Girish's Blog

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009 My Wishes and Hopes for a Happy New Year 1. Wish there are no natural or man made disasters in 2009. 2. Wish people realize that life is short and they make the best of it in the time available. 3. Wish people learn to love and respect other people whatever be their caste, creed, race, religion or color. 4. Wish people do not try to force their ideologies on others either through economic arm twisting or through direct violence. 5. Hope India votes with both her head and her heart to put in place a Government which will perform, deliver and be accountable to the people – (a bit difficult, I know) – but these are my wishes. 6. Hope the Indian economy does not falter and the stock market recovers during the year. 7. Wish the global economy lead by the USA does not go into recession – because if it does then the scenario would be too bleak to contemplate – that would defeat my wishes, so h...

It has been widely reported that Mayawati has been paying large amounts of advance tax on gifts received from her supporters on her birthday. Last financial year she had reportedly paid Rs. 15 cr as advance tax implying an income of Rs. 60 cr approximately. She has also gone on record that the gifts from her poor Dalit supporters range from Rs. 10 to Rs. 10000. Assuming people on an average gifted her Rs. 1000 each we are talking in excess of 600,000 donors and well wishers. When the income tax investigated her gifts, it has been reported that the addresses provided of the donors were all fake. It is also pertinent to discuss as to apart from Mayawati who else are the beneficiaries of this money game. What is the loss and gain of Dalits in this game of exchange of money? The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal dismissed the case against her as gifts could be an accepted form of income for a politician. I smell a rat in that decision. Can you imagine an individual, not in politics, putting il...

I have been thinking of writing on my first solo paragliding experience for quite some time now. My first brush with paragliding was in Manali – but it was so commercial and you had to double ride with the pilot. This was like just sitting and floating through the air. This is when I thought that it would be great if one could do it independently. As luck would have it Times of India which writes a weekly article on unique groups, wrote about Templepilots and how they teach people to fly at Lonavla. This being a couple of hours from Mumbai, I got in touch with them and signed up for the course after convincing my daughter to come with me. My younger daughter and wife agreed to accompany us for the three day weekend brush with flight. Remember Didarus and Icarus – well I was thinking of them when I left for the course. Off we left for Kamshet for our first brush with adventure sports!! On Friday, 9th May – we assembled at Rangoli restaurant at Kamshet, filled in the registration forms a...

INTRODUCTION I started out in practice with a very idealistic view of the profession. My articleship was done from a small firm wherein the major experience was in accounting and internal audit. There was no income tax experience whatsoever. Post qualification, I joined M/s A.F. Fergusons and gained tremendous exposure in audits of large companies. My performance as an audit manager, was noticed and I was sent on deputation to KPMG Peat Marwick in Malawi, Africa. I gained greater exposure and experience in how a scientific audit is carried out plus the degree of professionalism necessary to carry out independent audits. After I came back, I realised that starting my own practice would be a challenge which I would love to face even though this did not give me the exposure for tax practice, more of that later. The desire to be independent and the ability to think on one’s feet is a pre-requisite for setting up a successful practice. It is very important at the outset to assess your stren...

This article was published by Moneylife magazine on 18th March, 2007. With the easy availability of online trading facilities provided by various trading platforms such as ICICIDirect, Indiabulls, Kotak Mahindra, etc. the number of people joining the online trading bandwagon has gone up by leaps and bounds. Among those playing the markets online is a fair chunk of salaried employees. Many of these individuals have been introduced to futures and options. The retail trading volumes indicate that a lot of people are trying out this avenue to make money. This is all fine till it comes to generating the records one needs to provide the accountant to file the individual tax return. In my experience, I have always been unpleasantly surprised by the lack of awareness which individuals show when it comes to the income which needs to be disclosed and records maintained from short – long term capital gains and from speculation activities such as futures and options and intra-day trades. Most of t...

I had written this article earlier and it had been published by caalley.com. Thought of sharing it through my blog. Through the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990’s the role of the CFO – nomenclature then was Finance Controller - was more in the nature of arranging bank finance at reasonable costs for business growth, due to scarcity of growth capital due to tight liquidity conditions. It was more in the nature of a tactical, bean counting job. The CFO was primarily responsible for tedious budgeting and various accounting and internal reporting functions. The other expectation in those days was to have decent treasury management skills which helped in raising debt or equity capital and basic cash management. The CFO then was more of a workhorse than a show horse. The nineties was the decade of economic liberalization with the primary markets becoming an easy source of money for businesses as the regulatory environment was still in the formative stage. At this point in time the role of the...

For the last couple of days the visual and written media has been talking a lot of potential for war - that too during Christmas when one is supposed to pray and rejoice in the birth of Christ. We have seen politicians across the border change their tune rapidly the moment General Kayani started showing his true colors. Pakistan has a "functioning democracy" only in name - the true power has always been and always will be in the hands of the Military. Politicians in Pakistan are chameleons changing their color at all times to save their skin. This war mongering is akin to kids shouting from the rooftop their innocence when they have been caught doing an indiscretion. We have the Pakistani media obfuscating history by stating that they have never been agressors and always repelled attacks by a "Hindu" India! They forget that we have a larger Muslim population than Pakistan just as they conveniently forget that their arse has been whipped everytime they have tried mis...

All through my childhood I have seen my parents giving a helping hand to all those who came to us for help. That philosophy is probably now ingrained in my psyche. One should always remember that the good you do in life is always rewarded in this life itself - it's called cause and effect. Whatever you do - good or bad - the after effects are always enjoyed or suffered in this life here on earth, either by you or by your offspring. It is extremely important to live life honestly and simply - "do good always" should be your motto. God has not made all men equal economically - but all that depends on the individuals past "karma" and each individual has the opportunity to do good and improve to have a better future now and in the hereafter. Every person is born with two things - a body and a soul. At the time of passing away a person leaves behind the body and takes the soul. But the body is not the only thing he leaves behind - he also leaves behind memories for ...

In the last couple of days our Parliament and the Congress party has been faced with the Antulay problem of which I have already written. It is sad to see Mr. Antulay getting support from other marginal political parties. This is the worst kind of religion based politics one can indulge in. The smile on Mr. Antulay's face says it all - he thinks he has set the cat amongst the pegions. Instead of uniting as a Nation to face a common enemy, we have our brain dead politicians indulging in parochial politics for short term gains. Historically, when we had various kingdoms across the length and breadth of the country, we had kings stabbing other kings in the back for short term territorial gains, which was subsequently exploited by the Mughals and then the British to establish rule over us. We have still not changed - instead of learning from history we just keep repeating the follies ad infintum ad nauseum. We have been after Pakistan to send us our ten most wanted. Lets just talk abo...

Our friendly neighbour Pakistan has started to play the same old games. First say yes, then no and then completely obfuscate issues. We have had the USA financing a bankrupt - politically as well as financially - Pakistan for the past several years under the guise of "Fight against Terror". The question, unfortunately from the US perspective has always been "my terror" and "your's is something less than the real thing"! So unless there is a direct attack on the US or it's citizens any kind of terrorist activity anywhere in the world has not got the kind of attention and support in tackling it that it would otherwise deserve. On 26/11 some US citizens were also killed along with some other nationalities, hence their interest in finding out who is behind these attacks. In spite of sufficient proof, we have the US politicians playing cuckoo over whether the perpetrators were from Pakistan or not. What kind of double standards does the US follow! The P...

Invariably in Mumbai you will find that footpaths are not used by pedestrians at all. The reason for this is that almost all footpaths - apart from the South Mumbai area, are used either by hawkers or have been captured by the land mafia who have sold off this land to migrants which now house hutment dwellers. In many areas the power companies have given power connections so that these people do not steal power. The hawkers refuse to go to designated hawking zones as they have the support of wrong thinking politicians. We need to gather the will power to take decisions which are right for the public at large and not for a small group of people. The other day a friend and I were driving down Vakola area in Santcruz East, when the left rear view mirror of the car touched a lady who was walking on the road . She stopped the car and ranted in hindi, something to the effect that - "there is no place to walk on the road, and you are driving a car!!" In this area not only are the fo...

For the last two days I was not able to write as I was a bit pre-occupied. A couple of public comments in the last couple of days by Mr. Deshmukh (whose case I shall take first) and by Mr. Antulay on whom I will comment after the first one. After Mr. Ratan Tata went public with the statement that there was no actionable intelligence which they received from the State Government other than general alerts, Mr. Deshmukh went and contradicted Mr. Tata by saying that they had given specific inputs to the Taj group of hotels. Now, I wonder, how in hell did that happen! This same person was crying from the rooftops that the Central Intelligence agencies had not provided the State Government with actionable intelligence other than general alerts!! Now, if this was the case before Mr. Tata went on record (he has more integrity and thus is more believable than any politician!)then Mr. Deshmukh is lying through his face to save his backside by claiming that he had given the Taj group specific inf...

Do you know which is India's biggest laundry converting humungous amounts of black money into white? It is Agricultural Income!! which in India remains tax free. I have always been a proponent of taxing agricultural land holders by putting a reasonable ceiling on land holding to exclude the poor farmers from the tax burden - say landholders owning less than ten to fifteen acres of land. When India was ruled by Kings, what was the revenue for the kingdom? - nothing but land revenue paid in cash or kind (produce from the land based on land holding. Unfortunately, in modern India, this source of revenue for the Government is a strict no - no. Why? because most politicians are land owners and "farmers" at least on paper! and they can convert ill gotten gains into tax free income by showing it as agricultural income. Nowadays this is not restricted to politicians only! You will find a whole host of industrialists who suddenly become farmers once they realise that the tax on i...

It has been widely reported in the press that one Mohammad Ali, a lieutenant of Dawood Ibrahim (India's most wanted), runs the Mumbai docks like his personal fiefdom and not a leaf moves without his knowledge. Government sources have been cited in the press as having reported a hawala transfer of Rs. 120 crores from Mohammad Ali to Dawood - it is pertinent to note that Government sources are aware of such huge transfers but they do not/cannot block such transfers. If criminal transfer of funds of such huge denominations are noted and nothing is done by the authorities, is it wrong to conclude that the politician-bureaucrat-police-criminal nexus is alive and thriving?!!? What should be done to break this nexus - as the stakes involved are huge and the money mind boggling. Elections require huge funds - and these funds are raised by politicians through businessmen by generating black money. The best way to bypass this rot would be to have a transparent fund raising system for politic...

We have just been witness to some of the worst kind of maneuvering for power in Maharashtra after the resignations of R.R. Patil and Vilasrao Deshmukh (VD). Not even a week has gone by after the terrorist attacks before we get a sense of deja vu with the political drama which took place to grab the seat of power in Maharashtra. The fact that VD survived for so long just goes to prove the TINA (there is no alternative) factor and also the fact that he is the Congress party's biggest fund collector. For a change the Congress decided to put public opinion ahead of party funds and asked VD to go! Then what happens - the political circus starts, VD flies to Delhi and back almost everyday at public cost to try and get his proxy in as Chief Minister! We have Ashok Chavan, guardian minister of Nanded, who is appointed as Chief Minister - a person with no track record and no controversy to go with his name - a complete political lightweight!! So we will now have VD running Maharashtra throu...

My post on Section 49-O was slightly ill-informed. On being told by a friend that the information is not accurate and after a little bit of research - I would like to apologise for putting up the earlier post. Our Constitution consists of Articles and not Sections - hence when one refers to the 1969 Act, what one is actually referring to is "Conduct of Election Rules, 1961" which has a Section 49-O which is being reproduced below: 49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark. The question is if such an option exists, but is only for statistical purposes, then I fee...

To allow the police force to be honest and live a life of dignity it is necessary to increase their salaries and perquisites to a level where it is not necessary for them to show moral turpitude and indulge in taking bribes, fixing cases etc. Currently the salaries are so low - it has been widely reported that getting a job in the police force requires fixing with the political masters, wherein money is borrowed at high interest rates to pay the bribe to get a police posting. Once these guys get into that kind of a trap, they have no choice but to accept bribes to pay off their debt, as the low salary is barely sufficient to look after one person let alone a family. Mr. R.R. Patil had stopped the practice of exchange of money for postings to lucrative police posts. He could have also looked into the matter of corruption at the time of recruitment - it would have done a world of good. If this practice can be stopped and the salaries and perquisites increased to a decent level, I am conf...

A friend, Kaushik Sampat had proposed the following for electoral reforms - and after discussions we refined it as follows: Compulsory voting by all eligible voters. Device ways and means to implement this. We are a software superpower, I am confident we can implement this by the time of the next general elections (not the forthcoming) . At the time of elections we have the 1st past the post system and not proportionate system...so what have we got to improve? A candidate will have to poll at least 40 % of the votes in the forthcoming elections and in the next 2 elections we can increase it to 45 % and 50 % respectively.The whole idea is to make the reps pay more attention by cultivating their constituency, work towards effective interaction & communication system with their constituents, WORK HARD FOR THEIR VOTES and play by the rules which are reasonable towards the people whom they represent. Right now they are skewed..in exchange compulsory voting will also raise the responsib...

The Petition Posted using ShareThis

Did you know that there is a system in our Constitution, as per the 1969 Act, in Section " 49-O" that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey to the presiding election officer that he/she doesn't want to vote for anyone! Yes! such a feature is available, but obviously past as well as present leaders have never disclosed it. This is called "49-O". Why should You go and say "I VOTE FOR NOBODY" . Because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that particular ward has received more than 123 "49-O" votes, then the result of that poll will be cancelled and the same will have to be re-polled. Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-poll, since the people had already expressed their decision on them. This would bring fear into all political parties and hence they would be forced to look for genuine candidates for their pa...

Innumerable number of times have I had discussions with friends on the manner in which our politicians approach the problem of terror. We have always come to the conclusion that we are the ones to blame as we are the people who put them in a position wherein they rule over us. The problem is that our political class as a whole is corrupt and selfish to the core – whether it is the Congress, the BJP or the hotchpotch who rule us at any given time. Everybody is only bothered about what gain they can make for their own and their future generations without thinking about the “aam junta” whom they are supposed to rule. You only have to look at the number of our MP’s who have criminal cases filed against them and you will see my point. They come to power to milk the system and stash ill gotten gains in Swiss banks. If money budgeted for security upgrades had been well spent, then November 26 would never have come to pass. Call it intelligence failure or criminal negligence in deciphering and...