If your interest income from bank fixed deposits falls well under the tax-exempt limit, tax deduction at source (TDS) can be avoided by submitting the details in Form Number 15A with the bank.
The scheme allows a permanent employee to take leave for up to two years without pay or allowances and return to join at the same level where he or she left. The decision comes a few days after the unions suggested several schemes, including leave without pay to cut costs while maintaining the interests of the employees. In Mumbai, the airline announced it has set up a committee comprising representatives of the management and the unions to turn around the airline.
Nandan Nilekani will have the responsibility to lay down plans and policies to implement the Unique Identity card scheme and shall own and operate the UID database. The authority was notified on January 28 this year as an attached office under the aegis of the Planning Commission with an initial core team of 115 officials and staff. The scheme will be implemented in three years.
Real estate developer K Raheja Universal Private Ltd wants to scrap one of their notified special economic zones and also surrender a part of another zone, citing lack of demand from the information technology sector.
It's actually a problem of plenty for investors now. Buoyed by the success of the three companies that sold their QIP issues within a day of opening, as many as 32 companies have joined the queue, hoping to raise a combined Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion).
Speculators often leveraged volume discounts on property purchases to re-sell them at prices lower than those available to individual buyers. This created problems for realtors when demand slowed, since it put pressure on them to take a hit on margins and lower prices still further. The lock-ins are expected to be introduced mostly for mid-income projects that offer prices 20 to 30 per cent below the market and, therefore, attract more undercutting from bulk discount buyers.
The bench consisting of acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court S J Mukhopadhyaya and Justice Ibrahim Kalifula on Monday set aside the earlier order according to which TVS Motors was restrained from using the twin spark technology, which was patented by Pune-based, India's second largest two wheeler manufacturer Bajaj Auto.
In the oil and gas sphere, Congress' manifesto talks of the intention to improve oil diplomacy and intensify domestic oil exploration and production.
Jet Airways, Kingfisher shift flights to low-cost platforms; experts expect a fare war. "Every year, airlines come up with cheap fares in the summer season, but not like this year. I had never seen airlines offering 50 per cent cash-back offers. Now with Jet Konnect and Kingfisher Red, there are more flights to the routes where LCCs used to dominate," says Bhawna Agarwal, co-founder and head of air business, Yatra.com.
Equity funds' exceptional performance was obviously due to the stock market rally that was led by small and mid-cap stocks. Realty, banks and consumer goods companies emerged as top gainers.
Industry sources said the carrier owed over Rs 620 crore to BPCL and HPCL, besides Rs 160 crore to IOC. However, Kingfisher Airlines is not the only company with oil dues. Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and state-owned Air India started this financial year with accumulated dues of Rs 4,000 crore to oil companies and airports, sources said. The three airlines are collectively projected to incur operating losses of Rs 5,000 crore, industry estimates suggest.
The domestic travel and hospitality sectors, which are reeling under the impact of the slowdown and the Mumbai terror attacks, are hoping that the swine flu does not spread to other regions and mar sentiment for travel. Hotel occupancies and tariffs across India have dropped 20 per cent in the last few months, even as foreign tourist arrivals fell by 14 per cent in the first three months of 2009.
Tata Motors was, till late on Saturday, collating booking numbers it had received from over 30,000 sale points from over 1,000 towns and cities. It will announce the final figure only on April 28. Tata Group insiders said that, till Saturday afternoon, the total bookings could range between 650,000 and 800,000. With more customers likely to join the bandwagon later in the day, the final number could be close to one million.
Wipro sees a silver lining in Q1; others say recovery by 2009-end.
They will take stock of the current situation and discuss the way forward. Handing over the share allotment documents to Tech Mahindra is also on the agenda of Monday's board meet, according to a Satyam spokesperson. Tech Mahindra Vice-Chairman, MD & CEO Vineet Nayyar, C P Gurnani, president (international operations), and President (strategic initiatives) Sanjay Kalra have confirmed their participation in the meet.
On the back of the Satyam episode, the ICAI is planning to seek more power for chartered accountants so that they are not mere qualifiers. In case they see any divergence in the numbers provided by the company, there must be a way to compel a restatement of accounts, according to the ICAI. It has asked its members to 'to be much more vigilant and rely on external information than be dependent on what the management provides.'
IBM's exit leaves the field open for engineering giant Larsen & Toubro, which owns 12 per cent in Satyam, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant Technology and private equity firm Wilbur L Ross. Satyam currently faces 13 class action suits by holders of the company's ADRs in the US. An investment banker close to the deal said IBM was a big name and could, therefore, be vulnerable to more lawsuits.
Some banks made it clear that banks have to make commercial decisions. "There is a limit to which we can reduce the deposit rates because of competing investment products such as small savings instruments," said a bank chief. With banks unable to lower deposits rates, lending rates were unlikely to drop significantly. A banker is said to have talked about the fact that companies that are unable to sustain themselves during the present downturn would face many risks.
The buzz refuses to die down even though other PE players, investment bankers and analysts say such an alliance is highly unlikely. Wilbur Ross, meanwhile, is understood to have completed the due diligence of the scam-tainted IT company. When contacted, a company official declined comment.
The aggression shown by corporate houses till not a long ago has given way for consolidation in the backdrop of current economic downturn and the companies in the next fiscal, beginning tomorrow, would need to focus on growing their core businesses and conserving the resources, global consultancy firm PwC executive director Sanjeev Krishnan told PTI.