The use of social media at work place and its influence on the productivity of the employees in the era of COVID-19.

As per Internet world stats, with 560 million Internet users, India is the second largest online market in the world, ranked only behind China. Out of these 560 million Internet users in India, almost 375 million people use social media. These facts are enough to highlight the deep penetration of Internet and social media in Indian society. This deep penetration of social media among the Indian workers has further more deepened in the era of COVID-19. The employees are working from home, so they are more prone to use mobile and social media platforms for non-work-related purposes. It is a proven fact that social media has not only impacted our personal lives but also professional lives in more than one ways. Despite the previously mentioned staggering figures which show the deep penetration of Internet and social media in our Indian society, sufficient studies/researches have not been conducted to study the impact of social media on our professional lives. Keeping in mind these things, the purpose of this study is to understand the impact of social media on one of the most crucial aspects of our professional lives, i.e., labour productivity which is quite crucial not only for the success of individuals and business organizations but also for the economic growth of any country. This study also tries to highlight the other related aspects of social media usage at workplace like the perception of the employees regarding use of social media at workplace, purpose for which social media is being used by the employees and other such related issues. Primary data have been used in this study; collected through a survey from the professionals/employees who hail from different sectors/industries. The authors have used convenient sampling method to collect data to examine the impact of social media usage on the productivity of the employees in the era of COVID-19. The findings of this study offer practical insights about the various impacts of social media on work life of the employees and how their working lives have changed while working from home in the era of COVID-19. This study also offers suggestions about harnessing the benefits and minimizing the side-effects of social media usage at workplace. Both the employees and the organizations can equally take advantage of this report.

Synthesis and mechanistic studies of diketo acids and their bioisosteres as potential antibacterial agents.

A series of diketo esters and their pertinent bioisosteres were designed and synthesized as potent antibacterial agents by targeting methionine amino peptidases (MetAPs). In the biochemical assay against purified MetAPs from Streptococcus pneumoniae (SpMetAP1a), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MtMetAP1c), Enterococcus faecalis (EfMetAP1a) and human (HsMetAP1b), compounds 3a, 4a and 5a showed more than 85% inhibition of all the tested MetAPs at 100 µM concentration. Compounds 4a and 5a also exhibited antibacterial potential with MIC values 62.5 µg/mL (S. pneumoniae), 31.25 µg/mL (E. faecalis), 62.5 µg/mL (Escherichia coli) and 62.5 µg/mL (S. pneumoniae), 62.5 µg/mL (E. coli), respectively. Moreover, 5a also significantly inhibited the growth of multidrug resistant E. coli strains at 512 µg/mL conc., while showing no cytotoxic effect towards healthy CHO cells and thus being selected. Growth kinetics study showed significant inhibition of bacterial growth when treated with different conc. of 5a. TEM analysis also displayed vital damage to bacterial cells by 5a at MIC conc. Moreover, significant inhibition of biofilm formation was observed in bacterial cells treated with MIC conc. of 5a as visualized by SEM micrographs. Interestingly, 5a did not cause an alteration in the hemocyte density in Galleria mellonella larvae which is considered in vivo model for antimicrobial studies and was non-toxic up to a conc. of 2.5 mg/mL.