A 62-year-old Indian-origin man, now a US citizen, faces denaturalisation proceedings for allegedly defrauding investors of USD 2.5 million and concealing this from US authorities.
Heavy rains in Kolkata have disrupted Durga Puja preparations, causing damage to pandals and delaying inaugurations. Organizers are working to restore decorations and ensure the festivities can proceed.
A fresh political row has erupted in West Bengal after a person allegedly involved in Bangladesh's August 2024 student protests was found listed as a voter in Kakdwip, triggering sharp Bharatiya Janata Party-Trinamool Congress exchanges over alleged illegal infiltration and manipulation of the voter list in the state.
Economic growth, which we are taking for granted, slows for a completely different set of local or global factors and the Modi premium vanishes, observes Debashis Basu.
Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
After bumbling for years since 2014, the Modi government seems to believe that massive government expenditure will lead us to prosperity supported by 'seat-of-the-pants' decision-making, observes Debashis Basu.
Very often, 'sentiment' drives prices well beyond what is warranted and it is hard to forecast market sentiment, explains Debashis Basu.
Just because India has outperformed the US markets in a short recent period, it does not mean that this is based on fundamental reasons that are here to stay, points out Debashis Basu.
Scores of chartered accountants, company secretaries and cost accountants are currently under the regulatory scanner for alleged violations of the companies law with respect to setting up of certain Chinese companies and their subsidiaries in India, according to officials. The apex bodies of chartered accountants and company secretaries, ICAI and ICSI, have together received around 400 complaints on the issue and necessary actions have been initiated. The Institute of Cost Accountants of India has also initiated action against some of their members in the matter.
Because they have become too big and pervasive and the time to regulate is long gone, points out Debashis Basu.
The Criminal Investigation Department on Friday filed a charge-sheet at a Midnapore court against 58 accused, including jailed former West Bengal minister Sushanta Ghosh, in the Garbeta skeleton recovery case. Besides the former minister, his ex-personal secretary Debashis Pyne has also been named in the charge-sheet, which was filed within three months of Ghosh's arrest. The probe agency prayed to the CJM court to issue arrest warrants against all the 42.
From small restaurants to mighty software companies, it is businesses, not the government, that create jobs. Yet, in a cruel irony, they have to fight extortive and brutal State power every step of the way, says Debashis Basu.
Following the money and freezing anything unaccounted is the only way to set an example for others, suggests Debashis Basu.
The tax department will remain a source of endless nightmares for citizens and 'transparent taxation' will remain an empty slogan and a cruel joke, observes Debashis Basu.
Nothing has ever been done to make bank officers accountable, except for the rare actions when there is a public controversy, argues Debashis Basu.
Rogue lending under political influence was rife in the Congress-led regime and is not happening in the Modi regime, certainly not on that scale. But if PSBs cannot lend as indiscriminately as they did last time in the name of 'credit expansion', how well will these banks do, asks Debashis Basu.
These beautiful photos of India will give you travel goals.
Over 86 lakh voters will decide the political fate of 284 candidates in this phase.
It is impossible for anyone to explain how markets are hitting record highs during an economic recession. It is both mysterious and surreal, notes Debashis Basu.
This is Sourav Ganguly's second term in office after he became CAB president in 2015 following the death of Jagmohan Dalmiya.
Mamata Banerjee's party won 132 seats and was all set to pocket two more to post a hat-trick of wins, decimating a frail challenge from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the Left Front and the Congress, officials said.
'The recalculated ranking showed India should have had a higher ranking earlier (113 in 2012 instead of 132) and lower ranking later (114 in 2018 instead of 100).' 'This would mean that there has been no change in India's climate of doing business across two regimes.' 'This is exactly consistent with the reality on the ground,' observes Debashis Basu.
'The assumed linear correlation between forced lower yields, higher bank borrowing from the RBI, higher lending, and higher growth involves leaps of faith, each a step on the quicksand of false beliefs,' warns Debashis Basu.
'The deeper problem is big government -- a giant monster with a giant appetite, which requires it to put more and more pressure on tax officials to extort. 'And the monster is getting bigger by the day. But then, Mr Modi too knows this,' says Debashis Basu.
Those behind recapitalisation are neither aware nor do they care. After all, they have no skin in this game. And the Lok Sabha elections are round the corner. That's what they care about, points out Debashis Basu.
'Why are FMPs used as a vehicle for promoter funding against listed shares?' asks Debashis Basu.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India does not seem to have understood the enormity of what funds have been up to. If Sebi does not crack down on mutual funds using cooked-up credit ratings to hide behind promoter funding, this is bound to grow into a systemic menace, says Debashis Basu.But MFs decided to become lenders without the legal backing to secure themselves, or the skillset to assess lending risk. If Sebi does not crack down on mutual funds using cooked-up credit ratings to hide behind promoter funding, this is bound to grow into a systemic menace, says Debashis Basu.
If the government seriously keeps out of business, the business world will know about it at a lightning speed; there would be no need for rock show-like events.
Banks are cheating customers with rates that are unfairly high, discriminatory, and opaque, denying legitimate savings to borrowers, while the RBI has been looking the other way, says Debashis Basu.
It is clear as daylight to anyone that a charge or a cost to simply reduce interest on a floating rate loan is extortion, but this is exactly what the RBI has officially sanctioned, says Debashis Basu.
To say capital gains from stocks are effortless shows little understanding of the treacherous investing terrain, says Debashis Basu.
While the PM sees zero tax on long-term capital gains and dividend income as unfair since the beneficiaries are not poor, he is silent on the fact that rich farmers too don't pay taxes, since farm income is tax-free, a loophole exploited by many netas and babus, says Debashis Basu.
India borrows ideas that we don't need, like the FRDI Bill, and ignores the ones we need, like rewarding whistleblowers such as the ones who want to save Bombay Mercantile Bank, says Debashis Basu.
Why do we need a cure here for peculiarly Western diseases when we don't have those diseases, and which the West itself is not trying to cure, asks Debashis Basu.
Digital services work best when the seller designs a system where default options are designed to help the buyer, says Debashis Basu.
The government has provided no official explanation behind the note ban that is backed by hard data, says Debashis Basu.
The Trinamool government, which cashed in on the Nandigram protests in West Bengal politics, has not yet given the Central Bureau of Investigation the sanction to prosecute five police officers involved in the 2007 police firing which killed 14 villagers.
'By entering at an early age, they stand a better chance of developing into skilled investors.'
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