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| April 30, 2008 | | Taxpayer: Budget joys and inflation woes
Overall, Budget 08-09 offers the aam taxpayer many benefits. No doubt, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has done his bit in preparing a favourable pitch for the upcoming general elections. Be that as it may, it's some relief in an year when the invisible tax called inflation is threatening to unhinge household budgets. In his Budget Speech, the FM said there is merit in equating the tax rates on dividends that are distributed taxed @15% to short-term capital gains taxed @10%.
Cash crunch? 8 questions to ask yourself
Considering that no one wants their finances to capsize, going through rough patches can take a lot of skill. Pay hikes, home loans, stockmarkets,prices—what turn will these take? We get answers to these questions
Should I invest in equity shares now?
Don't invest at one go. Go slow, buy in dips, and in small quantities. Then, stop looking at the ticker.
Are my funds in ULIPs safe?
The costs in most Ulips are front-loaded and, hence, it is important to make them run their full course.
What should I do with my home loan?
At this juncture, floating rates are likely to go up
Should I stay invested in MFs?
Monitor investments closely and make purchase and redemption decisions solely on the basis of the relative performance of the funds and the demands of the portfolio.
Is this the right time to buy a house?
Deceleration of economic growth will impact purchasing power
How will I spend on major items?
If growth continues at 7-9 per cent, the spending and saving behaviour is unlikely to change.
Should I dump my stock portfolio?
If your interest is for the short term, then you should avoid taking any position at this stage
What kind of hike will I get this year?
The job market is seeing consolidation and HR experts feel hikes will be more moderate in the future
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| April 29, 2008 | | IMF: Incompetence by design or default?
Experiences of the past decade now tell us that this unaccountable and unsure system is untrustworthy, unworkable and hence unacceptable
Use tax sops and buy a house
Make the Income Tax Act work for you by using its tax saving provisions to fund the purchase of not only your first house, but also of the second one.
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| April 24, 2008 | | 10 rules for a profitable investment portfolio
Asset allocation - the way you divide your capital among different investment options - accounts for more than 90 per cent of your portfolio's overall return. Which is why it's so very important to get the asset allocation right in your investment portfolio.
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| April 22, 2008 | | Inflation - who's to blame?
The government can flight inflation by using monetary policy that aims to curtail demand through higher interest rates and lower liquidity.
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| April 19, 2008 | | Cartoons are now adults' business
Animation is serious business today, says , with high-profile houses pumping in big money into these films.
The day the music died!
No more countdowns, no more artistes - television's music channels have rescinded their niche for non-music reality shows.
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| April 18, 2008 | | Why CEOs don't blog
If the top management (especially the CEO) understands the merits of blogging, then that company eventually goes on to build an effective blogging strategy.
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| April 14, 2008 | | How to calculate your inflation
While the WPI may give a particular inflation figure, in reality, the real rate differs from person to person. An illustration on how to calculate it for yourself.
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| April 12, 2008 | | When coffee shops turn into offices
Coffee shops support a huge and growing workforce that cannot or will not be tethered to that piece of real estate that we all recognise as a formal office.
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| April 10, 2008 | | Rich-for-life investing principles
According to life cycle investing theory, individuals travel through different life stages with different investment goals and risk tolerances associated with them. Each individual would have to determine for him or herself how much risk they want to assume to achieve greater returns, as evidenced by a move to the right on the risk/return line.
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| April 02, 2008 | | Is the Blackberry email a security threat?
While other countries allow intelligence agencies to snoop on email, a host of other transactions, including e-commerce, using similar encryption levels will be affected.
17 tax-free incomes for you
Under the provisions of Section 10(1) of the Income Tax Act, agricultural income is fully exempt from income tax. However, for individuals or HUFs when agricultural income is in excess of Rs. 5,000, it is aggregated with the total income for the purposes of computing tax on the total income in a manner which results into "no" tax on agricultural income but an increased income tax on the other income.
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| March 28, 2008 | | The man to thank for babus' fatter wallets
No less than 4.5 million government employees will soon have more money in their pockets. And they can thank Justice Bellur Narayanaswamy Srikrishna for it. Still, public records do not have much information on the man.
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| March 27, 2008 | | Pensioners angry at 2006 'divide'
Those who retired prior to January 2006 will get only a 15 per cent hike. The commission's recommendations come into effect from January 2006. For instance, an officer who retired in the higher administrative grade-1 (equivalent to an additional secretary in the central government) prior to January
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| March 26, 2008 | | How to pick valuable stocks
The earnings per share (EPS) ratio indicates the earning of a common share in a year. This ratio enables investors to actually quantify the income earned by a share, and to determine whether it is reasonably priced. The ratio is arrived at by dividing the income attributable to common shareholders by the weighted average of the number of common shares. In countries, where employees are given stock options, investors check a company's fully diluted earnings per share.
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| March 25, 2008 | | ICICI Prudential's success story
It is a real life story. A story of an insurer that has managed to hold on to its lead in the marketplace for seven years.
What your work says about you
Meaningful work doesn't just belong to old-world craftsmen, though. Meaningful work happens even in big corporations. And when it does, it makes them even bigger.
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| March 24, 2008 | | All about the new Pay Commission recommendations
Cabinet Secretary and Secretaries to be kept in distinct pay scales at Rs 90,000 and Rs 80,000 a month, respectively.
What is a Pay Commission? How will it impact govt?
The Pay Commission is an administrative system/mechanism that the government of India set up in 1956 to determine the salaries of government employees. The First Pay Commission was established in 1956, and since then, every decade has seen the birth of a commission that decides the wages of government employees for a particular time-frame.
Meet the master of art auction!
Neville Tuli has been having a good week. A few days after his arts institution Osian's was evaluated at Rs 840 crore (Rs 8.4 billion), with Dubai-based private equity firm Abraaj Capital acquiring a 9.4 per cent stake in it for Rs 80 crore (Rs 800 million), Tuli's recent auction of Indian modern and contemporary art fetched an astounding Rs 30.38 crore (Rs 303.8 million), in a market soothsayers have been predicting the end of for some time now.
Will the stock market sink further?
Without doubt, bears have raided. We try to fathom what further damage could they cause, for how long and how to cope with it.
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| March 19, 2008 | | Are high crude oil prices here to stay?
Rising geopolitical uncertainty, a falling dollar and the growing speculative interest in commodities trading will keep crude prices volatile.
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| March 17, 2008 | | The 10 biggest falls of the Sensex
The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex sank by 951 points on black Monday on panic selling by funds, triggered by weak global cues.
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| March 14, 2008 | | Rahul Gandhi wants bigger farm loan waiver
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday made a strong speech in Parliament demanding the widening of the scope of relief granted to farmers through the loan waiver scheme announced by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Budget 2008-09.two crucial changes to widen the arc of relief as the party prepares for crucial electoral battles ahead.
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| March 13, 2008 | | Stocks that you can buy, sell or hold
I think this time around the markets will take that much more time to consolidate and ride back up. We have hardly ever been in a bearish phase over the last 3 to 4 years. So even if we take 4 to 5 months to get back to a bullish phase it is fine and only healthy for the markets, says market expert Pranav Sanghavi.
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| March 12, 2008 | | Will the loan waiver relieve farmer distress?
Ultimately, it boils down to whether a loan waiver will help without taking action to improve irrigation facilities and to ensure remunerative prices for farmers.
How to save income tax through planning
The first step in tax saving through family tax planning is to adopt the concept of divide and rule. The simple rule is that each family member must have his or her independent source of income so as to legally become an independent tax payer under the provisions of the income tax law. Under the income tax law it is not possible to arbitrarily divide one's income amongst different members of the family - and then pay lower tax in the names of different family members.
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| March 11, 2008 | | Shah: The man who makes 'crorepatis'
Rashesh Shah is not your typical Gujarati businessman. He was among the first in his family to study in an English-medium school. He didn't just step into his father's business -- manufacturing and selling school exercise notebooks -- as all good conservative Gujarati boys tend to. He went on to study higher and higher (he followed a BSc in statistics with a one-year diploma from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and then a two-year MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad.
'Real' lessons that B-schools don't teach
The lessons of life would be a lot harder but for this theoretical grounding of the B-schools
Defaulted on home loan EMI? Here's help
It is important to know that the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act empower the bank to take possession of the property that is mortgaged to them, to recover the loan outstanding from the borrower.
Buying stocks? Follow these 4 steps
More than your investments, its how you behave in bullish and bearish markets that will determine where you end up several years from now. Avoid costly mistakes: Stay away from risky offerings, whether it is futures or commodity trading, and for that matter, trading in general. Understand equities as an asset class: Any promise of more than 15 per cent, based on past performance, should be seen with a lot of caution. Higher the returns, more the risk.
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| March 08, 2008 | | Are the fund managers listening?
While in other corrections, anybody who bought at the lower circuits never repented, some investors who did on January 22 are repenting as 50 per cent of Nifty stocks are below that day's level as I write on Friday morning. While derivative traders and margin money investors panicked in January-February, if values don't improve investors who have put their own money to work may begin to panic. Are the fund managers listening?
From bullock cart to biofuel
In Indian villages, the concepts of bio-fuels and carbon footprints do not exist. Yet, people use cycles, bullock carts, rickshaws and their own two feet, none of which cost the environment anything.
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| March 07, 2008 | | 3 steps to turn worry into action
You already have the means to change the pattern of escalating worry by using the power of your mind. The systematic Evaluate-Plan-Remediate approach allows you to examine the process of worry and break it down into smaller, more manageable problem units that can be solved or resolved.
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| March 06, 2008 | | Dismissing an employee? Tough job!
Deciding whether to dismiss an employee puts significant emotional strain on any manager – no matter how experienced he or she is. By acknowledging the difficult aspects of this event, you can more effectively manage your emotions and stress level.
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| March 04, 2008 | | How you can save more money now
If one optimally uses all the tax benefits extended, an individual earning up to Rs 3 lakh (Rs 300,000) may not be liable to any tax especially if he uses the provisions of Section 80C and 80D well.
'Gap between India's rich and poor is growing'
K M Chandrasekhar finds his new assignment a bit like being a journalist (a bit like what you do, he says); one deals with one issue today and then forgets about it for a while.
All about the new tax scenario
What are the changes in the new tax rules and how would they affect you? Check out the changes for individuals as well as corporates, as indicated by KPMG in a study.
The art of self-control a key to success
One of the greatest powers in negotiation is the power of not reacting. Human beings are reaction machines. As Ambrose Bierce once said, "[Speak when you are] angry, [and] you will make the best speech you will ever regret."
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