Girish's Blog

I would like to begin by giving a brief background on the preparations for this unique Gurupurnima. In the last one month or so before July 21, I had been to Dandi on three of the Sundays and to be honest with you I used to wonder how such a gigantic task would get accomplished. Mind you, I had full faith in the Guru energies and in Pratapbhai’s organisational capacity and commitment to have the preparations completed in time. Just the Sunday before GP 2013, the heavens had opened up and the rains had really made the ground soggy and only the frame for the massive pandal had been put up. (When Pujya Swamiji had made us pray for rains in Shirdi and all over India, we had no doubts that there would be plentiful rains – but rain to such an extent and spread all over the country has not been witnessed in a very long time!) In fact I had been praying for the rains to stop for some time, and fortunately that day, the sun smiled at us after almost a week of incessant and heavy rains. As the ...

The government is thinking of making eating of ice-cream at service parlours subject to service tax! Why? Because ice-cream parlours are air-conditioned and hence subject to service tax!! The question is whether ice-cream is a product or a service! To my mind ice-cream is a manufactured product and is subject to excise duty once it leaves the factory. Because it is a product it will be subject to VAT as per the respective State laws. Now an additional dose of tax – service tax @ 12.36% over and above the two taxes. This will lead to taxation in excess of 35% on ice cream is eaten at ice-cream parlour…..it just makes me want to scream. The basics of product vis-à-vis service is being brought into question by fuddy-duddy bureaucrats who want to be in the good books of the Finance Ministry by whatever means possible and the citizenry at large be damned, I guess. It is apparent that a useless Government is trying to fill its pockets through all means possible to enhance its coffer...

  This note is being written in response to various calls I have got from clients with respect to the TDS provision on property transactions. Effective from 1 June 2013, taxes are to be deducted at source ('TDS') on payments for the purchase of immovable property (including any land other than agricultural land, or any building or part of a building) @ 1 per cent as per section 1941A. Taxes would be required to be deducted @ 20 per cent should the seller not hold a PAN. Such requirement to deduct taxes is triggered should the purchased property's cost exceed Rs. 5,000,000.  The representations made by the Confederation of Real Estate Developers of India requesting a rollback of the section was not accepted thus dashing the hopes of the industry. As the rules for the same were not notified there was the hope of a possible rollback similar to the one performed last year, when such a proposal was placed in the Finance Bill, 2012 but not enacted into the Finance Act, 2012. ...

I have stopped reading newspapers in as much detail as I used to earlier and I have completely stopped watching news channels on TV. What is reported is not news – in the print media what you read is sensationalism in the garb of ‘news’ – on TV it is more about TRP and advertising revenue – with 3-4 day old news still being shown as ‘breaking new’!! You open any newspaper it will have news of some scam or the other, rape, murder, land grab, corruption in the local body, suicide, police high handedness, etc – day in day out it is the same with a different set of characters! Good news is hardly ever published. There is plenty of good work being done by unknown local people in the interiors of the country, selflessly and without expectation, but this is not newsworthy as it does not SELL! Take a case In point – the current news being flogged to death – MS Dhoni and conflict of interest via his business connections. He is a director in 12 companies shout the headlines! Most of these c...

I had been looking forward to this Shibir since the day it was announced. The moment the circular announcing the dates became public in March, I booked five hotel rooms at Sai Palace Budget, Shirdi, as one of the owners was a classmate of a very good friend of mine. This hotel is exactly opposite Gate number 2 to the Sai Temple and is very conveniently located. There was brouhaha over the organization of the event, with a lot of circulars going back and forth. Ultimately the Guru Energies did their work, which mere mortals should realise that the energies are far superior to our ‘tiny’ egos (in comparison to the power of the Guru Energies). I was to leave with Anant Khamankar and family and Pravin Puravji on the morning of the 18 th , but as they were co-opted onto the emergency committee, I had to look for alternative companions for the drive to Shirdi. I then travelled with three sadhikas from Vakola center and one from CIFE. We left at 6.30am and reached the hotel at around 1...