retirement facilities from Air India talks against the company,” said the order. “Retired personnel who make such negative comments with the intention of tarnishing the image of the company will themselves be responsible for cessation of their postretirement facilities.” According to The Economic Times, exemployees of Air India are entitled to free flights and contributory medical allowances.