Investment Declaration

It's usual that your company will send a piece of document with a lot of columns that need to be filled up during the first two months of the financial year. Typically, this means that you have to declare the investments, which you will be making, during the current financial year.

And this document is rather important because you will need to back this document with actual proof at the end of the year. Else, the take-home salary will have to bear the brunt of your negligence. There are different approaches followed by individuals for this. These include:
A conservative approach: A conservative's approach is to invest Rs 30,000 in Provident Fund, Rs 35,000 in Equity-Linked Saving Schemes and another Rs 15,000 National Saving Certificates. That means a total investment of Rs 80,000 which misses the target of Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) that they need to invest for maximum tax benefits.

And this approach is followed because they are worried about the impact, if they are unable to carry out their investments properly. In order to save themselves any trouble, they mention a lower figure.

Also, they are also worried that about the consequences if the break-up of the investment changes. However, they need not worry about this because the total amount indicated in the declaration has to be same. And as long as this is maintained, it is perfectly fine.

It's important to remember that a conservative approach can lead to higher tax incidence. That is, if you were to invest a higher amount than proposed, it could lead to lower tax benefits.
Before going for such an option, it's important that you mention this to your company's finance department so that they are aware of your latest position and tax you accordingly.

The carefree approach: This approach is more common because here the individual just puts some arbitrary figures against various heads in their investment declaration.
For instance, a person might put Rs 10,000 as premium on medical insurance and Rs 1 lakh as total investment for Section 80C benefits.

There is a serious risk in this approach because just putting down some numbers without thinking through the process could lead to serious loss, in terms of reduction in tax benefits.
Similarly some wrong amount might be mentioned that will disallow the expenditure. A very good example of this is allocating Rs 1 lakh for PPF when the maximum permissible is just Rs 70,000. So another Rs 30,000 that could have been invested in other instruments will now get wasted.

The exact approach: This is a systematic approach wherein all the options are considered and then, allocated to different instruments. For instance, allocating Rs 50,000 to PPF, another Rs 40,000 to ELSS and Rs 10,000 to NSC is a perfect example of proper allocation.
Of course, the latter approach runs the risk of changes being introduced during the year, but it is still an acceptable one because the final number should tally.

Claim for Sensex. BSE not the owner of SENSEX.

Challenging the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which has applied to register Sensex as its trademark, Deepak Mohoni, a stock market analyst here, has filed a plea with the Trademark registry claiming that the word had been coined by him to denote the BSE sensitive index in his newspaper columns before BSE started using it.

Apart from filing his application with Trademark registry, Mohoni has also moved a legal suit in Pune district court under Section 134 of Trade Market Act to stake his claim in respect of coining of the word.

According to Mohoni, he used the word Sensex first in 1989 in a newspaper column to Nickname a long, clumsy phrase- BSE SENSITIVE INDEX.

He claims that BSE started using it much later from 1995 in its publications. "I decided to file my application before Trademark registry when I came to know that BSE was moving to register SENSEX as it trademark," Mohoni said.

He has now been served a notice by BSE through its lawyers contending that the word was exclusively associated with Bombay Stock Exchange services and could not be registered as trademark by any other party.

Ranjan Nehru, the lawyer for Mohoni, has submitted in his plea that his client enjoyed an exclusive right over the word SENSEX, the term which was convenient, attractive and innovative.

Demat Account Basics

Definition of Demat Account
Demat Account is an account where you can maintain an account of stocks you have in an electronic format. Demat Account or Dematerialized account is a safe and convenient means of holding securities just like a bank account is for funds. Today, practically 99.9% settlement (of shares) takes place on demat mode only. Thus, it is advisable to have a Beneficiary Owner (BO) account to trade at the exchanges.
Now nobody is interested to keep shares in physical forms and going for electronic based filing of shares. This has changed the style of operation in main Indian stock markets like BSE Sensex ( Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index) and Nifty (National Stock Exchange of India) and its brokers.

How to Open a Demat Account
To start dealing in securities in electronic form, one needs to open a demat account with a DP of his choice. It is like opening a bank account. You have to approach a depository participants to open an online trading or demat account. Most of the banks are DPs too.
There are many private banks and also private sectors which opens Demat Account and give good service. These company and sector has their different rules and regulation and charges. Some of the banks and sectors where you can open your demat account:
ICICI bank
HDFC bank
Centurion Bank
SBI bank
Eureka Securities
Sharekhan
India Infoline
Indiabull
Religare
Reliance money
Geojit

Depository
The two depository, NSDL and CDSL is responsible for keeping stocks of investors in electronics form.
NSDL stands forNational Securities Depository Ltd
CDSL stands for Central Depository Services Ltd

Depository Participants
DPs are agents who connect depository with Investors. It is like a bank branch with which you can open a demat account to buy or sell shares.

Charges and Fees
There will be an annual account maintenance fee and a transaction fee for your demat account and it will vary between DPs.

Documents required for opening a Demat account
Few documents with the application form is required to open a demat account. As per latest Govt of India rule PAN (Personal Account Number) card is must for opening a demat account. The documents required to open a demat account are
1. Photo Copy of PAN Card (Mandatory)
2. Two Passport size photos
3. Address Proof – Ration Card/Passport/Driving License/Voter’s ID Card/BSNL Telephone/LIC Policy
4. Latest Bank Statement and photocopy of Bank Passbook

Who can open a Demat account
Anyone who is above 18 years old and wish to open a demat account.

Microsoft withdraws bid to acquire Yahoo

Microsoft has abandoned its three-month old bid to buy Yahoo after the two failed to agree on acceptable price. Microsoft had earlier offered USD 47.5 billion which translated into USD 33 per share but Yahoo wanted $57 billion or $37 a share.
Microsoft announced its decision to withdraw after talks between its Chief Executive Steven A Ballmer and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang in Seattle last morning failed to produce an agreement. Microsoft had made an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo so as to compete with Google search engine.
Ballmer in a letter to Yang pointed out that Microsoft had already raised its bid by about $5 billion and despite its best efforts, Yahoo has not "moved towards accepting our offer."
"After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal," said Ballmer.
"Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft," he wrote.
"We continue to believe that our proposed acquisition made sense for Microsoft, Yahoo and the market as a whole," Ballmer said in the letter posted on the Microsoft website.
No immediate comment was available from Yahoo.
In a statement, Ballmer expressed confidence that Microsoft move towards its goal to pursue its online efforts on its own.

Reliance Power Ltd acquires 3 coal mines

Reliance Power Ltd's chairman Anil Dhirubhai Ambani on Friday said it has acquired three coal mines in Indonesia with total reserves of two billion metric tonne.
The acquisition was made by its wholly-owned subsidiary Reliance Coal Resources Pvt Ltd (RCRPL), which plans to invest Rs 2,400 crore in mine and related transportation infrastructure to take the capacity of these mines to over 25 million metric tonne per annum.
"Reliance Coal Resources has acquired 100% economic interest in three coal concessions in Indonesia," Reliance Power said.

Navratna Status to PowerGrid

The Government on Thursday granted the coveted 'Navratna' status to PowerGrid Corporation of India Ltd, giving the transmission major financial autonomy to take independent decision on investments up to Rs 1,000 crore.
R Bandhopadhyay, Secretary in the Department of Public Enterprises said "We have issued the order after the company fulfilled some of the criteria, like taking 50 per cent non-official independent directors on the board" .
With the grant of the Navratna status, the board of PGCIL will be able to take decisions on investments up to Rs 1,000 crore, or 15 per cent of its networth, without seeking approval of the government.
Bandhopadhyay said PGCIL now joins the club of 15 Navratna companies which include NTPC, ONGC, SAIL, BHEL and NALCO.

No hike in Interest rates, says Chidambaram.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said he is not expecting interest rates to rise following the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) decision to hike banks’ mandatory reserve requirements.
To tame inflation, the RBI on Tuesday raised the cash reserve ratio (CRR), the money banks have to keep as deposit with the central bank, by 0.25 percentage points to 8.25 per cent. India’s wholesale prices-based inflation rate has been hovering over 7 per cent for the last few weeks.
“By and large, banks have welcomed and appreciated the stance of the RBI. They (banks) were quite happy that only the CRR had been hiked and policy rates had been left untouched,” Chidambaram said after a meeting with state-owned bank chiefs.
“They (banks) do not expect the CRR hike to impact interest rates. So, going forward in the reasonable future I do not expect any increase in interest rates by state-run banks,” he said.
Chidambaram, who reviewed the performance of the public sector banks, said agricultural loans grew by 23.33 per cent, while loans to small and medium enterprises grew by over 36 per cent during 2007-08.
Personal loans increased by 16.3 per cent, of which, housing loans grew by 16.44 per cent and automobile loans by 23.01 per cent.
Chidambaram also expected banks to return a better performance in 2008-09. The RBI has projected 20 per cent growth in advances and 17 per cent growth in deposits for 2008-09.
Gross bad debt of the public sector banks declined to 2.17 per cent in 2007-08 from the previous year’s 2.7 per cent.
Chidambaram also urged banks to focus on debt-swap schemes, where they offer loans to farmers to pay off local money lenders.
The finance minister also underlined the need for banks to lend more to persons of non-farming professions such as artisans, barbers and cobblers in rural areas.
He urged them to review their derivative portfolios and make sure customers understand them fully. Chidambaram expected loans to the housing sector to increase without impacting interest rates as the RBI had changed housing loan portfolio norms.