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No high court relief for Mumbai lawyer in Colaba flat sale row

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday refused interim relief to a city lawyer who wanted to restrain a buyer from entering a
south Mumbai flat. The advocate, Rajiv Bhatia (31), had moved the HC vacation bench for termination of a sale agreement he had
entered in with Parvez Diwan.

Bhatia had sold his Colaba flat to Diwan for Rs 2.85 crore in March. He wanted the HC to restrain Diwan and his wife from entry and
possession of the flat. On May 15, Diwan lodged an FIR against Bhatia and three others after finding an elderly woman in possession
of the flat in with his locks changed.

Vacation judge Justice R D Dhanuka observed that "prima facie, no case is made out for grant of any ad-interim protection as
prayed". He also vacated a May 15 injunction in Bhatia's favour after observing that "documents prima facie indicate" that the
agreement was registered and Bhatia had received the entire amount for the flat. "After handing over possession... Bhatias took law
in their hands and dispossessed the Diwans," said their lawyer in HC.
No more parties at US Clubs prime venue as army moves in
The sea-facing ground of the United Services Club in Navy Nagar, which has been a popular choice for weddings and other family functions,
can no longer be used by club members for their personal parties. The ground, with a capacity to host 600 guests and a picturesque view of
the Arabian Sea, will now be used by the Army for training purposes.

A 25-year-old member of the club, one among those whose hopes of holding their wedding receptionat the club ground were dashed, said, "I
had booked the entire club in October last year. I have always wanted to hold my wedding party here. However, on May 15, I was told the
grounds have been closed for functions as it is really close to the firing range. I will now have to make some adjustments since I am expecting
more than 500 guests. I will now be hosting it in another part of the same club."

Confirming that the ground has been shut for public parties, Chandra Pal, the food and beverage manager of the club said, "The sea-facing
ground will now be completely off use for the public since the military will be conducting training sessions there. However, the members can
still use the main club and a smaller lawn for hosting parties." All bookings have been cancelled, he added.

Commander Rahul Sinha, public relations officer for the Defence, stated that the grounds had always belonged to the Army to begin with.
"The grounds have been an annexe to the club and have always essentially been training grounds for the Army. If a shamiana is set up at
night, it affects the personnel training the next day. The entire ground will be used for the primary function of training from now on," he said.

Wadias want back Parsi colonies their ancestors developed
The Wadias have taken exception to the BPP using the rent from these properties to pay the salaries of Parsi priests.

Industrialist Nusli Wadia, whose family developed five housing colonies for the needy Parsis in the 1900s, wants the control of the colonies
back with the family trust.

The family has taken exception to the way the funds generated through rent from the five colonies - Nowroz Baug, Lalbaug; Rustom Baug,
Byculla; Cusrow Baug, Colaba; Jer Baug, Byculla; and Ness Baug, Nana Chowk - are being utilised by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, the
custodian and administrator of the properties.

Nowroz Baug (1908), Rustom Baug (1924), and Jer Baug (1947) were developed by Bai Jerbai Nusherwanji Wadia, the remaining two were
developed by her sons.

The Wadias want a return to the arrangement existing till early 1950s when the colonies were administered by the Wadia Trust. The family
trust ceded control of the properties when it was merged with the Bombay Parsi Punchayet.

The Wadia Trust has made several representations to the BPP asking it to return the colonies, so that it can maintain them and also utilise the
funds generated through rent solely for the five housing complexes' upkeep.

While four BPP trustees have no objection to restoring the colonies to the Wadias, the other three, including punchayet chairman Dinshaw
Mehta, are against any such move. With the matter now deadlocked, sources reveal that one of the two sides will soon move court.

The five colonies built between 1908 and 1956, spread across 64 buildings and 35 acres of
prime
land, have 1500 housing units. The rent for these houses starts at Rs 500 a month. While the colonies were developed to accommodate poor
Parsis, some of the properties given out recently have steep rents and deposits running into lakhs.

Though within the BPP there is a Wadia Committee of Management, which looks the daily upkeep of the five baugs, the real control of the
properties vests with the Punchayet. Wadia Committee of Management is helmed by Nusli Wadia and his son Ness.

An insider said that the Wadias began seeking the properties back after the BPP withdrew Rs 2 crore from a corpus created for the buildings'
maintenance to pay the salaries of 'mobeds' (Parsi priests). "Though there is no provision in law as such, the monies were never used for
anything else other than the upkeep of five colonies," said the insider.

The Wadias objected to the move, but their objections were ignored. "This is when the Wadias demanded that the control of the colonies be
vested with their trust," he said.

Dinshaw Mehta, however, feels that the withdrawal of the money was well within the BPP laws. "BPP is the custodian and owner of the five
colonies. Nowhere in the law is it written that the revenues from these colonies cannot be used for any other purpose. There is Rs 120 crore
lying in the corpus which has been received from these five colonies. Instead of it lying idle, we ought to use it for a good cause and in this
case we used it to pay the salaries of mobeds."

Over the past few months the two sides have had several rounds of talks. The trustees on the Wadias' side are Yazdi Desai, Khojeste Mistree,
Jimmy Mistry and Arnavaz Mistry. While none of these four trustees were available for comment, sources said they believe that the BPP has
become a political body and cannot be trusted with the custody of such valuable community properties. "A trustee can tomorrow
commercially exploit the five Baugs and hence setting up a separate trust to ensure welfare of Parsi tenants is the only way out," the source
said.

Despite several attempts, Nusli Wadia could not be contacted. His corporate communications team said that he was travelling and said that
they would try to get him to respond to a mail sent by Mumbai Mirror.

Mehta, meanwhile, is ready for a prolonged battle. "Even if there is a vote and I lose, I will take this matter to court. We cannot give up five
colonies which house needy Parsi families. The Wadias are giants in real estate industry and we believe that they are eyeing the five colonies
for commercial gains. Under no circumstances will we give up. We have been told that the Wadias might approach a court soon but we are
willing to put up a fight," he said.

10 awesome features of Google Now
The mind-reading personal assistant for iOS and Android has got a ton of updates lately. Here's a list of the coolest
stuff it can do:

1. Keep your commute simple

If you spend a lot of time driving, Google Now can make it easier. If you enter your work address in its settings, it lets
you know how long it will take to get there. It supports driving and public transit, and will even remember where you
parked or tell you when the last train leaves. You can even share your commute with your family and friends, so they
can check up on when you're getting home

2. See how far you've biked

If you have Location Reporting and Location History enabled on your phone, Google Now will pop up a card once a
month that estimates how far you've walked or biked, based on your phone's accelerometer (Android only). It means
Google is logging everywhere you go. So make sure you're okay with that.

3. Keep an eye on stocks & sports

This has been there since the beginning. By entering your favorite sports teams and most-followed stocks in Now's
settings, you can get an update on how your team is winning, how your stocks are plummeting, or vice versa. It will
also track stocks you've searched for.

4. Travel without stress

If you're leaving town, Google Now knows it and can provide you with a ton of useful information. If you're flying, it will
keep track of your flight (using information from your email confirmation), let you know when to leave the airport, and
have your boarding pass ready for you when you get there. It will also help you out with hotel information, car rentals,
show you nearby places, events and photo spots. And if you're out of the country, it will also help you out with hotel
information, car rentals, show you nearby places, events and photo spots. And if you're out of the country, it will even
provide you with cards for translation and currency conversion.

5. Stay up-to-date on movies, books and TV shows

When you search for a movie, book, TV show, music artist, or video game on Google, it will remember and give you
information about it on Now. If you head into Now's Customise menu, you can feed it with your cable provider and it
will adjust its cards for those services. If you have a network-connected TV, Now will detect your TV and you can tell
it to "listen" to what you're watching. It'll then provide you with more information about that show.

6. Get reminders anytime, anywhere

You can tell Now to remind you of just about anything. For example, you could have it "Remind me to call Mom in an
hour..." etc. If you have events in Google Calendar, it will remind you when they're happening, when you should leave
to get to the location. It will even remind you of bills to be paid.

7. Go shopping online & in-store

Google Now provides tracking information for packages you've ordered online. Now it also helps you shop in the real
world. It'll tell you what stores are available in a mall, and if you've researched a product recently, it'll even tell you i f
you're near a store that carries it.

8. Keep up with your favourite websites and news

Now alerts you of breaking news, storm warnings and other important things. Plus, you can tell it to keep you up to
date on certain people or let you know when your favuorite blog updates with a new post.

9. Access tickets for upcoming events

If you have a concert or other event coming up and you have an email ticket, Now will remind you of it, tell you when
to leave, and give you onetap access to the email with your tickets.

10. Ask your phone anything

You can ask Now just about anything and get a smart answer. Its voice commands can do anything from making
conversions to defining words.

5 pressing development issues for the BJP government
The development space is one the outgoing Congress-led UPA came to define and appropriatein its decade in New Delhi. It did so with a raft of
rightsbased legislations like the right to work and right to food. It did so with new rules that changed the terms on which Indian industry transacted with
landowners and forest dwellers. It did so with new ideas on how to identify individuals and how to deliver welfare benefits to them.

It's a space the incoming BJP-led government will need to, even want to, give a hard think to.
Embedded in the mosaic of legislations, rules, schemes and ideas that make up this space, as it stands today, are several kinds of questions for the
new administration.
There are questions of ideology: the Congress stood for a welfare state, the BJP ran a campaign for growth and governance. There are questions that
stem from process: some of these interventions are a work-in-progress, like the environment regulator, and the new government will need to take
immediate calls on how to take them forward.
There are questions of competing priorities: for example, the new land acquisition law gives a better deal to landowners but makes it harder and
costlier for industry to acquire land. In the backdrop of all this are questions of need: India remains a poor country, with 21% of the population living
below the poverty line (Rs 816 a month in rural areas and Rs 1,000 in urban areas), according to the Tendulkar Committee Report for 2011-12.
So, what will the BJP government do with the pieces of the development bulwark assembled by the UPA? Will it, for instance, abandon the unique
identity card project, called Aadhaar, on which the UPA spent Rs 3,800 crore and which the BJP has been deeply critical of? Will it make legal
interventions to alter the land acquisition law and the shape of the proposed environment authority to ease things for industry? Will it jettison the rural
employment scheme on which the UPA spent Rs 2,05,000 crore in the seven years to March 2013?

What Is Likely To Continue
A look across the BJP-ruled states for precedent does not throw up a clear ideological position. "Both the BJP and the Congress have a range
of opinions about welfare programmes," says Abhijit Sen, who stepped down last week from his position as member, Planning Commission.
"The BJP, on the one hand, has leaders like Raman Singh and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who run welfare programmes," he says. "On the other
hand, it has Narendra Modi."
According to Sen, the difference between Modi and, say, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, on welfare programmes is akin to the divide
between economists Jagdish Bhagwati and Amartya Sen. Unlike Chhattisgarh, which focuses on both growth and re-distributive programmes it runs
a successful PDS programmeModi has focused on growth.
At the same time, Modi has not been too big on welfare spending. For example, according to a paper titled 'Subsidies and Incentives to Industries in
Gujarat: Some Issues' by Indira Hirway, Neha Shah and Rajeev Sharma, in 2009-10, Gujarat's per capita spend on education was Rs 1,148. That
ranked it number 17 among all states, behind Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. Similarly, it was ranked 16th on per capita expenditure in health,
behind Assam, Jharkhand and Orissa.

One refrain of even those in the BJP, or associated with it, is the reluctance to make forward-looking statements on how the new BJP government
might engage with these issues: whether it opts for status quo, whether it tailors some to its worldview and agenda, or whether it overhauls.
What is unmistakable is, though, is the notion that the writ of one individualNarendra Modi,
prime
minister designatewill run large. For instance, when asked about the future of these interventions, Suresh Prabhu, a Shiv Sena leader who
served as the power minister the last time the BJP was at the Centre, said: "These are questions only the prime minister of India can answer."
Indications are there are a few development interventions that Modi is unlikely to touch. Prime among those are welfare benefits that are likely to have
registered with the people and have become a part of their lives. "I don't think the re-distributive programmes are particularly threatened," says
Himanshu, an assistant professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of Social Sciences in New Delhi.
This includes the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which promises 100 days of work a year to a rural household. There's also the
Food Security Act, which offers subsidised food to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population. "The BJP's thinking on welfare spends
is clear from the states where we have a government," says BJP leader Chandan Mitra. "Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, all run welfare
programmes. Welfare benefits will stay."

What could change is the shape of these welfare benefits and how they are delivered.
Himanshu uses NREGA to explain why he feels the BJP government will retain the scheme but change some technical aspects of it. "This change will
be made just to show that they own the programme," he says. "If they are to spend so much on a programme, they will want to show that NREGA has
done better under them than under the UPA."

What could be the nature of such changes? Some clues can be found in the critique of BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar on the NREGA. "Our
concern with NREGA is both leakages and the non-creation of assets," he says. "In that sense, we want productive subsidies." NREGA was
conceptualised to not only provide employment to villagers but also improve the natural capital of their village by, for example, building check dams,
roads and levelling fields. This, however, has happened sporadically.
Similarly, feels Himanshu, while the Food Security Act might stay around, its underlying mechanism might change as well. "The BJP's manifesto talks
about the need to do away with the Food Corporation of India (the government entity that procures foodgrains for distribution)," he says. "In that sense,
they might switch to cash." According to Mitra, the BJP is in favour of cash transfers. But, he adds: "The experience with them has been very poor. We
will have to see."
The switch to cash was initiated by UPA. In his 2011 budget speech, Pranab Mukherjee, the then finance minister, announced a phased switch to cash
transfers to improve targeting and transparency in welfare benefits. Thus, for example, rather than delivering gas cylinders at subsidised rates, the
government would deliver at the market price and deposit the subsidy amount directly into bank accounts of individuals.

In the first phase, Mukherjee said, the government would move fertilisers, kerosene and LPG to cash transfers. Over time, it was speculated, other
subsidies would follow. The centrepiece of the architecture devised by the UPA rested on the unique identity number called Aadhaar.
Aadhaar was one of UPA's showpiece ideas. The Congress high command personally drafted in Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani to head
the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and give unique numbers to all Indians, based on their fingerprints and iris captures.
The plan was to use Aadhaar as the verification for cash transfers, by seeding it with bank accounts and using fingerprint-based
authentication to ensure the entitlement was reaching the targeted beneficiary.
Nilekani had estimated that Aadhaar-based cash transfers, in full flow, would move around Rs 2,00,000 crore of welfare benefits every year into bank
accounts of individuals. However, Aadhaarbased cash transfers have struggled for multiple reasonsincomplete coverage of Aadhaar, issues of
matching it with bank accounts, authentication issuesand only about Rs 4,000 crore had been transferred through this channel till February.
Yet, both BJP leaders and technocrats see this technological intervention as here to stay. "Cash transfers will open up again," says Abhijit Sen.
"Economists and advisors on the BJP's side might even want Aadhaar for cash transfers. Chances are this view will get much stronger."
There could, however, be a rethink on the functions and importance of Aadhaar. The BJP has, for long, been a vocal critics of Aadhaar because the
UPA designed it to give it to every person, whereas the party wanted it to be assigned only to Indian citizens.
Hence, it wanted this exercise to be done by the National Population Register (NPR), an entity under the ministry of home that conducts the decadal
census. "Our concerns with Aadhaar are two-fold: the lack of a legal backing and the security implications," says Javadekar. "In that sense, while the
details have to be worked out, NPR is a priority, while Aadhaar is just a technology."
If the BJP takes that position forward, it could mean a rebalancing between the NPR and Aadhaar. "An NPR-based citizenship card seems pretty sure,"
says a senior official in the census department, on the condition of anonymity.
Agrees Himanshu: "The BJP's critique of Aadhaar has been in terms of it providing ID to immigrants from other countries. Keeping the statements of
Narendra Modi on Bangladesh, etc, in mind, it seems that some kind of a biometric drive will continue."
In the process, the government's primary rationale for gathering biometrics might change from cash transfers to internal security. In that sense, the role
of Aadhaar might be re-appraised. It might go back to being a backroom function for de-duplication and issuing unique numbers. What does that mean
for cash transfers? Says the census official: "If they rely on NPR data, and these are done systematically, they may even work."
Interventions like cash transfers, food security and NREGA are a government-citizen construct. There are some interventions that have a third axis:
industry.
For example, the Land Acquisition Act and the Forest Rights Act. Industry has panned the land law for making purchases costlier and complicated.

It's why, Sen believes, "amendments will be made in both (laws) to make them more industry friendly."
While the land law governs land purchases by industry, the Forest Rights Act seeks to recognise the rights of forest dwelling communities (not just
tribals) to land, water, forests and forest resources. One factor making both laws unpopular with Industry is their insistence on local consent.
While the land law wants consent for a private project from 80% of project-affected people, the FRA says no project can come up on forestland without
the consent of the affected gram sabha, and the completion of the process of recording the locals' rights. For example, the Dongria Kondhsa tribe in
Niyamgiri, Orissaused this clause to reject Vedanta's plan to mine on their sacred mountain.
According to Mitra, the party has not given much thought to amending the FRA as yet. But, he adds: "This is a question of balancing environment and
development. The forest dwellers have their own rights, but it cannot be at the cost of foregoing energy reserves. We have to strike a balance."
Any amendment to both these laws will require the nod of both houses of Parliament. The BJP has a majority in the Lok Sabha, but the party and its
allies only has 59 members in the 240-member Rajya Sabha. Sen feels the party can even get the house to support these amendments. "As it is, there
is not a strong enough lobby in the BJP to stand up for tribals on these issues," he says.
Another area where the BJP might make a significant intervention is in the creation of the new environment regulator. This January, the Supreme
Court, dismayed by the abject state of environmental governance, directed the Central government to set up an independent environment regulator to
appraise projects for environmental clearances and to monitor compliance. At present, the ministry of environment does this.

The ministry has designed two architectures for the new authority: under the existing law and under the new law. Environmental policy experts feel the
second model is better as it will help create a body that is genuinely independent of the ministry. Mitra declined comment on the authority.
This is likely to be an early litmus test of the Modi government's approach to environmental issues.
The minister in the BJP government now has to take this forward with the Supreme Court. So far, the construction of this authority under the UPA
regime has seen the ministry trying to tacitly retain control over the authority. What will the new government here? And elsewhere in the development
landscape?
Realty firms collaborate to monetize land banks
While some are clearly resorting to this because they arent in a position to develop them, others are doing so to generate quick cash or reduce debt
Bangalore: A growing number of real estate developers are selling stake in their landholdings to other developers or inviting them to collaborate through a joint
development model in a bid to monetize their assets quickly. Joint development models, common among land owners and developers working together, are
unique between two real estate firms. While some are clearly resorting to this because they arent in a position to develop them, others are doing so to generate
quick cash or reduce debt. Earlier this month, Bangalore-based Sobha Developers Ltd said that it has acquired a 50% stake in a 17-acre land parcel in the Marine
Drive area of Kochi, Kerala, owned by another city developer Puravankara Projects Ltd. Sobha paid Rs.330 crore for 1.5 million sq ft of saleable area. A 3 May
HDFC Securities Ltd report said Sobha has already paid Rs.160 crore to Puravankara and will pay the rest within nine months or on receipt of (project) approvals.
Analyst Adhidev Chattopadhay said in the report that its a win-win situation for both parties. For Puravankara, the deal means it can reduce its net debt by Rs.330
crore in financial year 2014-15 from Rs.1,490 crore as of 31 December, 2013. Sobha will be undertaking construction of the project and will be entitled to the cost
of construction plus a markup of 10% and an additional 5% of project profit after tax (PAT) as project management fees from Puravankara, the report said. In the
city of Pune, where the real estate market is now booming, Kumar Urban Development Ltd has taken a strategic decision to collaborate or sell off land parcels of
under 1 million sq. ft city locations and under 3 million sq. ft on the outskirts. Chairman Lalitkumar Jain said, We dont want to spread ourselves thin. So we have
decided we will focus on fewer but larger projects. Jain added that while joint development agreements with other local builders are easier and quicker than selling
outright, he is open to both options. Recent transactions show that many more such deals are underway, said property analysts. Ambar Maheshwari, managing
director, corporate finance at property advisory firm Jones Lang LaSalle, said although such deals are not common, more are likely to be struck at a time many
developers are trying to pay off their existing debt. This is a good way to fast-track development of projects, particularly in large developments which a developer
may not want to execute on its own, said Maheshwari. Shashidhar Pai, managing director Citrus Properties Pvt. Ltd, said these are surrogate dealswhere
developers are unable to develop part of their land and therefore give it out for development. These are detailed and structured transactions with a revenue or a
profit sharing model between partners, he said. In another such transaction this year, Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd, the real estate company of Mahindra
Group, entered into a joint development arrangement with IREO Management Pvt. Ltd for a residential project in Gurgaon. While IREO has tied up with a
hospitality partner in the past, this is the first time it has formed a joint venture with another developer, said a spokesperson for the firm. Anita Arjundas, managing
director and chief executive of Mahindra Lifespace, described the venture as a joint development agreement with a profit-sharing arrangement. On the concept of
developers collaborating, she said there are developers who have substantial land banks, but do not have the execution capability to develop these and we will
see them making these collaborative attempts. Developers have three optionsto keep the land without developing it, to divest or sell it off or to resort to such
arrangements where it can monetize it without exiting it completely. While both partners may be developers, there is clear demarcation of roles between them,
said Arjundas.

Oral agreement among Class I heirs doesnt need stamp duty
The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 governs intestate succession for Hindus
My father died intestate in 1979 leaving behind a property in South Delhi. I stay on its first floor, and my brother on the ground floor. We want to have
legal documents that convey the rights of the respective floors to us, and the second floor (barsati) to our sister. Can we do this without paying 1%
stamp duty as applicable on partition deeds in Delhi since there is no sale or monetary consideration here? K. Nandakumar We are assuming that at
the time of your fathers demise, he was a Hindu, governed by the provisions of Hindu laws and that he was survived by only three Class I heirsyou,
your brother and your sister. We are also assuming that this house was your fathers absolute property, and that in the past, you along with any
siblings have not entered into any arrangement for its partition. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (Act) governs intestate succession for Hindus. Under
this, children of the deceased are considered as Class I heirs and hence all the children shall have equal share in all the properties of the deceased. So,
after your fathers death, the property has devolved on all the children equally as a joint property and each child holds an equal undivided share in it.
The law provides for partition of a joint property by way of a suit for partition (normally, when there is a dispute among the heirs) or by way of an
instrument of partition. An instrument of partition (as a deed or otherwise) creating or extinguishing the rights in immovable properties of each heir in
the immovable property is required to be mandatorily registered under Section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908, and will also require appropriate
stamping. As per the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, the correct stamp duty in Delhi is 2% of the value of the separated share or shares of the property (and
not 1%). Registration charges will also be payable on the instrument of partition. In the present situation, the largest share remaining after the property
is partitioned, shall be deemed to be the share from which the other shares are separated. So, the stamp duty payable would be 2% of the market value
of the separated two shares. A partition evidencing creation of rights in immovable properties in Delhi cannot be effected without paying the stamp
duty. However, Class I heirs may enter into an oral agreement or a Memorandum of Understanding or Memorandum of Family Arrangement or
Memorandum of Family Settlement with a view to allocate different portions of the immovable property to different heirs, which would not require
stamping at 2% of the value of the separated share or shares of the property and can be stamped as a normal agreement. With such an instrument, the
heirs do not actually divide or agree to divide the immovable property. A division bench of the Delhi High Court in Nitin Jain Vs. Anuj Jain and Ors. has
held that: However, an oral family settlement dividing or partitioning the property is not required to be stamped. Similarly, a memorandum recording
an oral family settlement which has already taken place is not an instrument dividing or agreeing to divide property and is therefore not required to be
stamped. The effect of this document is that while the Class I heirs may take possession of such individual portions of the property, the actual
ownership of the heirs on the respective shares in the property is not established in the property and all three of you will continue to have an equal
undivided share in the property. Queries and views at mintmoney@livemint.com

HCs draw template for early settlement of road accident claims
CHANDIGARH: Two of the country's high courts have joined hands in a unique initiative to sharply reduce the time it takes to get compensation for
road accident victims, a move that will help considerably in reducing the pain and suffering of the next of kin who otherwise have to wait indefinitely for
justice.
There are several thousand such cases pending in several courts, some of which have dragged on for decades, with delays being blamed variously on
evasive insurance companies, lackadaisical police officials and inordinate delays in the judicial process that's typical of the Indian system.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Delhi High Court have now drawn up a template that will shorten the entire claims exercise to eight
months. The aim is to put an end to unnecessary litigation and harassment, according to the judges behind the plan Justice K Kannan of the Punjab
and Haryana High Court and Justice JR Midha of the Delhi High Court.
Motor accident claim cases constitute a big part of the backlog at all high courts. In the Punjab and Haryana High Court, 40,000 of 2.3 lakh old cases
are related to motor accident claims, some of them pending since 1985.
The judges want to put an end to "adversarial litigation" and promote the amicable resolution of claims. In the current system, after a lower court
decides the case in favour of one of the parties family orinsurance company the losing side approaches the higher court leading to delays.
It's this dragged-out litigation that the courts want to curtail.
The judges of both high courts have already begun strict enforcement of the template, relying on "established principles of Supreme Court directions",
said a source.
Justice Kannan has meanwhile been holding workshops with insurance company, police and lower court officials to train them on how the system
works.

"The endeavour is to help all the necessary parties appreciate that motor accident claim cases aren't adversarial litigation. It's the right of the victim's
kin, who already stands harassed. Judges, cops and insurance companies are being told to adopt the template which in future will benefit all of them
and save the courts from unnecessary litigation," said a senior high court official on condition of anonymity.
A similar initiative was carried out in the Delhi High Court to resolve nearly 20,000 such cases in one go. In the new format, the exercise of gathering
accident details and submitting these to the competent court won't take more than 60 days. The court has to see the dispute settled amicably in six
months.
In a recent judicial order, Justice Kannan directed lower courts in Punjab and Haryana to "elicit from doctors proper evidence of disability, in all injury
cases, and how the disability could impact, long term or short term, the earning capacity". The courts have been directed not "to summon doctors,
hospital authorities or court ahlmad (a lower court official) for production and proof of MLR (medico-legal report), FIR (first information report) or
documents filed in criminal courts".
Justice Kannan also outlined norms that should be used to resolve cases quickly.
"Impose costs when the defence regarding involvement of the vehicle is found to be false. The costs shall be realistic: time taken, the number of
hearings that have taken place, the expenses that could have been incurred to secure the presence of witness and logistic expenses from the place of
residence of witnesses to the court," he said.
The judge said courts should only be involved when their skills need to be used to appraise evidence, points of law have to be established on the issue
of liability or there is a dispute over facts.
"When the accident is admitted, when the age of the deceased is known and the relationship of the claimants is not denied, there is simply no
justification to expect the tribunal to go through the whole gamut of a litigative process," he said.
The success of this model offers hope that India could perhaps see a more efficient judicial process in other areas as well, thus speeding up the
dispensation of justice.
Modi faces a jungle of pending forest clearances
Even as the UPA generously handed an unprecedented 702,000 hectares of forest land to industry, a litany of pending
approvals awaits the new govt
By mid-May, clearances for industry and infrastructure development amounting to 830,000 hectares of forests remain pending with the
Centre and state governments. Some of these date back more than a decade. Some ask for more than 50,000 hectares for oil exploration
and several for plots as tiny as 0.1 hectare.

But, contrary to what the figures suggest, the United Progressive Alliance was generous in handing over forests. It opened up an
unprecedented 702,000 hectares - nearly five times the size of Delhi - of forests to industry. In comparison, forest land given away between
1980 and 2004 adds up to only 1.29 million hectares.

Yet industry cries foul over delays. It wants the Narendra Modigovernment to ease rules. Acquiring forest land involves four laws: the Indian
Forest Act, 1927, the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, the new land acquisition legislation and the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The failure to
make them collectively coherent promises to be the biggest headache for the next government.

Forest clearances are a lengthy process. Till recently, files moving between the state and the Centre could take years. Even impossible cases
could be kept in abeyance for years to be revived when politically expedient - land for coal blocks being an example. This changed when the
environment ministry on March 14 set a deadline for each clearance.

Eventually, almost all large projects and most small ones got forest land, at least on paper. In the 10 years of the UPA government 1,286
projects, adding up to 44,334 hectares, were rejected or closed permanently.

While the government cleared projects at a rate that did not satisfy industry, litigation and protests saw an upsurge. Vedanta, Polavaram
and Posco are the most prominent among hundreds of proposals in the litigation-protest pipeline.

"There is an increase in the number of cases with respect to forest clearance and violations," said Ritwick Dutta, a prominent environmental
lawyer. "However my estimate is that not more than 2 per cent of the total projects approved are legally challenged."

But, industry has often found that while it may get plans cleared from governments, it is harder to take clean possession of forest land. "The
law requires the project proponent to identify and acquire land, then transfer it to the state, and deposit money that afforestation would
cost. Land is a state subject and its acquisition varies across states. The new regime should create land banks for this," said Seema Arora,
executive director of the Confederation of Indian Industry. The multiplicity of regulations is a factor not considered while appraising forest
clearances, but comes into play when companies want to take possession of lands.

Take the case of Posco. The
Prime
Minister's office, the international investing community, several ministers and the Odisha
government could not prevail upon a few villages growing betel vines on the site to make way
for the largest FDI project in the country.

The appraisal system for forest clearances still do not ensure consultation with the people living
off them. The Forest Conservation Act, 1980, requires the government to engage only with the
project developers. The first recourse to appeal lies before the judiciary, that too on
environmental grounds. With courts taking upon themselves to balance the 'growth' versus
'environment' debate instead of adjudicating on law many have begun preferring protest to turn
the political tide against projects.

Yet a long delayed hunt for the forest patch remains worth the investment. Either it is the only
place one can find the coal or iron ore. Or, it is far cheaper than buying revenue lands. Once they
have it, there is little to hold back developers wishing to break conditions it was given under.
Monitoring is all but absent. It has taken the Supreme Court to get some action taken against
miners who illegally dug up thousands of hectares of forest land for decades in Goa, Karnataka
and Odisha.

For the next government, if the mad rush for forest land and increasing court cases are not
enough to handle, there is now a bigger challenge ahead: how to reconcile the new land
acquisition and forest rights laws with the earlier ones.


FOREST LAND: DEMAND AND SUPPLY
PROJECTS PENDING:
5,214 project proposals = 840,000 hectares
Projects cleared by UPA I and II:
10,655 proposals = 702,000 hectares
Rejection rate during UPA I and II for projects requiring forest land:
6.32% (on basis of area)
*These include projects cleared or pending at central and state level. The cleared include those which got
stage-1 clearance


WHO OWNS THE FORESTS?
A large percentage of forest land in India belongs to the government (some parts of northeast India make an exception)
Government records show that 350-400 million people today depend directly on forests for their livelihood and they live in about 173,000
villages located in and around forests in India
Planning Commission estimates a monetised annual forest economy of Rs 50,000 crore.
Yet, people, especially tribals, do not have any recorded right in the forests. Hundreds of thousands of these families are termed as
encroachers on government land and thousands of others are booked for petty crimes under forest laws across the country
The forest bureaucracy is practically the landlord for 21.05% of the geographical area of the country. When handing over forests, the Forest
Conservation Act, 1980, does not require them to take these factors into account
HOW TO GET A FOREST
Apply to the state government. A file moves from the field up to the state government and then to the Union environment ministry for
clearance
If the patch of forest is less than four hectares then the state can decide
If it is above 50 hectares but less than 100 hectares a regional officer of the Union environment ministry decides
Above 100 hectares, senior forest officers sitting as members of the Forest Advisory Committee recommend to the environment minister
what projects to clear. The minister takes the final call on giving the forest clearance
If the land is close to or inside a declared wildlife zone, the project requires a wildlife clearance as well

Modi regime might fuel FDI rush into real estate
Experts say with a stable government, things will start improving but the impact might be visible only after six-12 months

With a clear mandate for a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre, developers and experts are expecting a revival and
an increased inflow of foreign investments into the realty sector.

According to the department of industrial policy and promotion) data, foreign direct investment (FDI) into the construction sector -
townships, housing, built-up infrastructure - declined to about $1 billion in April 2013-February 2014 from $3.1 billion in April 2011-March
2012.

From April 2000 to February 2014, cumulative FDI of $23.1 billion has come into the realty sector, 11 per cent of total inflows.

Currently, 100 per cent FDI is permitted through the automatic route in the sector, which cover townships, housing, commercial
premises, hotels, resorts, hospitals, educational institutions, recreational facilities, city and regional-level built-up infrastructure.

Recently, DIPP had moved a Cabinet note, seeking relaxation of riders on FDI in the sector but no decision was taken on it by the outgoing
government.

Anuj Puri, chairman and country head, JLL India, a real estate consultancy, said, "An improvement can definitely be expected in the near-
term investment sentiment."

According to Puri, domestic money is in search of good investment options and investors are eager to strike a deal at attractive valuations.

Also, foreign money has been waiting in the wings and awaiting political stability before entering India. "In that respect, a clear majority is
the best possible scenario."

Currently, at least $1.8 billion worth of funds were in the process of getting raised, he said, adding, with the BJP now in the driver's seat, we
expect the space to see a lot more traction and many investors to enter the country.

However, property prices are not likely to show any sharp upward movement immediately.

Sanjay Dutt, executive managing director, South Asia, Cushman and Wakefield, also said, "A stable government will lift the sentiments of the
investor community, which will impact housing and office space sales. Hence, both end-users and investors are expected to increase their
investments in the sector and contribute to its growth."

Apart from this, the sector is expecting the new government to take up issues regarding the sector, which includes a fast-track approval
process, a policy for affordable housing, giving infrastructure status to real estate and setting up of a sector regulator.

Over a couple of years, the sector has been battling declining sales and high inventory, along with cash crunch and piled-up debt. Both
buyers and investors have been waiting for a positive outcome from the Lok Sabha election.

Experts believe with a stable government, things will start improving but the impact might be visible only after six to 12 months.

"Positive sentiments will bring back demand in the sector," an expert said.

Anshul Jain, chief executive officer, DTZ India, expects a demand of 10 million sq ft in office space by the end of 2015.

"The demand is expected to pick up in the latter half of this year. The next five-six quarters will be game-changers. Availability of funds will
ease and interest rates are expected to come down as inflation cools. This will have a direct impact on the supply side of real estate."

With demand improving, the current stock of office space might not be sufficient to cater to the demand and hence, rentals could be under
upward pressure, he said.

REALTY BITES

FDI in construction sector declined to $1 billion during April 2013 to February 2014 from $3.1 billion in the previous year
A stable government could revive property market in six to 12 months, and boost foreign investment flow
Sector wants policy for affordable housing and speedy approval process
New government likely to take a call on the Real Estate Regulation Bill, which includes setting up of a real estate regulator

Wadias want back Parsi colonies their ancestors developed
The Wadias have taken exception to the BPP using the rent from these properties to pay the salaries of Parsi priests.

Industrialist Nusli Wadia, whose family developed five housing colonies for the needy Parsis in the 1900s, wants the control of the colonies
back with the family trust.

The family has taken exception to the way the funds generated through rent from the five colonies - Nowroz Baug, Lalbaug; Rustom Baug,
Byculla; Cusrow Baug, Colaba; Jer Baug, Byculla; and Ness Baug, Nana Chowk - are being utilised by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, the
custodian and administrator of the properties.

Nowroz Baug (1908), Rustom Baug (1924), and Jer Baug (1947) were developed by Bai Jerbai Nusherwanji Wadia, the remaining two were
developed by her sons.

The Wadias want a return to the arrangement existing till early 1950s when the colonies were administered by the Wadia Trust. The family
trust ceded control of the properties when it was merged with the Bombay Parsi Punchayet.

The Wadia Trust has made several representations to the BPP asking it to return the colonies, so that it can maintain them and also utilise the
funds generated through rent solely for the five housing complexes' upkeep.

While four BPP trustees have no objection to restoring the colonies to the Wadias, the other three, including punchayet chairman Dinshaw
Mehta, are against any such move. With the matter now deadlocked, sources reveal that one of the two sides will soon move court.

The five colonies built between 1908 and 1956, spread across 64 buildings and 35 acres of
prime
land, have 1500 housing units. The rent for these houses starts at Rs 500 a month. While the colonies were developed to accommodate poor
Parsis, some of the properties given out recently have steep rents and deposits running into lakhs.

Though within the BPP there is a Wadia Committee of Management, which looks the daily upkeep of the five baugs, the real control of the
properties vests with the Punchayet. Wadia Committee of Management is helmed by Nusli Wadia and his son Ness.

An insider said that the Wadias began seeking the properties back after the BPP withdrew Rs 2 crore from a corpus created for the buildings'
maintenance to pay the salaries of 'mobeds' (Parsi priests). "Though there is no provision in law as such, the monies were never used for
anything else other than the upkeep of five colonies," said the insider.

The Wadias objected to the move, but their objections were ignored. "This is when the Wadias demanded that the control of the colonies be
vested with their trust," he said.

Dinshaw Mehta, however, feels that the withdrawal of the money was well within the BPP laws. "BPP is the custodian and owner of the five
colonies. Nowhere in the law is it written that the revenues from these colonies cannot be used for any other purpose. There is Rs 120 crore
lying in the corpus which has been received from these five colonies. Instead of it lying idle, we ought to use it for a good cause and in this
case we used it to pay the salaries of mobeds."

Over the past few months the two sides have had several rounds of talks. The trustees on the Wadias' side are Yazdi Desai, Khojeste Mistree,
Jimmy Mistry and Arnavaz Mistry. While none of these four trustees were available for comment, sources said they believe that the BPP has
become a political body and cannot be trusted with the custody of such valuable community properties. "A trustee can tomorrow
commercially exploit the five Baugs and hence setting up a separate trust to ensure welfare of Parsi tenants is the only way out," the source
said.

Despite several attempts, Nusli Wadia could not be contacted. His corporate communications team said that he was travelling and said that
they would try to get him to respond to a mail sent by Mumbai Mirror.

Mehta, meanwhile, is ready for a prolonged battle. "Even if there is a vote and I lose, I will take this matter to court. We cannot give up five
colonies which house needy Parsi families. The Wadias are giants in real estate industry and we believe that they are eyeing the five colonies
for commercial gains. Under no circumstances will we give up. We have been told that the Wadias might approach a court soon but we are
willing to put up a fight," he said.
Are lawyers smarter law-makers?
By: Somasekhar Sundaresan

Trained lawyers could bring about higher standards of law-making in Parliament.

We have a new Lok Sabha, a Parliamentary debutant
Prime
Minister, and potentially a Leader of Opposition from a party other than the runnerup. But scratch a bit deeper to look at the composition -
you will find that barely 7 per cent of the elected law-makers are trained in law.

According to the data published by PRS Legislative Research, a not-for-profit organisation that tracks the functioning of legislatures just 38
of the 543 members of the Lok Sabha, are lawyers.

The first Lok Sabha of 1952 (right the Republic was constituted) had a higher lawyer involvement at 35.6 per cent. The component of lawyers
among law-makers in the Lok Sabha has since been on a steady and consistent decline. The percentage has halved since the last elections.

This fall in lawyer composition coincides with the evident fall in quality of law-making. As a society, whenever faced with a problem we write
a law. Besides, we are a multi-lingual nation that thinks in different languages but writes law in English. The loss in translation between the
intention and the language used is often immense. Throw in a steady decline in even basic professional skill in reading and comprehending
law, and the poor quality of law gets explained.

Take just two recent examples of conduct of Parliamentary business: the debate over foreign direct investment in retail business, and the
"Telangana Bill" to reorganize Andhra Pradesh. Many MPs did not even know that the former could be debated in Parliament. Little wonder
that Parliament has consistently tolerating all administration of foreign direct investment through "press notes" of the government rather
than by constitutionally-made notified law.

With the Telangana Bill, Parliamentary process made the mutual fund advertising industry look good. The pace at which the chair would say:
"the ayes have it, the ayes have it, the ayes have it" to steam-roll every motion on the draft law was faster than the speed-reading of the
statutory disclaimer: "mutual fund investments are subject to market risk, please read the offer document before investing."

If only there were more interested MPs, and it would be fair to assume that trained lawyers would at least comprehend the laws governing the
making of laws, there could be a higher standard of law-making from Parliament. The UK Parliament has a process of three "readings"
interspersed with the committee round and the report round to pass a law. The "first reading" entails introduction of the draft law, making it
public. The "second reading" entails the first opportunity for MPs to debate the main principles.

It then goes to the Parliamentary Committee where evidence from experts and interest groups outside Parliament is taken to make
amendments. All these proceedings are published and reprinted daily. At times, the draft is taken to a "committee of the whole house" where
every MP gets to argue his amendments. The draft law then returns to Parliament where MPs get to push for further amendments. Finally a
third reading is done, where the draft in its final form is either passed or defeated (with no further changes being permitted).

Some would be quick to point out that our Parliamentary process is broadly similar. However, the stark difference in process is out there for
all to see on televised proceedings of the UK Parliament and the Indian Parliament. About a third of UK's MPs are said to comprise lawyers. If
only MPs were more aware of the law governing lawmaking, they would raise the bar and improve quality. Most MPs are themselves over-
awed by the law, and a fair component is even at the receiving end of the law.

Critics of this argument would point out that one need not be a lawyer to write good law. Others would say that MPs only need to have a sense
of public policy, and not the operation of law. These arguments are not without merit. However, the skill of drafting and reading law is indeed
a professional one. It is the lack of skill and care in drafting that burdens courts with determining whether "may" actually means "shall", and
whether "and" actually means "or". The devil lies in the detail.

A third argument would be that law-makers do not read draft law in any case, regardless of whether they are lawyers. Remember the US
lawmaker who tells Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 911 about the Patriot Act: "Sit down, my son. We don't read most of the bills." This is
evidence of failure of Parliament. Using it to justify the lack of need for legal comprehension is like writing off Parliament as being meant for
failure.

Parliament is not government. It is a check and balance on government, which holds office so long as it enjoys the confidence of Parliament.
If knowledge of the law is not required to make law, it could well be argued that it is not required even for interpreting law. By that logic,
courts of law can be discarded in favour of courts of justice. That would be a race to the bottom. Both lawmaking and law-enforcement would
go the khap panchayat way, giving primacy to a community's sense of law and justice rather than a constitutional rule of law.
Anurag Kashyap on the new women in his life
Anurag Kashyap admits to being in a relationship with his assistant Sabrina Khan.

It's official. Anurag Kashyap has found love again and this time the object of his affection is Sabrina Khan, the young assistant director of
Bombay Velvet. The 41-yearold met the twenty-something at a party a few months ago and they instantly bonded. The duo has been seeing
each other ever since.

Revealed a source, "Anurag is crazy about her and fondly calls her Sabby. They recently went on a trip to Europe and spent a few days in
Paris. He seems really happy and believes that Sabby has brought stability to his life at a time when hismarriage to Kalki Koechlin was on
the rocks."

When Mirror met Anurag at his Andheri office he looked sunny, settled and had lost a substantial amount of weight. "I've been working out a
lot and Bombay Velvet is shaping up well," he smiled.

But he has another reason to smile. Is he in love, "Yes, I am dating someone," he admits, without beating around the bush. "I'm in a really
happy phase right now."

Is it because of his AD Sabrina? He nodded, "I have never camouflaged my personal life. If I'm dating someone, I won't hide it."

Anurag was earlier married to Aarti Bajaj, who has edited all his films except for the upcoming Bombay Velvet. They have a daughter, Aaliya.

After divorcing Aarti in 2009, he was in a live-in relationship with actress Kalki Koechlin, whom he married in April 2011. They mutually
decided to separate in November 2013. They are not officially divorced but Kalki and Anurag have been living separately for a while now.

Asked if Kalki knows about Sabrina, he said, "Of course, she was the first person I confided in. She is happy that I am happy."

However, the filmmaker says he's not ready to take another plunge just yet. "Right now, we are just seeing each other. Let's see how far it
progresses," he said.

Even though he is preoccupied with the post-production of his magnum opus Bombay Velvet, Anurag has taken time out to present a
documentary, The World Before Her. Directed by Nisha Pahuja it has won awards at several international film festivals. "It's probably one of
the most important films to come out of India and I'd urge everybody to see it."
Are you a modern wordsmith?
Webster and Oxford are adding new words. Are you up to date with the latest lingo?

This week, Merriam-Webster, the big daddy in the dictionary world added 15 words to their collection. Oxford included 900 new words that
have found common usage.

Lexicographers at the Collins dictionary review committee are even using
Twitter
as a research tool to find emerging words and measure their popularity.

Twitteratti can cast their vote by tweeting the word with a hashtag.

Whether you belong to the generation that prefers to think of this phenomenon as mad (1500's), bonkers (50's), crazy (70s), wackadoodle
(90's) or cray-cray (2014), you ought to refresh your worksmanship.

Lest thou are left behind...

Here's a test to know where you stand: What do these words mean?

ADORKABLE A A fancy table B Dorky in an adorable way C
Funny
with dark undertones

AUTO-TUNE A A song that gets stuck in your head B Part of a car stereo C Software to alter a song or recording

CATFISH A A cat-loving fish B Person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive
purposes C Person who lives with more than 16
cats


CRYPTOCURRENCY A The currency used in Egypt B A digital currency C Coins placed ceremonially on the dead

DUCKFACE A A pouting expression when posing for a photograph B A symptom of an allergic reaction to chicken C A jerky dance done by
pop star Miley Cyrus

FOOD COMA A The lack of punctuation in the manner in which an Udipi waiter rattles off the specials B Falling asleep in a bowl of
soup C A state of sleep or extreme lethargy induced by the consumption of a large amount of food

FRACKING A Using high pressure force to extract oil from rocks B Mission to search for weapons of mass destruction C Drinking game

FREEGAN A Someone who doesn't eat milk products B An activist who scavenges for free food to reduce consumption C A person who
survives on discounts

GAMIFICATION A The process of adding
games
to a task so as to encourage participation B A conference where people dress up like video game characters C The virtual world of Mario and
Luigi

STEAMPUNK A An alternative form of music B Science fiction dealing with 19thcentury societies dominated steampowered
technology C A method of cooking organic vegetables

SLASH A A long-haired guitarist who has a cult following B Binary code used to make apps CVerbalising the symbol (/)

TURDUCKEN A Boneless chicken stuffed into a boneless duck stuffed into a boneless turkey B A football fan who paints his chest C The
action of dodging an object thrown at you

VAGUEBOOKING A A method of tax fraud B Posting deliberately vague messages on social networks to prompt a response C A disease
where a person maintains lists for everyday chores

ANSWERS

Adorkable - A. This refers to people who may be clumsy or socially inept. They are apologetic and vulnerable in an endearing manner.

Auto-Tune - C. Software or audioediting technology, used to correct notes that are out of tune

Catfish - B.

Cryptocurrency - B. Currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency. Examples include
Bitcoins.

Duckface - A. The pout-pucker combo that gives the impression of larger cheekbones and bigger lips. A popular pose for a selfie.

Food coma - C. According to a medical journal, the concept called post-prandial somnolence is a normal state of drowsiness following a
meal.

Fracking - A. A controversial mining technique where a liquid, sand and chemical mixture is injected at high pressure into a bore well to
extract oil. Activists who oppose it are called Fracktivists.

Freegan - C. Freegans and freeganism are often seen as part of a wider 'anti-consumerist' ideology. They are open to meals that are shared
with the community.

Gamification - A. A strategy that rewards players who accomplish desired tasks with points, achievement badges or levels, providing the
user virtual currency.

Steampunk - B. Science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery and is often set in the period during industrialisation
(think Hellboy, The Wild Wild West).

Slash - C. One word has had an interesting journey from graphic symbol to verbalised word to printed word: slash. When verbalising
expressions like 'actor/dancer', the word is now frequently substituted ('actor-slashdancer') to link words denoting a dual function.

Turducken - A.

Vaguebooking - B. This is an annoying habit for most others on your
Facebooklist of Twitter followers and screams attention-seeker.

J J Hospital to test drug combination that cures MDR-TB in four months
The drug combo has been developed by New York-based TB Alliance. Currently, MDR-TB treatment lasts at least two years.

In a discovery that could revolutionise the treatment of HIV-positive patients suffering from multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB),
researchers have come up with a combination of drugs, which they claim, reduces the duration of MDR-TB treatment to four months instead
of two years.

Maharashtra will be part of the phase-III trial of the drug combination, called PaMZ, which has been developed by New Yorkbased Global
Alliance for TB Drug Development, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the development of new tuberculosis medicines.

The organisation has claimed that PaMZ will not only kill drug-sensitive but also some of the MDR-TB bacteria. According to the
organisation, PaMZ is basically three separate antibiotics which have been combined into one pill. One of the antibiotics, pyrazinamide, is
already part of the current TB standard treatment, while the other two, PA-824 and moxifloxacin, are the new drugs.

The discovery was announced during the AIDS 2014 conference in Melbourne, where the TB Alliance chief executive, Dr Mel Spigelman, said:
"The third phase of the clinical trial will include 1,500 patients across 10 countries, including India. If PaMZ emerges successful, we will apply
for global registration."

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, director of Chennai -based National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, who was present at the conference,
said the research could be pathbreaking. "We have agreed to enrol five states (Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal) for
the clinical trials. The J J Hospital will be part of the trial as it caters to more than 7,000 HIV-positive patients," Swaminathan said, adding
that there are around 5,000 MDR-TB cases in Mumbai alone.

'Too early to rejoice'

Dr Zarir Udwadia, the consultant chest physician at the Hinduja Hospital who has conducted extensive research on TB treatment, said it was
"too early" to claim a breakthrough.

In a letter to medical journal The Lancet, where the PaMZ study was published, Udwadia said, "The combination is a leap of faith at best.
Fifty per cent of the MDR-TB patients at Hinduja Hospital have been found resistant to moxifloxacin and pyrazinamide."

Marrying outdoors in England is illegal
We live in a world with diverse cultures, which is commonly reflected in wedding traditions. But, there are also some strange laws
from around the world that citizens of certain countries must keep in mind before they even think of walking down the aisle.

ENGLAND AND WALES In the UK, there is a law that states that couples must be married in a 'fixed structure' with a roof. This
rules out outdoor weddings, which are very popular in several parts of the world. The law came about because the practice of
solemnising marriages in the UK (Wales and England in particular) is based on buildings - places of worship or venues such as
a HOTELS OR stately homes - being registered for weddings.

SAUDI ARABIA Earlier this week, reports emerged that Saudi Arabia has banned its male citizens from marrying women from four
countries - Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chad and Myanmar. It has been reported that the announcement was made in a bid to prevent the
men of the country from marrying expats.

USA The US has a host of bizarre laws surrounding marriage - for instance, women in Vermont must ask their husband's permission
before they wear false teeth. However, in California, Colorado, Texas and Montana, there is a legal provision for proxy marriages if
you're in the armed forces. This means that it is enough if only either the bride or the groom is present at the wedding ceremony, the
absent party is represented by a proxy. In Montana, neither the bride nor groom has to be present at the wedding (called a double
proxy marriage).

JAPAN Japan is known for its culture of deference to elders, and this probably explains a Japanese law that states that an elder
brother can formally ask for this younger brother's girlfriend's hand in marriage - and they must both agree to it!

THE FLIPSIDE: STRANGE DIVORCE LAWS

Married New Yorkers cannot get divorced on grounds of irreconcilable differences unless both marriage partners agree on those
grounds Till 2002, Brazilian men had 10 days to annul their marriages if they discovered their wife wasn't a virgin Japanese women
have to wait six months before they can remarry after a divorce, although men have no such restrictions
How to deal with corrupt bosses of state-owned banks
The official reason behind the growth in bad loans is a faltering economy but everyone knows there is more to it

The 2013 appointment of S.K. Jain, the suspended chairman and managing director (CMD) of Syndicate Bank, lacked
transparency and smacks of unfair practices, The Indian Express reported on 11 August. The cat is finally out of the bag. The
biggest bane of public sector banks in India that account for roughly 70% of the industry, is the opaque appointment process of the
top bosses. There is hardly any norm there; most appointments are based on discretion of the bureaucrats involved in the process
with the Reserve Bank of India deciding to look the other way. Should an executive be first made the CMD of a relatively small bank
and then move on to head a bigger bank? Or, should the person be straightaway made the boss of a large bank? Can a banker who
has spent close to three decades in a small bank be suddenly catapulted to the corner room of a very large bank? Or, should he be
chosen to head a small bank because of his background? Nobody knows the answers to these questions. Rules are made and
broken on the whims and fancies of a few in North Block that houses the finance ministry that appoints top bankers. Often, a short-
list of successful candidates is made up to a year ahead of vacancies being created. This leads to intense lobbying where
individuals and industrial houses are involved. Nothing comes for free. So, the industrial house which lobbies hard to get its
candidate the plum post demands its pound of flesh in the form of loans and the banker has no option but to oblige. An executive
director of a large South India-based bank told me that he received a call from somebody he did not know promising to fix his
appointment a few days before he was appear for an interview for a CMD slot. To be fair to him, he didnt demand anything, but I
didnt want it this way, this person said. He faced the interview board but did not make it. Many appointments of CMDs and
executive directors are a result of lobbying. Thats one aspect . The other is that the process itself is rotten. There have been
instances where an executive director becomes the chief after spending only a few months at a bank. There is no clarity even on
how many years of residual service is required to become the boss of a bank. The norm is two years but there have been instances
where CMDs have been appointed for one and a half years. A senior banker, who headed two banks, says the entire system is
rotten. It starts innocuously. A farmer who has been sanctioned a loan gives a junior agriculture officer a watermelon. As the officer
progresses in career, the offerings become costlier. A chief manager gets a 2gm GOLD coin on Diwali while a general manager gets
a 50gm GOLD coin. There is a very thin line between a bribe and a gift. A box of Alphonso mango in April (when Alphonsos are sold
at Rs.1,600 a dozen), a gold coin or dry fruits in silver bowls on Diwali, an expensive saree or a diamond earring for the bankers
wife on New Yearare these gifts or bribes? Its difficult to classify them but I understand that officers manuals in some banks
prescribe what a banker can accept and what he cannot. Globally, different entities adopt different approaches towards gifts. For
instance, an executive of the US Federal Reserve will never accept an invitation for dinner while a FINANCIAL Services Authority
(FSA) executive in the UK will attend the dinner and send a thank you note the following day. Bankers would do well to deal
transparently and put all such items that they are accepting on record the way FSA executives do. Transparency is the key. Apart
from lack of expertise in skill, risk management and credit monitoring, public sector banks are non-transparent in dealing with loan
accounts and there are no set norms for who can get loans and who cannot, the pricing of loans, even the nature and quantum of
collaterals. The deputy general manager of a bank, based in Kolkata, told me that his bank doesnt appraise a loan proposal and
assess how much MONEYshould be given to the borrower. We do the reverse. We first assess and decide how much MONEY we
should give and then do a mock appraisal, he says. Norms for collateral are typically there for small loans. How authentic are the
STOCKS and receivables audits? And often we give loans against fake book debts, he adds. There are many occasions when a
fresh loan is given to enable a borrower to service the interest cost of a loan already given. The cycle goes on till the borrower
crumbles under the burden of debt and fails to service it. In that sense, the banks are riding a tiger for many accounts. The
investigative agencies are selective on whom they go after. Jain was caught taking bribe for extending fresh loans to Bhushan Steel
Ltd but the company already has an exposure of Rs.40,000 crore to various banks and is on the verge of default. What about other
banks that have loaned money to Bhushan Steel? Similarly, IDBI Bank Ltd is under the scanner of Central Bureau of Investigation
for giving loans to Vijay Mallyas grounded airline Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. Many other banks too had given loans to Kingfisher and a
consortium of banks, led by the State Bank of India, even restructured loans by converting part of debt into equity at an unbelievably
high price. Has any of them been taken to task? In November 2010, banks in the consortium converted Rs.1,355 crore of debt into
equity, at a 61.6% premium to the MARKET price of Kingfisher Airlines stock. Apart from this, the bankers also stretched the period
of repayment of loans to nine years with a two-year moratorium, cut the interest rates, and sanctioned a fresh loan. BROKERS,
some of them firms, also play a big role in this game of bribing bankers to facilitate loans for their corporate clients. One such
BROKER syndicated Rs.50,000 crore worth of loans between 2008 and 2011 across sectors till it was caught while bribing bankers.
Typically, BROKER fees are 2% of the loan amount sanctioned but this could vary depending on the sector. For instance, a real
estate company may have to pay as much as 5% to get a loan sanctioned as banks are not willing to take exposure to this sector.
On top of that, if the price of the loan is lower than what a borrower expects, the BROKER gets a cut. And they share their booty
with bankers. Such brokers literally carry money in suitcases to distribute. One individual broker owns seven flats in Mumbai and its
suburbs where senior bankers are regularly entertained and another uses a helicopter for meeting bankers in different cities and
closing deals. There are other ways of pleasing bankers. One media company was looking for a Rs.800 crore loan from a bank
whose CMD was on the verge of retirement. It simply bought a flat in UK where the bankers son is based, spending 8,00,000 or
about Rs.8 crore. It was a win-win for both the sides as otherwise, the media company would have needed to spend at least 2% or
Rs.16 crore to get the deal done through a broker. There are retired public sector bank chiefs who live in large flats in posh areas in
Mumbai. Does their income justify ownership of such properties or is there a builder-banker nexus? I dont know the answer.
Offering apartments at a highly discounted rates could be a builders way of influencing a commercial banker. Similarly, there are
FINANCIAL intermediaries who influence central bankers by offering lucrative jobs to their children. Here too it is difficult to prove
any mala fide intention. One way of tackling this could be making disclosures mandatory. Regulators overseas do this. How do we
deal with corrupt bankers? To start with, split the top position in public sector banks between chairman and managing director. Right
now, too much power is confined to one person and not everyone knows how to handle absolute power. The chairman can keep a
check on the misuse of power. Also, the MD should start with a two or three-year stint that can be renewed. The corrupt ones should
not get their term renewed and face the risk of termination even before the expiry of first term. Raise the salaries of public sector
bank chiefs manifold but dont offer them the entire package in hand. There should be a clawback clause and a portion of the salary
should be given two years after the chiefs retirementonce it is clear that bad assets havent swelled after the persons departure.
Finally, the boards must be restructured. Currently, instead of giving vision and strategic inputs some board members are facilitators
for unworthy borrowers. This practice must be stopped. Bankers Trust Realtime is a frequent blog by Tamal Bandyopadhyay, who
writes a popular weekly column Bankers Trust.
For a gift, holding period of all owners can be
included
I hold some shares, which my father had bought initially and then gifted to me later, some 15 years ago. I have the gift
deed for the same. How will this transaction be taxed? Bhaskar The tax implications would depend on the period of
holding of shares from the date of acquisition and whether the securities transaction tax (STT) has been paid at the time of
sale of shares. In case of a gift, while determining the total period of holding, the period for which your father has held the
shares should also be included. Effective from 10 July 2014, the period of holding for unlisted securities has increased
from 12 months to 36 months. Where the shares are held for more than 12 or 36 months, as the case may be, from the
acquisition date, the gains shall be termed as long-term capital gains (LTCG). The difference between the net sale
proceeds and cost of acquisition will be taxable as LTCG. The cost of acquisition shall be the cost at which the previous
owner, who has actually acquired the shares otherwise than by inheritance, gift, and so on, bought them. If the shares
were acquired by your father prior to 1 April 1981, you have the option of taking the actual cost of acquisition or the fair
MARKETvalue of the property as on 1 April 1981. Accordingly, while calculating the capital gains tax implications in your
hands, the cost of acquisition shall be the price at which your father had acquired these shares. The cost of acquisition
will have to be indexed or brought to the present value by multiplying the original cost of acquisition of the shares by the
notified cost inflation index (CII) for the year of sale and dividing by the CII of the year of purchase, when your father had
acquired these shares. CII can be found on the income-tax departments website. If you pay STT at the time of sale, then
the LTCG resulting from sale of shares shall be exempt from tax under section 10(38). However, you would be required to
disclose the same in the income tax form to be compliant from the disclosure perspective. On the other hand, while selling
the shares, if you do not pay STT, then the LTCG shall be taxable at a flat rate of 20.6% (inclusive of education cess) plus
surcharge, if applicable. Alternatively, if the shares are listed and if you sell the same off-market, the LTCG could be taxed
at 10.3% plus applicable surcharge, if any. To avail the tax rate of 10.3% plus surcharge, if any, the LTCG should be
computed without the indexation benefit. The LTCG can be claimed as exempt from tax by investing in prescribed
INVESTMENT avenues, i.e. residential apartment or specified bonds, and this is subject to fulfillment of conditions
specified under the domestic tax law. Queries and views at mintmoney@livemint.com

RBI board approves Raghuram Rajan's proposal for overhaul, Nachiket Mor
may be COO

("RBI board has approved)
MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India board has approved Governor Raghuram Rajan's proposal for a radical overhaul of the institution aimed at
shaking up a system seen as staid and rigid, by shrinking organisational bloat and reducing overlaps. It also seeks to establish the post of chief
operating officer, an executive who's likely to be made responsible for executing the central bank's reform agenda.
"RBI board has approved the broad contours of the restructuring plan, including the creation of a position of a COO," the central bank said in response
to a query from ET. The new position may not be ranked at deputy governor level as sought by Rajan, at least for the time being, said two people
familiar with the matter. The next rung, or the third-highest rank at the central bank, is that of executive director.
Nachiket Mor is regarded as the most likely candidate for the COO's job. Mor is a former executive director ofICICI Bank and also headed
the RBI committee on FINANCIAL inclusion. Rajan wants to trim the 27 different departments at the central bank. He's also said to be keen on
making lateral hires from the private sector as is done in the US and UK.
The board's approval for his plan is a boost for Rajan, who has already taken steps to transform monetary policy-making by adopting the inflation-
targeting framework suggested by his deputy Urjit Patel. This approach is cited as the reason for the two decades of prosperity before the 2008 credit
crisis. Although the government has not yet formally approved this, statements from finance minister Arun Jaitley and others indicate that it's broadly in
agreement with this strategy.


The creation of the new post will be discussed further with the government as it will require legislative changes. "Since that position is intended to be at
the DG (deputy governor) level, the position's status will have to be discussed further with the government, and then will require legislative change,"
said RBI. The COO will probably be entrusted with implementing the ambitious reforms that Rajan wants, including pushing financial inclusion,
differentiated banks and developing new structures for financial MARKETS , said one of the persons cited above.
It will not interfere with the existing structures that administer banks and financial MARKETS , the person said. Rajan spoke highly of Mor in
comments to ET when he chose him to head the financial inclusion panel last year.
"We could not pick up a better and more capable person who has seen all aspects - the theoretical as well as the practical -- to give us a sense of the
future of what we should be doing," Rajan had said.
Rajan's broader plan includes bringing every aspect of the central bank under just five functional departments that will be supervised by the four deputy
governors and the COO.
Some departments such as the supervision and inspection departments of banks as well as non-banking finance companies could be merged to avoid
overlap. Currently, these report to different deputy governors.
Service tax dept may spoil your grand party
Central Board of Excise & Customs directs its officers to check for tax evasion by keeping an eye on events which receive
wide media coverage
The next time you organise a grand function, be ready to face the taxman. The Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) has directed its
officers to check for tax evasion by keeping an eye on events which receive wide media coverage, such as an ostentatious wedding or other
such functions.

Usually, the service provider pays the tax and recovers the amount from the recipient. So, if somebody hires an event manager for a
function, the service receiver should pay tax to the service provider, along with the payment of his fee. Even services such as setting up
pandals and shamianas are taxable.

The tax department is perfectly capable of disruptingthe wedding. They will keep a tab on the event manager and approach him at the
most opportune moment to make him pay the past dues, said a tax expert with a leading consultancy firm, asking not to be named.
SERVICE TAX SCANNER
Grand weddings or any other functions coming to the
taxmans notice through media coverage or otherwise
Sectors prone to evasion such as construction, realty
and works contract, renting of immovable property
Business support services, manpower supply and
security services, goods transport operators
Govt bodies such as the railways, postal department,
police, municipalities and cantonment boards
Mutual FUNDS and insurance companies, goods
transport agencies and foreign service providers
Importing services or those having a higher payment
through Cenvat credit instead of cash payment
Top 100 service tax assessees and top 10 services in
their areas to be the focus of every commissioner

Taking a cue from declarations made in the amnesty scheme for service tax last year, it also identified construction, real
estate and work contracts, renting of immovable property, business support services, personnel supply and security
services, and goods transport operators as sectors prone to evasion.

The basic exercise which should be done in such cases is to see whether the person is a service tax assessee, whether he
has been pay-ing duty and filing returns regularly, Cenvat utilis-ation profile and details of pending cases, says
the CBEC Action Plan for 2014-15.

Assessing officers were also asked to closely monitor service tax payments by government bodies such as the railways,
postal department, police, municipalities and cantonment boards. Instructions were given that the goal was to ensure
payment, not merely issuance of show-cause notices for non-payment.

Government bodies provide various services which are taxable, such as security by the police. The tax department wants
to make sure tax dues are collected from the people receiving these services and deposited by service providers, said
Prashant Deshpande, senior director, Deloitte.

Assessees taxed under a reverse charge mecha-nism, importing services or having a higher payment through Cenvat credit
instead of cash payment will be on the radar, too.

In the reverse charge mechanism, a receiver of service is respo-nsible for the payment of service tax. The category
comprises mutual FUND and insurance companies, goods transport agencies and foreign service providers.

Deterrent action such as arrest and prosecution will be resorted to where applicable. The publicity arising out of such
action enhances the deterrent effect of the provisions, CBEC said. Also, that officers should do provisional attachment of a
tax defaulters property wherever possible, and insist on recovery of dues while opposing bail applications in case of
arrests.

In the anti-evasion efforts, high-value cases will be given priority. The officers were asked to concentrate on the top 100
service tax assessees and top 10 services in their areas.

The strategy for augmenting tax revenue was unveiled at the two-day annual conference of CBECs chief commissioners
and directors general, which concluded on Tuesday. Some of the measures were also discussed with Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley, who inaugurated the event on Monday.

The indirect tax colle-ction target for this year is Rs 6.24 lakh crore, about 26 per cent higher than the Rs 4.96 crore
collected in 2013-14. This will be led by service tax collections, projected to rise 40 per cent to Rs 2.15 lakh crore, against
Rs 1.54 lakh crore last year. Growth in Customs and excise duty collections is pegged at 17 per cent and 22 per cent,
respectively, in 2014-15.

Wilful defaulter tag for KFA: FinMin takes stock
SBI-led consortium of 17 banks had a total exposure of about Rs 6,500 cr to Kingfisher Airlines
The Union finance ministry has been taking STOCK withbanks on the progress they've made to formally tag groundedKingfisher Airlines as
a wilful defaulter.

The ministry has interacted with officials from various banks. A consortium led by State Bank of India (SBI) has appointed consulting firm
E&Y for a forensic audit on Kingfisher, to determine any siphoning or diversion of what was borrowed. This condition must be met for
classifying a borrower as a wilful defaulter. The final report is expected soon.

The SBI-led consortium of 17 banks had a total exposure of about Rs 6,500 crore to the carrier. After the banks initiated a recovery process
last year, the total dues are now about Rs 4,000 crore, according to finance ministry data.

Kolkata-based United Bank of India (UBI) has served a showcause notice to the airline on why it should not be tagged a wilful defaulter. The
airline has moved court against the UBI notice. The state-run lender has a Rs 400-crore exposure.

According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) norms, a wilful default is when an entity defaults in its payment obligations to lenders even if it has
the capacity to pay and doesnt use the FUNDS for which the loan was availed or diverts those. If the borrower uses short-term working
capital funds for long-term purposes not in conformity with the terms of the sanction or deploys the borrowed funds for creation of assets
other than those for which the loan was sanctioned, it is construed as diversion or siphoning of funds.

Kingfisher is at the number one spot according to data compiled by the finance ministry on defaulters. The list also has Winsome Diamond
(Rs 3,243 crore), Electrotherm India (Rs 2,653 crore), Corporate Power (Rs 2,487 crore) and Sterling Biotech (Rs 2,031 crore).

Separately, government-owned banks have been told to crack the whip on defaulters, and to recover dues from the top 50 as a first step.
The ministry plans to make the rules regarding wilful defaulters more stringent, so that criminal charges can be pressed against such
entities.

The ministry has proposed that a promoter or a board member of an entity classified as a wilful defaulter be barred from becoming a
director in any other company. It had also been proposed that passports of such people be impounded, bankers said.

The move to revisit wilful defaults comes at a time when non-performing assets (NPAs) in the banking system have seen a steep rise.
According to RBI data, as of March 31 this year, gross NPAs in the banking system accounted for four per cent of gross advances; net NPAs
accounted for 2.2 per cent.

Probe against KFA, not us

Public sector lender IDBI Bank on Tuesday said the preliminary enquiry initiated by the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) was against
the borrower, Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, and not against it. It has been providing all information and documents sought by the agency and will
continue to extend full cooperation to CBI in the enquiry, the lender said in a statement.

THE STORY SO FAR
A consortium led by SBI has appointed consulting firm EY for a forensic audit on Kingfisher

The SBI-led consortium of 17 banks had a total exposure of about Rs 6,500 crore to the carrier

After the banks initiated a recovery process last year, the total dues are now about Rs 4,000 crore

Trump's second bid to tower over Mumbai
This time around, Trump to co-invest in branded residences with Lodha
Mumbai, which has one of the most expensive real estates in the world, will soon get its own Trump Tower on the lines of the Fifth Avenue
skyscraper in New York.

The Mumbai-based developer, Lodha, has tied up with Donald J Trump's Trump Organisation to use the latter's brand name and standard
specifications in the project for an undisclosed fee.

Trump's second project in India has been able to evoke enough interest for Lodha to have sold off a third of its of 300 apartments, each
priced around Rs 9.5 crore even before the project was launched on Tuesday. The building is going to be a 75-plus-storeyed tower.

Perseverant Trump
Despite a failed attempt with Mumbai-based developer, Rohan Lifescapes, and another smaller project in Pune, Trump is looking to co-invest
in Trump Tower and explore other projects with the Lodhas and other developers.

Trump is also looking to take up management contracts FOR HOTEL projects. For Trump's team, which selects one project for every 20
projects it evaluates, the India plans appear to be prolific. The US-based real estate tycoon and
celebrity, Trump, sees India as a "terrific market", especially after the bold steps taken by the
Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Our HOTEL plans are limited to five-star luxury and we have had some conversations but not finalised anything so far," Donald J
Trump Jr, the son of the chairman and the executive vice-president of Trump Organisation, says.

He questions the quality of finished products in emerging MARKETS but says that partner, the Lodhas, will do a "world-class luxury
project" in the country.

Tailored luxury
The ultra-luxury project, from which Lodha is expecting Rs 5,000 crore in revenue, is offering an array of lifestyle privileges. It includes a 24-
hour resident manager, white-glove concierge services, access to global Trump luxury properties and a fractional membership of a private
jet service for Trump Tower residents.

The tower, with its crystal-inspired architecture will have three-, four- and six-bedroom residences which are designed by HBA Singapore.
These would have German Poggenpohl kitchens, five-fixture bathrooms, indoor hot-water tubs, built-in TVs and seven-level security.

Abhisheck Lodha, managing director of Lodha group, says that Trump Organisation insists on its specifications for building gyms, swimming
pools, and even the heights of windows and ceilings. "It has a 50-page service manual which specifies everything associated with the
project," Lodha says.

Branded homes galore
Lodha has done branded residences in a limited way when it tied up with iconic fashion designer Giorgio Armani's design studio, Armani
Casa, to design its apartments and villas in its ambitious project, World One, in Mumbai's Lower Parel. However, Lodha is not alone working
on such residences.

The Canadian HOTEL CHAIN , Four Seasons, is building a 30-storey, 110-residence project called CityView in Bangalore. Apartments are
expected to cost more than Rs 10 crore.

In May this year, the US-based LUXURY HOTEL chain, The Ritz Carlton, tied up with Oberoi Realty for service apartments - The
Residences, managed by Ritz Carlton, Mumbai. In 2012, another Mumbai developer, Sunteck Realty, launched Disney-themed residences in
its Rs 10,000-crore Sunteck City project in Goregaon West of Mumbai,complete with Disney-branded furnishing,
home decor
products, colour palettes and bath fittings in the kids' rooms.

Property consultants say it is too early to pass a judgement on branded homes given that there have not been that many projects, especially
in Mumbai, compared to global MARKETS . "The Mumbai market is evolving and there is a good amount of money. If there is value in
them, people will lap them up. We have not seen such projects adding value in Bangalore," says Om Ahuja, chief executive, residential
services at Jones Lang LaSalle, a global property consultant.

Adds Pranay Vakil, former chairman of Knight Frank, "From a marketing perspective, it is not a bad idea. You are positioning your product in
the highest bracket and there are people who are willing to pay for it," he says.
Celebrating Left-handedness
Eepsita Guha & Kasmin Fernandes, TNN | Aug 13, 2014, 12.00AM IST
It's International Left-handers' Day today - a day specially marked for that 10% of the world's population. After being elbowed
aside most of the year, here's a chance to revel in your uniqueness.

It's Cool To Be A Leftie Because:
They make better politicians Not only is Barack Obama, the current President of the United States, left-handed, most of his
predecessors have been too, including Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and James Garfield. Even
Ronald Reagan was apparently born a leftie, but 'converted' as a kid by his schoolteachers. Five out of the last seven US Presidents
were left-handed.
Their brain works differently The two hemispheres of the brain look almost identical. For most people, language processing
happens in the left hemisphere. Australian researchers have found that in left-handed people though, it might actually take place in
both hemispheres.
They process data faster Usually, the brain combines results from both hemispheres to come up with what we see and hear.
Research says that the connection between the left and right sides of the brain is better in left-handers. This means that southpaws
have a slight advantage as they process information faster.
They are more creative and artistic Because of their dominant right hemisphere, lefties are inclined towards the arts. Leonardo
Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael were all left-handed. And it's pronounced in the world of music, too. Greats like Mozart and
Ludwig von Beethoven were 'cack-handed'. Sir Paul McCartney belongs to the same club. So did Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix. In
fact, Hendrix had to learn how to play a right-handed guitar because his father believed left-handedness was the sign of the devil. He
later played a right-handed guitar with his left hand.
They have better sex lives A Sweden-based company surveyed 10,000 people about their satisfaction level in the bedroom. While
only 15% right-handed folks reported being 'extremely satisfied,' the lefties in this category were an overwhelming 86%. One theory
about why lefties are good in the sack is that they are exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb, which in turn makes
them more aggressive in the bedroom.
Surviving in a world of righties Almost everything is designed keeping the right-handed folks in mind, making daily life a trifle
tougher for the southpaws. -Scissors are designed specifically for the right hand and trying to use them with your left hand can be
quite a task. -Funnily enough, even ballpoint pens are designed for right-handers. While a righty pulls the ball of the pen across the
page as he writes, a lefty has to push the pen. As a result, the ball doesn't move as smoothly.
-Have you seen your cousin having a hard time tying shoe laces? Chances are he's a lefty. Truth is, the make-a-loop-around-and-pull
practice is suited for righties and leaves lefties befuddled. -Lefties are often confused between clockwise and anti-clockwise motion.
Hence, they fumble while locking/unlocking a drawer, turning doorknobs and even turning on a faucet. -And yes, every lefty will tell
you that he struggles everyday with the computer at work. You see, the mouse of the computer is always to the right, much to the
chagrin of the left-handers.

Trai proposes ownership curbs, independent regulator for media
Recommendations are likely to prove controversial as they immediately provoked an adverse reaction from Big Media

by an entity should be fixed at 1000, which approximately translates into a market share of 32%. And if there is concentration across what Trai calls horizontals,
print and TV for instance, and the same company has more than a 32% share in both, then the regulator believes it is a case of MARKET dominance. To be sure,
much will depend on how MARKETS are defined. Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (BCCL), for instance, could face some
issues in MARKETS such as Mumbai where it runs the largest English-language newspaper and the largest English-language TV news channel, and its own
MARKET share numbers show that it pretty much dominates the market. However, Trai defines the relevant market for English as pan-Indian, and not by individual
metros. Therefore, it is likely that regional media companies will be more affected by the regulators cross-media ownership rules. At a press conference in New
Delhi on Tuesday, Trai chairman Rahul Khullar said: Here we are dealing with print and television. It does not matter whether you are present in both. What we
are worried about is undue influence. So we have devised rules on market concentration. We measure the degree of market concentration. If someone has more
than the required share of concentration, he needs to dilute control in the company. To be sure, the rule applies only if the market concentration is more than the
permitted limit for more than two years. Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, publishing, at BCCL, declined comment on any of Trais recommendations. The recommendations
may have huge implications for us. I do not wish to comment till I study them in great detail. We have just concluded our board meeting and I have not read the
document, he said, refusing to elaborate on the proposals. HT Media Ltds CEO Rajiv Verma said he wouldnt comment till he had gone through the fine print of
the recommendations. Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options Ashish Bagga, group CEO at India Today, said that given Indias developing MARKET and todays
digital age, the question of media monopoly in horizontal cross-media ownership or lack of plurality of views, does not arise. This is because the sheer number of
newspapers, news channels and news digital platforms are enormous, multilingual, heterogeneous and growing. Therefore, instead of attempting to curb
consolidation, the direction by the government should be aimed at expanding the media market with a view to foster healthy competition, he said. The only way
the government can really contribute is to allow unfettered growth of the media and allow economic decisions of horizontal or vertical integration to be taken by the
media companies themselves. In fact, Trai should not include print media in its purview and issues related to cross-media ownership should be immediately
withdrawn from its recommendations, Bagga added. Print does not fall under its jurisdiction. The regulator also recommended restrictions on vertical integration
in broadcastingthat is, a TV channel owning a cable network, a DTH platform, or other distribution companies. Vertical integration of broadcasters with
distribution platform operators (DPO), i.e., cable/HITS/DTH operators, can restrict horizontal competition. Any entity which has been permitted/licensed for
television broadcasting or has more than 20% equity in a broadcasting company, shall not have more than 20% equity in any distributor (MSO/cable operator, DTH
operator, HITS operator, mobile TV service provider) and vice-versa. It added that the existing broadcasters who may have control in distribution
(MSO/cable/DTH) and entities in the distribution sector who may have similar control over broadcasting should be given sufficient time of three years for
restructuring. MSO stands for multi-system operator. HITS is short for headend in the skya digital delivery system. The restriction could affect broadcasters
such as Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. A Zee group executive said on condition of anonymity that such cross-media restrictions will not pass muster
anywhere, not even with the government. Why? Because when the government gave us licences for each of these businesses, it did not say that we will have to
dilute our stakes in the future. This is against the governments original licence conditions, said this person. Besides, the proposals are against DTH, cable and
HITS companies right to do business, he added. This would not stand a chance in a court of law either. The Trai recommendations seem to be in contrast with
what the authority has recommended for the telecom sector, where a uniform licence has been allowed, this person argued. And here we not only struggle for
separate licences, but also are now being told to dilute equity. Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options In the past few years, there has been an outcry over
corporate ownership of media, although some analysts have pointed out that there is little difference between the behaviour of a media company owning media
and that of a non-media company, say, a bank or an oil company, owning media. Khullar said there are two problems. One, many non-media corporate entities
with varied commercial interests are increasingly interested in controlling media outlets because of the benefits this has for their other businesses. Two, many
media corporates diversify into other, non-media, businesses by leveraging their clout and visibility. In effect, it is the potential for conflict of interest that seems to
be bothering Trai. As a result, ownership restrictions on corporate entities entering the media should be seriously considered by the government and the proposed
media re of a particular market of each media company and says that the threshold contribution to HHI news channels in Delhi. Conventional wisdom suggests
that a market is concentrated when HHI is higher than 2,500. Trai has chosen to look at the contribution to HHI Trai has recommended restrictions on cross
media ownership, but only if a media company has dominance across print and television. The regulator calls this horizontal dominance (as opposed to vertical
dominance, which is leadership of one segment). Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint Indias telecom and media regulator on Tuesday recommended an independent
regulator for the media, barring political parties and government departments from entering either broadcasting or TV distribution (through cable and direct-to-
home, or DTH, TV), and suggested a formula for calculating media dominance that will likely affect at least some media companies in some MARKETS. The
recommendations and suggestionsit is up to the government to accept themare likely to prove controversial and immediately provoked an adverse reaction
from Big Media. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) also said the government and the new regulator that will be created should seriously consider
ownership restrictions on companies entering the media business. Media companies, some political parties, and at least some state governments are likely to have
issues with the proposed regulations. Trai has recommended restrictions on cross-media ownership, but only if a media company has dominance across print and
television. The regulator calls this horizontal dominance (as opposed to vertical dominance, which is leadership of one segment). The dominance will be calculated
by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), and be MARKET-specific, which could cause problems for some companies in some markets. HHI is simply the sum of
the square of the marketshare (expressed in per cent) of all companies operating in a MARKET, say, English mainstream dailies in Delhi, or English TVgulator,
Trai said. This may entail restricting the amount of equity holding in a media company or loansor any other form whereby it can exercise control. Editorial
independence must be ensured through a regulatory framework, the recommendations said. Corporate ownership of the sort highlighted by Khullar also causes
problems for journalists. There needs to be Chinese walls between corporate owners and editors, Trai said. The regulator also frowned upon channels owned by
political parties, religious groups and even the government or its departments. Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options Trai has strongly recommended that its
earlier proposals barring political and religious bodies and other central and state government ministries from entering news broadcasting and television channel
distribution business be enforced. It said that in case permission has been given to such bodies, they should be granted an exit route. N. Ram, chairman of Kasturi
and Sons Ltd, which publishes The Hindu, said that it is not possible to ban people from entering the media business whether they are politicians or other
corporate houses. Such restrictions will impinge on other rights of people. You can ensure that people make the relevant disclosures but you cannot stop people
from owning a media business, he said. He said that there was no room for a Chinese wall between owners and the editorial section as the two need to talk.
There should be a clear line but not a wall, Ram said. Trai also recommended that the independent media regulator be free of government control and composed
predominantly of eminent non-media persons. HT Media, publisher of Hindustan Times and Mint, competes with Bennett Coleman, the India Today Group, and
Kasturi and Sons in some MARKETS . This piece has been corrected to reflect a more accurate definition of relevant MARKET.

Donald Trump seeks to invest in India
Trump is involved in two real estate projectsTrump Tower with Lodha Group in Mumbai and luxury residential project with Panchshil Realty in Pune
Donald Trump, on his maiden India visit, compares Mumbai with New York, adding that he plans to raise his INVESTMENTS in Mumbai and India. Photo: Jennifer
Altman/Bloomberg News Mumbai: Donald Trump s first visit to India comes with all the theatrics that the man has come to representa venue swarming with
security, an invitation with an undisclosed location, an elaborate breakfast followed by the entry of the Trump entourage and the man himself. You know, I am very
good with real estate. I can look at a place and say whether it has energy or its a place thats not going to make it. This is a very very vibrant area and this is just
the beginning as far as I am concerned, says Trump while comparing Mumbai with New York, adding that he plans to raise his INVESTMENTS in Mumbai and
India. I have a lot of money so I will INVEST, quips Trump. I wont invest all my money here, but I will invest. So far though, the Trump organization has not
INVESTED in any of its projects in India, choosing instead to work with local developers via brand licensing agreements. Trump is involved in two projectsthe
Trump Tower in partnership with the Lodha Group in Mumbai, and a luxury residential project with Panchshil Realty in Pune. As of now, there is no capital
investment from him in this (Trump Tower) project but his investment office is evaluating. They will be looking at acquiring apartments and not come in to FUND as
construction finance, a person familiar with the talks said, requesting anonymity. Trump re-entered the Indian MARKET with Panchshils project in August 2012,
after a previously failed attempt in 2010 when a luxury residential project with Rohan Lifescapes was scrapped. Trump Tower, construction for which started earlier
this year, will deliver 320 luxury apartments in a 75-storey tower in the upmarket Lower Parel area of Mumbai. The project will come up on 17 acres called The
Park, which Lodha had acquired from DLF Ltd in August 2012 for Rs.2,727 crore. This is the third residential tower which has been launched as part of The Park
development. The Trump Tower will offer 3,4, and 6 bedroom apartments at Rs.40,000 per sq.ft, which works out to prices ranging from Rs.9-18 crore. That
doesnt sound too expensive, argues Trump. Real estate is Mumbai is way too cheap. Thats why its such a good INVESTMENT, he says, adding that 100 of the
apartments have been sold. The project will be completed in 4-5 years. Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options Demand for branded residences is rising and
branded residences are being launched by hoteliers and designers like Jade Jagger and Giorgio Armani across the country, according to Ramesh Nair, chief
operating officer, India, and international director at property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle India. A lot of globally recognized brands are coming to India and
global Indians who are used to staying in these ultra-luxury hotels and homes get the assurance of quality and consistency from the developer, said Nair. Apart
from lending its name to residential projects, the group is evaluating hospitality projects across the country, said Donald Trump Jr., the New York-based
developers son. We want to do five star projects in the hospitality segment. We are in couple of conversations. Today, the cost of building a hotel does not adjust
with the average daily rate that the hotel earns, said Trump Jr., adding that the group is looking at opportunities in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Goa.
While Trump Jr. declined to say whether the group would follow a licensing strategy or an ownership-based strategy while deciding on its plans for the hospitality
sector, his fathersaid the group prefers an ownership models and owns most of the HOTELS IT operates worldwide. I think for a group like them to come and
invest in the LUXURY HOTELspace bodes well for the country. It will be a good investment, said Vijay Thacker, director at global hospitality consultancy Horwath
HTL. There are (a) few new brands who have entered the country recently but they are all management contracts.




Realty firms, funds to wait and watch trajectory of REIT listings
Real estate companies await performance of first movers and clarity on taxation issues for listings

REITs INVEST in completed, yield-generating realty assets and distribute a major part of the earnings, a major part of which mostly comes from the rents, among
investors. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint Bangalore: Even as some realty firms, backed by private equity (PE) support, gear up towards consolidating their rental
portfolios and listing a real estate INVESTMENT trust (REIT), top developers and real estate FUNDS are cautious and measured in their plans. While full clarity on
taxation issues for REIT listings is yet to emerge, developers with large office and retail portfolios said they are in a wait-and-watch mode to see how the first
movers perform. Property analysts say it will take at least eight-nine months for the first listings to go through. The euphoria surrounding REITs touched a high on
Sunday when the capital market regulator approved the long-pending proposal to introduce them in India, a move that will help cash-strapped developers with an
easier access to finance and also create a new investment opportunity for wealthy individuals, institutions and retail investors. Bangalore-based Prestige Estates
Projects Ltd, which has a robust retail and office annuity portfolio, is not rushing in for a REIT listing. Prestige Estates chairman and managing director Irfan
Razack said its a good opportunity but the firm wont be rushing into it and will consider it in a measured manner. They (REITs) will change how commercial real
estate will be developed in this country, giving smaller investors an opportunity, and all this in an open, transparent method, he said. For a REIT listing, we are
open to explore both our portfolios, retail and office. Prestiges 2013-14 rental income of Rs.250 crore is to increase to Rs.370 crore in the current fiscal and
Rs.460 crore in the next on the back of a number of malls becoming operational and incremental leasing of office space, says an August report by HDFC
Securities Ltd. REITs typically INVEST in completed, yield-generating realty assets and distribute a major part of the earnings among investors. The income of
these investment trusts mostly comes from the rents received from these properties. Its exciting but we are not in a hurry. There are taxation issues as well that
need clarity, said Atul Ruia, joint managing director of Mumbai-based Phoenix Mills Ltd, a large retail mall developer. Once the tax hurdles are eliminated by the
finance ministry, which are not likely to happen before the next budget, the impact of REITs will be significant. Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options According
to estimates by property advisory Jones Lang LaSalle India, Grade A office space in the top seven cities of India amounts to around 376 million sq. ft, and
anticipates that around half of this space will get listed in the next two-three years. The valuation of these assets is around $10-12 billion, and this accounts for a
fairly massive influx of FUNDING waiting in the wings to hit the Indian real estate market via REITs over the next few years. A lot remains to be done in terms of
further clarity and tax incentives required to make the REIT regulations competitive, given the nuances of commercial development in the Indian context coupled
with the returns that most investors have come to expect from REITs the world over, according to Khushru Jijina, managing director of Piramal FUND
Management. We are, therefore, adopting a wait-and-watch approach rather than reacting in a hurry, and even though we have readied our strategy, it is perhaps
too early to comment, Jijina said on email. A member of the 11-member advisory committee formed to facilitate REITs said, on condition of anonymity, that while
the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has created a reasonable framework with its final regulations, the tax compliance laws still need to come and
they wont come soon. Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options However, that hasnt deterred some to start preparing for REITs. Bangalore-based Embassy
Property Developments Pvt. Ltd, which has a partnership with global private equity firm Blackstone Group Lp, plans to increase its annual rental income from
Rs.800 crore from 24 million sq. ft of space to Rs.1000 crore, as it eyes a $2 billion REIT listing sometime next year. As per Sebis regulations, at least 80% of the
properties in the special purpose vehicle (SPV) should be complete and rent-generating. Embassy plans to put projects in Bangalore such as Embassy Tech
Village, Manyata Tech Park, Embassy Golf Links, and Embassy Tech Zone in Pune. We are also looking to acquire more office properties, said Jitendra Virwani,
chairman, Embassy Properties. Blackstones other partner, Panchshil Realty Ltd, is also looking to add another 2 million sq. ft to its current 10 million sq. ft office
portfolio, and plans to put it out for an REIT listing in the second quarter of 2015, said chairman and chief executive Atul Chordia. Backed by Qatar INVESTMENT
Authority, RMZ Corp. is looking at an REIT listing sometime next year as it looks to aggressively acquire new office assets, managing director Raj Menda said. It is
looking at five potential acquisitions in Mumbai and the National Capital Region (NCR), adding another 600,000 sq. ft of space, said Menda. Further clarity about
taxation eligibility norms is definitely required, and will doubtlessly come before the first listing goes up, said Anuj Puri , chairman and country head at Jones Lang
LaSalle India, a property consultancy. When this happens, there will be vastly increased interest from foreign investors.

Stay safe on public Wi-Fi
Using a laptop, tablet or phone on a Wi-Fi network in a public place? Some dos and donts to keep your data safe

If you have access to free Wi-Fi at a coffee shop or an airport lounge, you may want to check mail, research for that presentation you have to make, catch up on
some live football streaming, maybe even download a few songs. But free Wi-Fi does not always mean secure Wi-Fi. A hacker, or anyone with malicious intent,
could be monitoring the data on that network. If they get hold of your credit card details or your email address and password, you could be in trouble. So if you
want to use Wi-Fi in a public place, keep a few things in mind. Verify the network name If you are logging on to a public network, double-check the name of the
access point, be it with someone working at the establishment, or from the leaflet/advertisement. There is a chance that a similarly named network could be visible
in the area, the second being operated by someone out to prey on unsuspecting people as they share their credit card details while making an online transaction,
or their email account login details. For example, the authentic hot spot may be XYZ Wi-Fi, but nothing stops someone from duplicating that with something like
XYZFree Wi-Fi. Look out for these subtle differences. Applicable to laptops, tablets and phones Limit browsing Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options While
on public Wi-Fi networks, restrict your browsing. Avoid typing in your credit card or bank account details, or sharing any sensitive information. Hold that urge to buy
something from an online store till you get home and start using the secured Wi-Fi. Also, if you think a website looks like the original one, but doesnt feel quite like
it usually does, do not enter your ID and password there. Web-page cloning is a very simple activity, and hackers tend to create rather good copies of the original.
Applicable to laptops, tablets and phones Keep Windows and Mac OS X up to date It is critical to keep your laptops operating system up to date, with the latest
security patches. Microsoft rolls them out via the Microsoft Windows Update utility installed on your laptop, while Mac OS X updates can be downloaded from the
App Store application. You will get regular notifications reminding you to download updates. Applicable to laptops Use HTTPS extension Regular websites may
transfer content over the network as plain text. A hacker can read it as easily as if it were text on a Notepad. Some websites use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer
Protocol Secure) to encrypt data before transferring it over the network. But it would be too much to ask you to monitor every website and check if it is using
HTTPS or not. We would recommend downloading the HTTPS Everywhere extension, available for popular Web browsersGoogle Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and
Opera. When enabled, the extension takes care of encrypting most non-secure data with HTTPS. Applicable to laptops, tablets and phones Activate the laptops
built-in firewall Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options Every notebook operating system, Windows and Mac OS X included, has built-in firewalls. These are
meant to block malicious traffic from being received on your PC, and equally, from leaving with sensitive data. These are the best options for most users, since
they dont require any manual set-up. Applicable to laptops Security solutions for Android and iOS For Android tablets and phones, you can download the free
AVG AntiVirus Security app. If you are using an iPad or iPhone, there is the Trend Micro Mobile Security software app that costs $23.99 (around Rs.1,440) a year.
Both apps offer real time scanning of downloaded files. While it is good to have an additional layer of security, it is important to note that real time-monitoring apps
will negatively affect performance and battery life on an older smartphone or tablet. Also, download and install the operating system (Android, iOS) updates, once
you are notified about the availability of one. Google and Apple update security credentials and fix any vulnerabilities discovered over time. All the installed apps
must also be updated from the application store, because developers boost security with newer versions. Applicable to tablets and phones Third-party security
software for Windows Ads by The weDownload ProAd Options If you travel a lot and do end up using free Wi-Fi more often than not, its imperative to have
security software installed on your laptop. Microsoft offers the free-to-download Security Essentials suite, which has real time scanning for malware, and notifies
you in case a software tries to disable the systems built-in firewall. Norton Internet Security (Rs.2,489.99 for Windows; $49.99, or around Rs.3,000, for Mac OS X)
or AVG Internet Security (Rs.1,299 for Windows) are good options too. Both run real time scans in the background to detect new threats, and activate their own
firewall. These firewalls work silently in the background, but offer a greater degree of customization for advanced users. Applicable to laptops

Infrastructure sector high on M&A, fund-raising deals
MUMBAI: The infrastructure sector, which saw acquisition and fund-raising deals in the last three months after a three-year lull, is poised for a flurry of
deals that will revive stranded projects and help the sector bounce back in 2015. The sector which has been struggling for years due to slowdown in
government's decision making, issues over land acquisition and environment, and poor FINANCIAL health of private sector developers is
suddenly abuzz with activity. Last month, Reliance Power agreed to buy the hydroelectricity portfolio of Jaiprakash Group for about Rs 12,000 crore.
And over the past three months, companies such as Jaiprakash Associates, GMR Infrastructure and J Kumar Infrastructure have together raised Rs
5,000 crore through qualified institutional placement (QIP), or share sale to qualified institutional buyers (QIBs).
Experts and industry players expect infrastructure companies to raise Rs 8,000-10,000 crore more through QIPs, initial public offering (IPO) and other
equity sale. They also believe more deals in the
renewable energy
, thermal power and road sectors are in the pipeline as highly leveraged companies have been looking to sell stake in projects.
Infrastructure companies ET spoke to recently said that though not much has changed on the ground, things are moving in the right direction under the
Narendra Modi-led government.
"Recent policy announcements by the government and steps announced by the Reserve Bank of India have infused a lot of hope and comfort into the
infrastructure sector that we can get back on the path of recovery," said Virendra Mhaiskar, chairman and managing director at IRB Infrastructure
Developers.
He said the RBI's decision to exempt long-term bonds raised for infrastructure projects from the mandatory regulatory norms such as the cash reserve
ratio, the statutory liquidity ratio and priority sector lending will go a long way in pumping fresh FUNDS into the sector.
Suneet Maheshwari, group executive vice-president for corporate affairs at L&T Financial Services, said that infrastructure developers have been going
through financial stress over the last two years and they were not able to make equity INVESTMENTS in their projects.
"Now with the capital market bouncing back, they will be able to raise money and contribute to the equity of projects that will enable banks to lend too,"
he said. Several infrastructure companies indeed plan to tap the capital MARKET . After successfully raising around Rs 1,500 crore via QIP, GMR
Infra is reviving IPO plans for its arm GMR Energy.
Adani Group, one of the most indebted business groups in India, plans to raise Rs 10,000 crore through QIP of shares of Adani Enterprises, Adani
Power and Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone to fuel the group's growth.
Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), which is in corporate debt restructuring (CDR) due to accumulating losses and huge debt, now plans to raise
Rs 750 crore through QIP and another Rs 750 crore via IPO of its arm Lavasa.
Ajit Gulabchand, chairman and managing director at HCC, recently told ET that his company will raise FUNDS to pare debt and get out of CDR. "I
want to make sure that we put our finances in order so that when Mr Modi and his government have reset the economy and relaunched India on anew
growth path, we are fit to participate in the infrastructure growth," he said. Gulabchand and other experts in the sector, however, agree that things have
only started to change and it will take some time before everything falls in place. Khawar Iqbal, director for project and export finance at HSBC
Securities and Capital Markets, India, said that for a complete revival of the infrastructure sector, some fundamental problems need to be resolved.
"A lot of key issues like coal availability and issues relating to land acquisition need to be resolved," Iqbal said. "We may not be able to meet the $1
trillion INVESTMENT target with the given slowdown in the first two years of the current five-year plan but there is more international capital which is
ready to come," he said. But there are several projects ready to take off soon.
National Highways Authority of India plans to award more cash contracts for building roads, in a deviation from its strategy of awarding projects under
the PPP model, to boost activity.
Also, the government is working on supplying fuel for stranded power projects. Almost 19,000 mw of gas-based power plants and another 7,230 mw of
coalbased projects are stranded or underutilised due to lack of fuel, which together is greater than the new capacity added by India ever in a year.
Maheshwari of L&T Financial Services expects infrastructure companies to start unwinding out of their FINANCIAL stress over the next 9-12
months. "Things should start looking up for the sector by June-Sep 2015 after which, companies would take another 9-12 months to completely unwind
out of the financial stress they have been in. Once that happens, recovery would start and capex cycle would resume," he said.

Trump may Buy Stake in Lodhas Worli Tower
Tycoon says money will pour in as the perception about India has changed
American real estate tycoon Donald Trump said he is drawing up plans to invest in India, enthused by the election of Narendra Modi as prime
minister. Money will pour into India, he said during a visit to Mumbai on Tuesday. The perception about India has changed. The optimism is
returning. Trump, whose business interests span real estate, hospitality, golf courses and casinos, has not invested in India so far. But he
said he was close to buying a shareholding in Mumbai builder Lodha Group's upcoming sea-facing luxury development branded Trump Tower.
We are looking to make substantial investment, Trump told ET. He didnt say when or how much this would be. Its private, he said. Lodha
is constructing Trump Tower Mumbai at The Park project in Worli as part of a 17.5-acre development under a brand licence agreement from
Trump. Both Lodha and Trump said around 100 apartments have already been sold even before the official launch on Tuesday. Contrary to
market perceptions that property prices in Mumbai need to cool down, the chairman and president of the New York-headquartered The Trump
Organization said he did not see a property bubble in India and prices in the city were unbelievably low. When I say unbelievably low, I am
saying it has a lot of potential to grow further said Trump, who has licensing pacts with Lodha Group and the Pune-based Panchshil Realty.
Lodha group MD Abhishek Lodha estimated revenue from the project at .` 5,000 crore, while the cost is pegged at .` 2,300 crore. Trump also
added that the group is looking at taking its alliance with Lodha Group further. Apart from residences, Trump Organization, which is owned
and managed by the Trump family, is looking to bring its hospitality brand to India and Lodha will be the preferred partner for this venture.
For hospitality, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai are good markets, he said. While Trump was vocal about Indias foreign direct
investment norms being strict, he said he is still keen on investing.

Investment banks, law firms get set to cash in on REITs
MUMBAI: INVESTMENT banks and law firms have created dedicated teams to lead their exploratory work onReal Estate INVESTMENT Trusts
(REITs) as they seek to cash in on the growing appetite from real estate developers, big corporates and state-run banks to unlock real estate's value
through the creation of REITs.
REITs have finally emerged as an INVESTMENT avenue for investors after the Securities & Exchange Board of India approved the setting up of
REITs in India through an order on August 10.
The regulator's new guidelines allow REITs to raise FUNDS through an initial offering and list on the stock exchanges. JM FINANCIAL has
recently formed a five-member team headed by Ranganath Char to put together suitable REITs structures for companies. The Nimesh Kampani-owned
firm has also hired Tara Subramaniam from HDFC to work closely with Char's team to fine-tune risk management practices.
SNG & Partners, a law firm with focus on real estate and financial services sectors, has created teams headed by partners to spearhead activities for
REITs. Munish Upadhyay, Sadhav Mishra and Dhiraj Jain handle the due diligence team, while Amit Aggarwal and Nupur Singh are at the helm of
capital MARKETS group.
"We have created independent teams to help companies overcome legal challenges. The subregistrar of assurances do not have computerised
process to do title verification. There are several legal disputes on properties, which are pending in various courts and it is rather impossible to find out
which properties are subjected to disputes as there's no centralised process for the same, nor is there a single point computerised entry process," said
Rajesh Narain Gupta, managing partner, SNG & Partners.
Kotak Mahindra Group has drawn real estate experts from its vast pool of talent to create a dedicated team for REITs, which will report to V
Jayasankar head of equity capital markets at Kotak INVESTMENT Banking. "The Kotak Mahindra Group is one of the largest lenders to the real
estate sector, and as a result, we understand the sector very well and have a dedicated team with domain expertise. We have started talking to real
estate developers in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, the three largest commercial real estate markets in India, to understand their appetite for setting up
REITs," said V Jayasankar, senior executive director and head of equity capital markets at Kotak INVESTMENT Banking.
Ambit Group, promoted by Ashok Wadhwa, has been holding internal meetings to come up with strategies for REITs. "We will be ready with a plan by
next week," said a person close to Ambit. Boutique investment banks have also started hiring people with knowledge on the real estate sector. "We are
gearing up for a major business opportunity," said the CEO of a boutique investment bank.

Equity gains need not be exempt from tax any more
By: Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist, CARE Ratings
Financial inclusion and equity MARKETS are two sacred shibboleths that are hard to dislodge, and questioning them is blasphemy. The first is an
indicator that someone cares while the other is held sacrosanct as it represents everything that success all about. It is against this background that one
can review the issue of tax arbitrage which has been in the spotlight in the Budget.
Investors preferred to save in FMPs as the capital gains tax was applied at a lower rate of 10 per cent or 20 per cent compared with bank deposits,
which were taxed at the income tax slab rate. This was a tax anomaly, which put bank deposits at a disadvantage and was corrected by putting
debt FUNDS gains on par with interest on deposits.
The exception now is that debt-based growth schemes would qualify for capital gains tax at 20% if kept for more than three years. Using this logic one
can question the sense in still exempting equity gains from any tax if held for more than one year.
First, what is the justification for giving special treatment to equity? Fresh equity helps in capital formation and hence there is a priori justification for
giving exemption. But does this hold for secondary MARKET transactions?
Here there is only transfer of money from one buyer to seller and the company does not get money. But high secondary MARKET activity provides a
boost to companies to raise more equity and hence indirectly helpsINVESTMENT .
Besides, such exemptions are a reward for risk-taking unlike debt, where returns are known before INVESTMENT . But there is a counter argument
here. While primary purchase of equity and subsequent sale after an acceptable period of time can be tax-exempt, a secondary market deal is
speculative.
There is no value created for anyone except shareholders who could reap high rewards. When the company value goes up, existing shareholders
enjoy the benefit even though the company is not going in for additional investment. Therefore, such gains have to be taxed.
In fact, using Piketty's logic, it could be said that the principle of not taxing such gains is a clear case of capitalist advocacy influencing policy making. It
is a measure of growing affluence, which needs to be taxed to lower policy-induced inequality.
The argument of risk-taking cannot be justified here as the decision is based on personal choice and does not lead to the Keynesian animal spirits
leading to investment.
There is little anecdotal evidence to formation increases. In fact it has been coming down in the past few years even as the market has done well.
Investment decisions are based on demand, interest rates and overall economic conditions. Curiously, money invested by debt FUNDS and bank
deposits qualify better for tax benefits.
Bank deposits are diverted directly to lending according to government dictats through priority sector lending, or into government securities through
SLR stipulation, and hence meet national goals.
Investments made by debt FUNDS go into corporate bonds, CDs and CPs all used for productive purposes. Therefore, there is justification to
argue that there is direct link with productive activity. How can the issue be resolved? We need to see if there is a link between secondary MARKET
activity and primary equity issuances as also the tendency of companies to prefer equity to debt. Equity issuances in the past 10 years have crossed
`40,000 crore only once and have been less than Rs10,000 crore in the past three years. Corporate debt raised has averaged Rs3.3 lakh crore in this
period corporates prefer debt to equity as source of finance.
The stock MARKET has increased by almost two-thirds during this otherwise dismal period while it has soared by a multiple of four times over a
decade. Quite clearly, equity issuances have not increased even as the secondary market has boomed.
The boom in the secondary market has often been linked with foreign institutional investor FUNDS and the accompanying sentiment and has been
divorced from economic fundamentals.
This being the case there is reason for revisiting the tax benefits provided to gains on equity to bring about FINANCIAL parity. In fact the existence
of this tax arbitrage will channel more money into this higher risk alternative. The way out is really to put all savings on a similar plane. Small savings
too would be under the scanner.
But there are limits on INVESTMENT that can be made here and they are locked in for a longer period of time. This lock-in concept should now be
extended to other instruments as well. Hence, if a three year lock-in is required for debt growth schemes to qualify for capital gains, the same should
apply for bank deposits as well as equity.
Risk cannot be accorded any tax benefit except for the entrepreneur, which is available through tax holidays. According special status to equity gains
hence may not seem convincing.
While this may sound heretic in today's world where stock market indices have become the barometer of sentiment and confidence, such a step would
be a very bold one, considering no one would like to disrupt this equilibrium, which may have a proclivity to the rich. But, if we are talking of correcting
tax arbitrage, extension to equity may be argued as being a corollary.
Cracking the formula of Bollywood success
Sajid Nadiadwala is on a roll. Not only has he delivered the most hits this year, but his movies have also clocked the highest
return on investment
The pecking order in Bollywood is all set to change. Sajid Nadiadwala of Nadiadwala Grandson
Entertainment
- not Yash Raj Films, Eros International or Dharma Productions - has three entries - 2 States,
Heropanti and Kick - amongst the top five films of 2014. (The other two are Viacom18-produced Queen
and Ek Villain by Balaji Motion Pictures). His fourth film this year, Highway, was critically acclaimed. It
did not make as much money as the other three but the return on INVESTMENT was a whopping 154
per cent, though it was made for just Rs 9 crore.

Salman Khan-starrer Kick, which Nadiadwala co-produced along with UTV and directed, has collected
over Rs 300 crore in worldwide box office collections - its production cost was around Rs 100 crore - and
is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest hits of all times. The return on investment for the
producers is close to 50 per cent, and it is rising. 2 States(made for Rs 40 crore) fetched a return of 92
per cent, while the return on Heropanti (budget: Rs 27 crore) was over 40 per cent. The four movies in
which Nadiadwala and UTV have invested around Rs 180 crore have given a staggering average return of
65 per cent - something that would make even the big boys of Bollywood envious.

Offshore link
What adds more heft to Nadiawala's slow rise in Bollywood is the impressive show
overseas. Kick, despite the fact that it has not been released in all key countries, has already rustled up
over Rs 70 crore in overseas collections. If these are included, the returns begin to look even better.
Clearly, Nadiadwala's confidence on his ability to deliver a hit is running high. So much so that he has
postponed his fifth release planned for 2014, Phantom, which stars Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif, to next
year so that "everyone in his team enjoys a well-deserved break".

Nadiadwala, 48, has in the last two decades made several big-budget films with big stars and shot at exotic locales. But it is only in recent
years that he has tasted such success. He admits that he was concentrating on big-budget films earlier, but the success of Highway has
made him look at small-budget movies as well - it has to some extent changed his image from a maker of loud films to a maker of sensitive
cinema. Curiously, he says that he does not have a budget in mind when he starts a movie - it could go up or down as the idea evolves.
While he may start a project with an open budget, Nadiadwala believes in sharing the risks with others so that he can focus on the creative
part of the movie. "A big-budget film means (expenditure of) Rs 100 to 150 crore. In such a scenario, it becomes very important to hedge
your risks. Earlier, one person - the producer usually - took all the risks. Now, we look at hedging the risk at every stage possible," says he.

That is why he has tied up with UTV for at least five movies and wants to continue the relationship. He also has a 10-year partnership going
with T-Series for music. Nadiadwala is clear about one more thing: he does not give away the intellectual property rights of his film to
anyone and prefers to leverage it over the years. This means if the movie is remade later into any other language, the royalty payment
would go to him. Nadiadwala is also very particular about when to rope in a partner for his movies. He says the returns are better if a
partner is brought in at the later stages of the movie-making process. For instance, a partner may be willing to put in more MONEY in the
movie if the star cast and the script are both ready than when the movie is only in the script-writing stage. In his deal with UTV, Nadiadwala
has outsourced the distribution and MARKETING rights of the movie as he does not have the bandwidth to handle them on his own.

Hedging risks
Nadiadwala says that even distributors these days
like to de-risk themselves. So exhibitors pay
upfront money to the distributor and once that
money is recovered, the revenue sharing starts.
He says the good news is that newer finance
options are emerging, which gives production
houses like his a big advantage which they did
not have earlier. "Institutional FUNDING has
become easier. Banks are ready to loan money
and new funds are coming up. It is a shift in the
business model. The funds are ready to convert
debt into equity in the project, which is always
good," he says.

Nadiadwala also prefers to de-risk his ventures by
staying out of the volatile areas of the business like selling satellite rights. Instead, he depends mostly on box-office collections, which are
directly tied to his creative abilities. For instance, Salman Khan had already got into an alliance with Star India to sell the rights of the movies
in which he acts till 2017. This includes Kick. "The money goes to the actor directly, so the producer does not have to give anything to him
over and above the regular fees. The volatility of the satellite fees is also taken care of and is not the producer's headache," Nadiadwala
says. This way he runs the risk of losing out on big money from satellite rights, but it helps him keep his principal cost - star fees - under
control.

Instead of such ancillary revenue, Nadiadwala says he depends on box-office collections which are increasing due to more movie halls being
built and ticket prices going northwards. "The box office business looks promising. For movies like Kick and Dhoom 3, the footfalls have been
around 20 million each. That's really great," he says.

If collections are robust and risks are shared, will he make a lot of movies each year? Nadiadwala says there are no fixed numbers or genres
in his mind. He does not want to grow the company quickly and surely doesn't want to take it public. He is also sure that after Kick he might
direct another film but after two years; for now, he will stick to production. But he does have a slew of big blockbusters in the pipeline which
includes Housefull 3 starring Akshay Kumar, Judwaa 2 (Salman Khan) and Tamasha(Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone). Each of these
movies is expected to cost around Rs 100 crore and feature big actors. After he made a successful movie based on 2 States, Nadiadwala had
the first right of refusal for another book by Chetan Bhagat, Revolution 2020, but did not see it as a potential script for a movie.

In the last 22 years in the film production business, Nadiadwala, a lawyer by education has had to traverse many tough challenges. He has
had some major flops like Jaan-E-Mann and Kambahqt Ishqdespite roping in big stars. Says Suniel Wadhwa, an independent distributor and
box-office analyst: "In a career of more than two decades, Nadiadwala's films have covered many themes and genres. His early movies
like Jeet and Judwaa were seen as archetypes of modern Bollywood blockbuster film-making. Nadiadwala achieved box office records for
films like Mujshe shaadi karogi and Housefull 1 and 2."

Analysts also say he has woven close relationships with Bollywood's top actors who feature regularly in his movies and it has given him an
edge in the MARKET . "Many of his movies feature Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar; you won't see him experimenting with rank outsiders
or taking a major risk in the cast. That has worked for him. Slowly, he is getting new faces too," says an analyst. Ask him what is his formula
for success and he quips: "My company, you can say, follows the whims and instincts of one man - me". That confidence has paid him rich
dividends this year.


Twelve big-ticket infrastructure projects waiting for PM Narendra Modi's nod
Promoters of twelve big-ticket projects that are mired in red tape have approached the Narendra Modi government for speedy resolution of their
problems. These include long-delayed public infrastructure projects like the Bangalore-Mysore Expressway that has been in the works since 1985 and
the Hyderabad Metro Rail project. The project monitoring group under the Cabinet Committee on INVESTMENTS is looking at ways of eliminating
the obstacles that are holding back investments of around Rs 50,000 crore.
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Real estate investment trusts: Pros and cons
Liquidity, stable income generation, potential capital appreciation are the benefits from REITs
The real estate industry received a much-needed boost recently when the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) finally cleared
guidelines for the real estate investment trusts (Reits). This gives the cash-strapped industry a new route to tap capital.

Real estate is notorious for the number and size of the bubbles it creates. The global financial crisis of 2007 and its sequel, the crisis of
2012, were both sparked off by real estate bubbles. The price of the same land can vary a lot, depending on sentiment.

This makes the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) extremely cautious about lending to the real estate industry. Banks have to keep a high risk-
weight for loans against real estate and as a result, charge higher interest and value the loans conservatively. There are further grounds for
caution since repossession of mortgaged real estate in case of default is a lengthy process due to the slow legal system.

The usual method for a real estate developer is to acquire the land (this can in itself be challenging), get clearances to build, pre-sell the
property and use advances to start construction. Advances are never enough to complete construction. So the developer has to find bridge
financing, usually at very high interest. (Not to mention the financial jugglery required to manage black and white streams because the
overwhelming majority of land deals involve a large undeclared component.)

Enter the Reit. This is a sort of mutual fund or pool, which finds alternative means of financing real estate. A Reit owns real estate directly
and it might also own mortgages. The assets are sub-divided into equal units, which are sold to investors. There are income streams from
interest in the case of mortgages, and from rentals in owned property.

Indian Reits will be allowed to own only commercial property and there are other restrictions. To be eligible for listing, the value of the
assets owned or proposed to be owned by a Reit should be worth at least Rs 500 crore. Assets must be valued and net asset value updated
at least twice in every financial year.

Reits must distribute at least 90 per cent of their net distributable cash flows to their investors every six months. Also, at least 80 per cent of
assets must be in properties that are generating revenue. A Reit can invest only 10 per cent in properties under construction. This means
Reits can also invest a small portion (about 20 per cent or less) in mortgage-backed securities and cash-equivalent assets like money market
funds.

The tax treatment is pass-through, meaning the Reit need not pay tax on the income it distributes. Since Reits can be listed, they afford
liquidity to investors in the same fashion as mutual funds do. The minimum initial investment on an IPO is Rs 2 lakh, which is nominal for a
foothold in real estate. Hence, Reits reduce the lumpy nature of real estate exposure.

Liquidity, relatively low entry-level investments, stable income generation, potential capital appreciation - all these are obvious benefits from
Reits. What are the downsides? Well, if there's a bubble in real estate, a Reit will tend to accentuate it. Also, by providing a new market for
trading mortgage-backed securities, Reits can encourage the sort of speculation that caused the subprime crisis.

There's plenty of unsold, semi-developed commercial property across India. Once Reits get rolling, some of that should come on the market.
This will allow developers to complete stalled projects and exit. The infrastructure variation on the Reit, where the investment trust holds
infra project assets has similar but broader applicability.

There could be a reflexive sequence of investments into realty stocks. However, in reality, Reits will take a while getting off the ground and,
as the rules stand, they will benefit only specific developers with exposures in commercial property.
Gujarats land acquisition model is best: DIPP report
NEW DELHI: Can government make it easier for businesses to do business? The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) thinks it can, as
per a report on 'Best Practices to Improve the Business Environment Across States/UTs in India', prepared by consultancy firm Accenture on behalf of
DIPP.
But why is this such a bright idea? DIPP secretary Amitabh Kant says since some states are already doing it means there are no hurdles in adopting
the same practices by others. In the best case scenario, just this alone could lift India's ranking on the 'Ease of Doing Business' index by 89 places.

Most investors cite difficulty in doing business as the biggest concern in India. The country slipped three positions to 134th in the World Bank's Ease of
Doing Business index in 2013. "Manufacturing or FDI is a function of how India improves its ease of doing business," Kant told ET. "We have analysed
different studies and zeroed in on one state best in that practice. The No. 1 state in each of the cases, be it Karnataka, Maharashtra or Rajasthan, has
used technology as an enabler."
The study has selected six parameters-finance & tax, labour law, infrastructure & utilities-related approvals, land & building approvals, environment
clearances and other business regulatory compliances. It then mentioned the best practice followed by the top state in each category.
For instance, Gujarat is best in land-related interventions and online mechanisms for environment clearances. Maharashtra tops in providing single-
window clearances for industries while Karnataka has the best practice in managing indirect taxes.
"Let us not benchmark ourselves against the best in the world, but the best within India. We need to simply emulate that model. If we were to do that,
India's rank goes up 89 places," Kant added.

The study notes that the online management of value-added tax system introduced by Karnataka's commercial tax department has curbed delays by
decreasing the physical interface and bringing in delivery of electronic services anytime, anywhere. Similarly, Maharashtra's labour management
solution is a one stop for implementation and integration of 46 labour laws. Maharashtra's single-window clearance for industries MAITRIserves as
a single point of contact to reduce the average time and efforts required for establishment of industrial units. It issues 31 clearances and approvals
required for setting up industries in the state, the study said. Land acquisition is the biggest hurdle in starting a large project these days.
Even after land has been bought from private owners, the process of conversion, mutation, title registration, etc are very time consuming and require
many visits to multiple government offices. In 2009, it used to take 42 days to transfer a property title alone and another 45-50 days to get building
permit approval.
However, the study suggests that Gujarat's Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation and Investor Facilitation Portal have hugely simplified land
acquisition in the state with minimum direct government participation. "Information on land made available on online portal highlights availability of land,
power, gas, distance of port, airport, SEZ among 65 parameters for industries ... specific requirements chosen by the entrepreneur," it said.
Trains restricted to 80 kmph on Panvel-Roha route
Over a hundred trains on Konkan Railway route to coastal Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala will be affected.

The Commissioner of Railway Safety (Central Railway), investigating the Diva-Sawantwadi train accident, has imposed speed restrictions on
the 76 km stretch between Panvel and Roha, where the mishap took place last Sunday, killing 22 and injuring over 150.

Chetan Bakshi, the CRS, told Mirror, "We have asked for reducing the speed of all trains from 100 kmph to 80 kmph on this stretch."

Over a hundred trains, including the New Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani Express will now have to curtail their speed along the
section. The move will significantly affect movement of all trains on the Konkan Railway route to coastal Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and
Kerala.

The order from Bakshi comes as this particular stretch of tracks was manufactured by Steel Authority of India before 1998-99. Marked with a
'D' sign, the tracks were built using an old process and had a higher content of hydrogen in them. Due to this, over time, the tracks can wear
out and fracture, unlike the present day tracks which are built to withstand years of service and high stress.

Reacting to the move, Central Railway officials, however, said that all 'D' marked rails cannot be termed as defective. "If this was the case,
then all rails produced prior to revision of specifications should be replaced," an officer said.

Officials further pointed out that the spot where last Sunday's accident occurred, was not entirely made up of 'D' marked rails, but was part
'D' marked track and part newly built rails, which had been welded together. The welding, a section of officials say, gave way and could have
led to the derailment. However, they added that the actual cause of the mishap will be known only after the CRS probe is complete.

In addition to the Panvel-Roha 76 km stretch, CR has over 700 km of 'D' marked tracks in various pockets along its entire network. However,
as the stretches are too small to impose speed restrictions, CR have instead intensified patrolling on these stretches.

Central Railway General Manager Sunil Kumar Sood said, "These sections are spread across 700 km, including the accident site, and we have
begun stringent patrolling of all sections that have such tracks. In fact, along single tracks, we have reduced the patrolling distance for the
key-man from 8km to 4 km."

Bakshi, however, preferred having a uniform system for the entire 700-odd km of 'D' mark rails. He also recommended further reducing by
half the distance that key-men are responsible for. "One key-man should be posted to patrol only a 2 km stretch," Bakshi said, adding that
precautions on speed should also be implemented.

Please dont hire our docs during duty hours, BMC requests private hospitals

Top: KEM Hospital had last month suspended a senior doctor after he was found to be forcing patients to get blood tests done at a private pathology lab (above) Mirror reports
May 1: BMC may ban docs from private practice. Mar 19: KEM doc suspended for outsourcing blood tests. Jul 20, 2013: Doc who ran private practice in trouble. Aug 5, 2013:
Sion doc who bunked shift for private practice sacked

Alarmed over rising cases of civic doctors practicing at private hospitals instead of attending duty, BMC writes to private players, asks
deans to keep watch.

Unable to prevent its doctors from undertaking private practice, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has written to all private
hospitals in the vicinity of civic hospitals, informing them about the official duty timings of doctors - 9 am to 4 pm -- and requesting them not
to hire them during these hours.

"We have also given them details of doctors from various departments. We are hoping private hospitals will cooperate with us," said Sanjay
Deshmukh, Additional Municipal Commissioner.

According to civic officials, a majority of cases of private practice by BMC doctors have been detected near civic hospitals. "It's difficult to
keep track of all of them. They are in demand in private hospitals because of their affiliation with civic hospitals," said a civic official.

The BMC has also asked private hospitals to ensure that the civic norm of allowing private practice at only one hospital is followed. If
required, private hospitals will be given details of doctors working at civic hospitals in the vicinity.

With increasing cases of civic doctors giving a complete miss to their jobs, BMC is considering a total ban on private practice by its doctors.
However, it is in two minds about the ban as it fears civic hospitals might lose skilled hands in the process.

Mayor Sunil Prabhu said BMC had sought the advice of municipal hospital deans, who have been asked to submit a report in 30 days.
Recently, six doctors from Nair, Sion and KEM hospitals were under scrutiny for dereliction of duty. Two of them, who were suspended, later
resigned.

The KEM Hospital had last month suspended a senior doctor after he was found to be forcing patients admitted under him at KEM to get
blood tests done at a private pathology laboratory, when these tests are done free of charge at civicrun hospitals. Dr R C Khandelwal, attached
to the orthopaedic department, was also accused of performing surgeries at KEM on patients who consulted him privately.

The civic body pays modest salaries to its doctors, but also allows them to practise at their own clinics or at private hospitals after they finish
their day's work at civic hospitals provided they do not avail of the Non-Practice Allowance. On their part, the doctors are also keen to be
attached to civic hospitals as the experience they get treating unique cases enhances their work profile.

Dr Saeeda Khan, the corporator from Kurla who proposed the ban in the civic general body last month, said BMC's objective in allowing its
doctors to undertake private practice was to retain good doctors.

"Recently it has been found that some doctors were not available at their consulting rooms at BMC hospitals they are attached to. Our civic
patient queues are growing longer as treatment gets delayed," she said.

Prabhu also said senior doctors at civic hospitals have been asked to track the duty records of doctors and submit a detailed report. "As a civic
body, we are concerned about poor and needy patients," he said.

In July last year, BMC had issued a circular warning civic doctors of suspension and even termination of services if they were found missing
during work hours. The BMC had also asked its doctors to disclose names of hospitals where they were attached and to not switch off their
mobile phones during work hours.
Palghar man, who voted in all 16 Lok Sabha polls, dies at 111
An 'early to bed, early to rise' man, Raghunath Raut was actively involved in his dairy business.

Raghunath Jeevan Raut, the oldest man in Thane District and perhaps Maharashtra, died at his home on Sunday, aged 111. He had the
distinction of voting in all 16 Lok Sabha elections - right from 1951-52 when independent India held elections to the first Lok Sabha, to the
current general elections which ended on Monday.

Raut belonged to Makunsar, a small village near Palghar, 90 kms from Mumbai. Until last week, he was actively involved in his family's dairy
business, and religiously followed a routine that would put many a young man to shame.

Born on May 12, 1903, to Jeevan and Sakubai, Raut was one of six brothers, the rest of whom are no more. He studied only up to Std 2 at the
Zilla Parishad Marathi School in Makunsar, and could read a bit, though writing was confined only to signing his name.

When he was old enough, Raut was initiated into the family profession of dairy farming, and till last week made it a point to supervise, and
even sometimes milk buffaloes in his stable.

Raut followed an "early to bed, early to rise" regime, and had reasonably good eyesight without the aid of spectacles. He used to watch
Doordarshan's Marathi channel, and especially "Amchi Maati, Amchi Manse", a programme for farmers, besides the Marathi news, his
younger son Yadhunath, 50, said.

Married twice, first to Yashoda and then Anandi - both his wives passed away - Raut fathered nine daughters and two sons, all of whom are
well settled, in India and abroad.

Raut was a staunch follower of Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met when the leader visited Palghar in the mid-40s. He was swayed by Gandhi's
call and actively participated in the Quit India Movement.

The farmhouse where Raut's family live in Makunsar was, in fact, the place where villagers would assemble to stage small protests against the
British rule.

"My father was very healthy and would drink a litre of milk every day He had two tablespoons of ghee (clarified butter) with his diet of two
chappatis, vegetable, dal and rice," said Yadhunath.

Raut was also fond of spicy veg curry with rice bakri (bread) as it was rich in carbohydrates, and he fasted every Thursday, maintaining that
the body would thus be cleansed of impurities.

He suffered no more than routine coughs and colds, for which he relied on homemade remedies. Last year, due to old age, he had problems
with his left ear, but refused a hearing aid.

It was his strict, regular routine that apparently helped keep Raut going. "Until he was almost 90, he used to himself milk at least 15 buffaloes
a day," Yadhunath said.

"And though he gave up sometime in the 90s, until last week he supervised the milking process of over 25 buffaloes on our farm, ensuring
there was no delay in transporting around 250 litres daily to Virar."
Campa Cola: Now, residents fight for deemed conveyance falters
Collector of stamps likely to reject the request as residents failed to submit key building-use documents.

The state government is likely to turn down a request by residents of Campa Cola compound seeking deemed conveyance for the Worli
complex, where scores of illegally built apartments face demolition.

While submitting the conveyance application to Collector of Stamps Vandana Suryawanshi, the residents had failed to provide key building-
use permissions such as the occupation and completion certificates, and the approved layout plan.

The residents had apparently sought to take advantage of a government scheme that allows cooperative housing societies to apply for deemed
conveyance (land deed).

Campa Cola has 97 illegal flats and the Supreme Court has asked its occupants to vacate the properties before May 31. The flats will be then
demolished by the BMC.

Inspector-General of Stamps and Registration Shrikar Pardeshi said that the Housing and Revenue Department had made submission of
building commencement, completion and occupancy certificates mandatory for seeking conveyance deed. Housing societies are also required
to submit BMC-approved layout plans.

Campa Cola residents had first made a request to Suryawanshi for granting conveyance on December 30 last year, followed by letters on
January 1 and March 3 this year.

"Surywanshi then wrote to them, asking them to submit documents like occupancy certificate and sanction building plan. The society,
however, said it cannot give the documents," Pardeshi said. "On March 18, Surywanshi wrote to our department that the case cannot be
disposed as the society had failed to submit the papers."

Apart from paperwork, three cases filed in the Bombay High Court over the conveyance issue also served as a hurdle. "The final decision
cannot be taken till the High Court disposes of the petitions," Suryawanshi said.

Campa Cola spokesperson Nandini Mehta, however, said that the residents' request for deemed conveyance was granted in December, but
the BMC challenged it. "The Supreme Court said that conveyance had nothing to do with the demolition order,'' Mehta said.

Nirav Shah of DSK Legal, which is advising the residents, said that the documents demanded by the collector of stamps were not relevant for
"adjudication of the deemed conveyance".

Childcare plans give better returns than PPF, FDs
Childcare plans of mutual FUND houses have given an average 11% return on a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) basis in the past 10
years, an ETIG analysis shows. This may be more attractive than traditional investment avenues such as public provident fund and fixed deposits,
which offer about 8% on an average over a 10-year period.
But analysts say investors would be better off INVESTING in pure diversified equity FUNDS in the early years of a child's life and increase
exposure to debt funds in the later part to achieve their goals for the child.
"Some child plans have done well. Investing in a child plan is similar to investing in an openended mutual FUND . It is also important to check the
asset allocation a fund maintains and whether it would be suitable for your risk profile and for meeting your long-term objectives," said Niranjan
Risbood, director of fund research at Morningstar India.
There are 10 childcare schemes offered by top fund houses such as HDFC, ICICI, SBI, Templeton, UTI, Peerless and LIC Nomura. According to
Morningstar India, these funds can be broadly classified into three categories conservative allocation, moderate allocation and equity funds. In
conservative allocation, the asset allocation is similar to monthly income plans with 20% allocation to equities. Plans such as HDFC Children's Gift
Saving, ICICI Pru Child Care Study Regular Plan and SBI Magnum Child Benefit Regular Growth, in existence for 10 years, have given an average
7.2% return on a CAGR basis.
In this category, Peerless MF Child Growth scheme, running for less than 10 years, has given 8% returns in the past three years. It offers some
exposure to GOLD , too. In the moderate allocation category, childcare schemes such as HDFC Children's Gift Investment, LIC Nomura MF
Children, Templeton India Children Gift Growth and UTI Children's Career Balanced are similar to balanced funds and have around 60% of asset
allocation to equities.
This category has given average returns of 12.4% in 10 years.
Schemes in the third category have 100% asset allocation to equities. Schemes such as UTI CCP Advantage Growth and ICICI Pru Child Care Gift
Regular Plan have fetched returns close to 16% in the past 10 years. To make the most of their investments, investors should understand the tax
implications of the schemes.
"While choosing these funds, an important thing investors should note is asset allocation. If the fund INVESTS more than 65% in equities, then
investment made in such a fund is exempt from capital gains tax provided it's held for one year," according to a tax consultant.?
"And if the fund INVESTS less than 65% in equities, the investment is taxable at a rate lower of 20.6% with indexation and 10.3% without
indexation. For tax efficiency, schemes with over 65% exposure to equity are best placed for investors who remain invested for more than a year.
However, if one is not keen to take risk associated with equity investing, it makes sense to go for the other options."
Most analysts say the best way for parents to approach investing for their children is to adopt a systematic approach of high exposure to equity in the
formative years of the child and increasing exposure to debt funds in the later part of the investment horizon.
For instance, if parents plan a 15-year investment for their children, analysts recommend having exposure to diversified equity FUNDS for the first
10 years and then gradually increasing exposure to debt funds in the last five years. This works for parents who are well informed about INVESTING
in markets.
But, for those who occupied in their jobs and with little time for investments, investing in childcare schemes with high equity exposure can fetch good
returns, say analysts.


Yes Bank to seek regulatory clarity on Madhu Kapur as promoter


NEW DELHI: Private sector lender Yes Bank is seeking clarity from concerned regulators, including Sebi, on whether Madhu Kapur can be moved out
of the promotercategory.
Against the backdrop of ongoing legal tussle over Madhu Kapur's right to nominate directors on the lender's board, Yes Bank board late last month had
decided that she cannot be treated as a promoter.

Last month, the Bombay High Court had directed Rana Kapoor and Madhu Kapur to amicably resolve a dispute relating to latter's right to nominate
directors on Yes Bank's board.
Madhu Kapur is the estranged sister-in-law of Yes Bank CEO Rana Kapoor.
She and her family as well as a related entity together have nearly 12 per cent stake in the bank, according to data available with STOCK
exchanges.
"In order to ensure compliance with law, the Bank is in the process of seeking regulatory clarifications on the matter from the concerned authorities.
Further, the bank has made appropriate public disclosures in this regard...," a Yes Bank spokesperson said.
He was responding to queries on whether the bank with regard to plans to remove Madhu Kapur from the promoter category, has the bank sought
clarifications from Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), Corporate Affairs Ministry and Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
In the shareholding pattern details provided to the NSE, Yes Bank has mentioned "subject to regulatory clarifications" against promoter entities --
Madhu Kapur and Family, and Mags Finvest Private Ltd.
At the end of March 2014, Madhu Kapur and Family held 9.74 per cent while the shareholding of Mags Finvest stood at 2.17 per cent.
Madhu Kapur is the wife of late Ashok Kapur who was co-founder and promoter of Yes Bank.
"Madhu Kapur being successor of late Ashok Kapur cannot be considered as Indian partner or India promoter and accordingly, cannot inherit
the rights under Articles of Association or the status of Promoter of Yes Bank," Yes Bank had said in a statement on April 28.
The board of Yes Bank had taken this decision during their meeting last month.
"Since the advocates of Madhu Kapur as a start up to any amicable resolution require the bank to recognise her rights as Indian Partner, the board is
not in a position to accede to any such request for the reason mentioned above," it had said.
Rana Kapoor and Ashok Kapur jointly founded the bank in 2004. Ashok Kapur was killed in the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 2008.
In 2013, Madhu Kapur had moved the Bombay High Court alleging that Rana Kapoor attempted to deprive her and her children Shagun Kapur Gogia
of a place on the board.

No penalty if minimum balance not kept in dormant bank account
MUMBAI: MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India has asked banks not to penalise account holders for not maintaining minimum balance in their
inoperative accounts.
The banking regulator had announced its intention in a recent policy statement. "It is advised that henceforth banks are not permitted to levy penal
charges for non-maintenance of minimum balances in any inoperative account," RBI said in a circular issued to all commercial banks.

The central bank had said that it proposes to frame comprehensive consumer protection regulations based on domestic experience and global best
practices in its annual policy statement in April. "Banks should also not take undue advantage of customer difficulty or inattention," said the governor's
policy statement.
"Instead of levying penal charges for non-maintenance of minimum balance in ordinary savings bank accounts, banks should limit services available on
such accounts to those available to basic savings bank deposit accounts. But they should restore the services when the balances improve to the
minimum required level."
Basic savings bank deposit accounts are those that banks have mandated to offer without any minimum balance requirement. But such accounts can
be used only for cash deposit and withdrawal; there are no other services such as cheque books.
The central bank had also said that banks should limit the liability of customers in electronic banking transactions in cases where banks are not able to
prove customer negligence.
It also said that banks should consider allowing their borrowers the possibility of prepaying floating rate term loans without any penalty. At present,
each bank has its own policy with regard to non-maintenance of minimum balances. Some public sector banks such as the State Bank of
India and IDBI Bank among others have waived the requirement of maintaining minimum balances in savings bank accounts.
Among the many other initiatives, RBI has also directed banks to calculate interest rate paid on savings banks on the daily minimum balance instead of
the earlier practice of paying interest on quarterly balances.
Understanding computation of limitations, jurisdictions
Companies try to use all possible technical defences to get away from the clutches of law, so that legal redress for a consumer becomes a
difficult task. The National Commission's recent ruling on limitation and jurisdiction will help consumers in their quest for justice.

N Murari and his brothers had jointly purchased block board, manufactured by Tata Coffee. This material was purchased in April 2005 and
used in their respective homes for making furniture and cabinets.

In March 2007, they noticed the block board was affected by borer infestation. They took up the matter with the company but did not get a
proper response. Ultimately, in 2009, each of the four brothers independently filed individual consumer complaints before the Bellary District
Forum. The Tatas questioned the jurisdiction of the Forum at Bellary, claiming there was an agreement that all disputes would be subject to
Bangalore jurisdiction. The company also claimed the complaint was time-barred, as the block board had been purchased four years ago.
Tatas contended there was no evidence of any manufacturing defect and, hence, could not be held liable.

On jurisdiction, the Forum concluded the block board was delivered and used at Bellary, where it was found infested with borer worms. So,
the District Forum at Bellary would have the territorial jurisdiction to decide the dispute. On limitation, the Forum observed that the date of
purchase was immaterial, since the time limit for filing the complaint would have to be reckoned from the date when the cause of action had
arisen, which was March 2007, when the block board was found to be borer infected. The complaint was within two years and held to be in
time.

The Forum ordered Tatas to refund the price of the block board, with nine per cent interest from the date of the complaint. Tatas, as well as
Murari and his brothers, appealed against this order to the Karnataka State Commission. While Tatas wanted the order set aside, Murari and
his brothers wanted the compensation enhanced. The State Commission dismissed the Tatas' appeals. Murari and his brothers were also
awarded Rs 5,000 each as compensation and Rs 2,000 each as litigation costs.

The Tatas then approached the National Commission. Their main argument was that limitation should be computed from 2005, when the
material was purchased, and that the complaint was time barred. Rejecting this argument, the Commission observed the cause of action for
filing the complaint was detection of borer infestation in the block board. A complaint can be made only when the infestation is noticed and
not before. So, though the material was purchased in 2005, the limitation would start from March 2007, when infestation was detected.
Accordingly, the National Commission concurred with the District Forum and State Commission that the complaint filed in 2009, within two
years from the date of detection of the infestation, was within the limitation period.

The National Commission further observed a printed stipulation on the bill that all disputes would be subject to Bangalore jurisdiction could
not be used to circumvent the Consumer Protection Act, which legally vested jurisdiction in the Forum at Bellary, where the goods had been
delivered and the cause of action had arisen.

On the evidence in respect of the infestation, Murari and his brother had filed their carpenter's affidavit to support their case. They had also
applied for appointing an independent architect as court commissioner to opine on the infestation but their application was opposed by the
Tatas. The company had not produced any evidence in its defence. Based on this evidence, the District Forum and State Commission had
given concurrent findings that the material was defective, which could not be challenged in revision.

Accordingly, by its judgement dated March 7, 2014, delivered by Vinay Kumar for the bench, along with Vineeta Rai, the National
Commission dismissed Tatas' revision and upheld the order in favour of the consumer. Simply put, the cause of a consumer's grievance is
the starting point for computing limitation. The law will prevail over a standard clause unilaterally printed on a bill.
Additional facilities will push up society charges
When Ajanta Co-operative Housing Society in Govandi, a suburb in Mumbai, was redeveloped in 2009, the biggest grouse the residents had
was the higher maintenance chargesthey had to shell out every month. Their monthly costs suddenly jumped from about Rs 700 to Rs
5,000.

Because of this, some of the residents - mostly senior citizens - were opposed to the redevelopment. They did get bigger flats,
with additional facilities such as lift, security guards and closed-circuit televisions, among others. However, given the high monthly outgo
towards maintenance, many of them now wonder if it made sense. In redevelopment, the builder gives a corpus, apart from the rent, to the
original flat owners; however, this amount will not last a lifetime.
WHERE DOES ALL THE MONEY GO?
Common items of a society bill
Maintenance charges
Service charges
Water charges
Parking charges
Property tax
Sinking FUND
Repair FUND
Non-occupancy charges (if house is not occupied)

This is the dilemma faced by many housing societies in Mumbai, says Chandrashekhar Prabhu, housing activist and former president of
Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority. "In Mumbai, buildings coming for redevelopment are at least 30 years old. So, most
of the residents are retired; when they have to pay Rs 10,000 a month, against the earlier Rs 1,000, it becomes very expensive for them."

Society charges consist of two main components. One is the maintenance charge, which can vary depending on the facilities offered by the
society. The other is the future requirements, says Ashutosh Limaye, head (research & real estate intelligence service) at Jones Lang LaSalle.

The maintenance charge includes MONEY spent on electricity, security guards, water, cleanliness, routine maintenance of the building,
etc. There is scope for the society to save under these heads. For instance, if the building has closed-circuit television and deployed security
guards round the clock, it will push up costs. However, it is also advisable not to cut on these aspects because it is a question of safety.

In the case of electricity bills, the society can reduce the number of lights or switch to compact fluorescent ones to save money. If the lobby
is air-conditioned, it need not be switched on all the time because people don't spend time there.

If there is more than one lift, you can use a software which will ensure that when someone calls for a lift, the one closest to that floor
comes.

If the building has mechanised or stack parking, that can push up costs but might be hard to avoid. Older buildings were usually ground plus
three or four storied, where a small motor was sufficient to pump water to the overhead storage tank. However, if after redevelopment, the
height of the building has increased to seven-plus floors, a more powerful motor is required to pump water to the storage tank on the
terrace. This will increase electricity consumption.

Additional facilities such as garden, club house, swimming pool or gymnasium will add to the monthly expenses.

Future expenses include sinking FUND , building repair fund, money for setting up a borewell and so on. Even if these overheads work out
to be expensive, it will be eventually utilised for the building's benefit.

Property tax is another big component of your monthly outgo, which increases after redevelopment. When a building is redeveloped or
reconstructed, the tax liability will increase because it will be reassessed, treating it as a new building. It varies from city to city. For
instance, in Mumbai, it was earlier calculated on rateable value, while now it is calculated on MARKET value.

In rateable value, the property tax is calculated at 11 times the value of the rent in that particular area. In capital value, the current MARKET
value of the property is determined based on stamp duty ready-reckoner rates. Property tax is calculated as a certain percentage of the
market value.

For older residents, it is a double burden. "Apart from the increase in the maintenance charges, they will have to pay more, as the area of
the flat increases,'' says Limaye of Jones Lang LaSalle.

For instance, if the maintenance was Rs 2 a sq ft for an 800-sq ft flat, it might go up after redevelopment to Rs 7 a sq ft for a 1,200 sq ft
flat. This means the monthly outgo will increase from Rs 1,600 a month to Rs 8,400 a month.

Limaye says, most societies do their homework before going in for redevelopment ensuring they create a sizeable corpus. Usually, it does
not last more than 10 years.

"It really depends on the members. For instance, if the members are willing to pay more, they can ask for flats with bigger areas, instead of
a bigger corpus. On the other hand, if the members can't afford to pay higher maintenance, they can ask the builder for a larger corpus,''
says Limaye.

In many buildings, the residents might not want many techno-savvy features. But the builder would be keen on these additional features, as
it becomes easier to sell the flats to new residents at a higher premium. This is a dilemma faced by many housing societies.

One way out is for residents to redevelop the building on their own, without involving a builder. Many co-operative housing societies that
came up before the 1960s were built this way, and there is no reason why they can't be redeveloped without builders.

"Eight per cent of Mumbai is self-developed. There is no reason why people can't do it now. Instead of giving redevelopment rights to
builders, residents should use good contractors and sell the surplus area through consultants or brokers. This will ensure they are able
to MAKE MONEY from the building," says Prabhu.
M J Antony: Monitor of all causes
The Supreme Court burdens itself with too many committees
The power of the Supreme Court has been expanded by interpretation far beyond what the founding fathers of the Constitution planned.
Though it was meant to deal mainly with constitutional questions, it has taken upon itself tasks no other court in the world has done, gaining
power at each step. This has strained the institution, already suffering from a shortage of judges, infrastructure and poor FUNDING .

This has not deterred the court from taking up more responsibilities than it can handle. It has set up monitoring committees in scores of
worthy causes. Last week, it appointed two of its former judges to monitor the investigation into black money stashed in foreign tax havens.
The monitoring of the 2G spectrum scam is still lingering. Coalgate is another example.

It would seem that the sincere efforts of the court to monitor the affairs of the country in different fields are going overboard. Every Friday,
more than 3,000 applications inside scores of writ petitions are placed before the "forest bench" of the court. They range from the closure of
a nondescript saw mill on the border of a forest, removal of machinery from a mining area, settling the border between Andhra Pradesh and
Karnataka for mining purposes and compensation for losses caused by authorities misinterpreting the orders of the court. A few generations
of judges have dealt with the complaints over the years, assisted by a monitoring committee, but there is no end in sight. Applications on
individual complaints continue to mount and development work at distant work sites might be in suspended animation.

Last week, the court burdened itself with another monitoring committee, seeking to reform the chaotic field of road safety. In its judgment
in the case, S Rajaseekaran vs Union of India, it asked the committee to deal with several aspects of the issue (prompted by statistics such
as 130,000 road deaths and 500,000 injured every year) such as licensing, vehicle fitness, traffic signals, drunken driving, road engineering,
educating the public and emergency care, amendment to the Motor Vehicles Act, to name a few.

The court admitted that the "journey that has been undertaken would be long and arduous; it is difficult to visualise when the same would
end, if at all." But it wants to ensure success and, therefore, will "constantly supervise" the steps undertaken by the central and state
governments. The committee, which will be headed by a Supreme Court judge who is about to retire, will report to the court periodically and
there are eight detailed guidelines to the governments and the committee regarding their roles. Though all these orders are made with good
intentions, the question is whether the strained shoulders of the court can take up more responsibilities when it cannot dispose of 66,000
cases, some of them pending before it for decades.

Before jaywalking into unchartered administrative territory, jammed with police corruption, ambulance-chasing lawyers, STOCK witnesses
and overheated tribunals, the Supreme Court must ponder whether these issues are judicially manageable. There is enough work to be done
at home before launching reforms outside. For instance, one bench had referred 20 knotty questions touching only on the payment of
compensation. The insurance companies have also raised several issues. The high courts and different benches of the Supreme Court itself
have given conflicting decisions arising from the outdated Motor Vehicles Act. These files are gathering dust even now, waiting for answers.

Just for instance, a dilemma from a pending case has arisen in these days of terrorism about the murder of the driver and abandonment of
the vehicle. Some courts have held that it would be an "accident" and, therefore, the insurer would be liable. Some others do not think so.
There is then the question of inflation, which has not been recognised by the Act and rarely offset by the judges, leading to low damages.
Victims have to climb up the judicial pyramid on crutches to get a decent sum.

The court itself has noted these chronic ills when it remarked that "motor accident victims are doubly unfortunate - first in getting involved in
an accident, and second, in not getting any compensation." (Jai Prakash vs National Insurance Co).

There are enough reforms that can start from within the judiciary. The principles must be laid down clearly to help the courts below decide
road accident cases. If the Supreme Court takes up this task, it will have little time to solve all the mishaps, present and future, occurring on
the road. Some work must be left to the Law Commission and the government machinery. The government has given committees a bad
name ("a camel is a horse designed by a government committee). The court should be careful not to be stranded in murky terrain without a
road map.









Love, duty and family

In Family Life, Akhil Sharma even manages to explain subtleties of language in a perfectly effortless way
Akhil Sharma's novel Family Life may have special appeal for those who have spent many years looking after incurable relatives, and still
find joy and meaning in life.

A recent e-mail from a friend in London said she had just attended a reading by Akhil Sharma of his latest novel Family Life (2014), "and it
sounds wonderful. He himself is impressive, very honest and
funny
. The subject may be grim, but he writes with wit."

So I dashed out to buy the book or to be honest, a kind and helpful friend dashed out for me and returned triumphantly with the book
in the evening. It's one of the first immigrant Indian books I have felt like reading. Immigrants and their problems generally bore me.

Summarised, Family Life sounds grim. The Mishras decide to immigrate to the US with their two young sons. All goes well for a while. The
older son Birju, who has just been admitted to a prestigious school, has a swimming accident. He had dived into a swimming pool, hit his
head on the pool's cement floor, lain there for three minutes and emerged brain dead. The novel is about the family's attempts to cope with
the tragedy.

The novel is far from being a tear-jerker. It is both detached and deeply felt and witty and heart-breaking. Writing about his father, the
narrator Ajay, the younger Mishra son says, "I used to think that my father had been assigned to us by the government.

This was because he appeared to serve no purpose. When he got home in the evening, all he did was sit in his chair in the living room, drink
tea, and read the paper. Often he looked angry." In the US, his son's accident made him an alcoholic. More than that he tells his fellow
commuters that he is one. News gets back to Queens where they live, and people begin to avoid them.

It's a novel that may have special appeal for those who have spent many years looking after incurable relatives, and who discover that, even
after such an ordeal, they can still find joy and meaning in life. They are admirable people, just as the author who went through all this as a
child is admirable, particularly because of his ability to turn the pain into brilliant writing..

Talking about his evolution as a writer, Sharma describes his fascination with Hemingway, first with books about Hemingway, and then
books by Hemingway. Sharma writes, "After four or five months of reading Hemingway, I decided to write a story. I had in the past written
stories for English classes. These had to be about white people, because white people seemed to matter more. Also, I hadn't known how to
write about Indians. How would I translate the various family relations, the difference between an uncle who is a father's brother and an
uncle who is a mother's brother? Having read Hemingway, I knew that I should push aside all the exotic things to the side- as if they didn't
matter, that this was how one used exoticism---by not bothering to explain."

In Family Life Sharma even manages to explain subtleties of language in a perfectly effortless way. Neighbours in the Delhi neighbourhood
where the Mishras live have heard from the postman that the tickets to the US for Mrs Mishra and the boys have arrived. (Mr Mishra had left
a year earlier). The procession to the Mishra house is led by "Behri Aunty," "so later she could say she was there." Behri said, "Your mister
must be very happy too."

The narrator writes, "Even I knew there was something improper about the word 'mister-.'...To wander out of Hindi was to suggest that
something indecent was being referred to."


10-year-olds can open and operate bank account alone: RBI
MUMBAI: Children older than 10 years will no longer need the help of their parents or guardians to open and operate a savings bank
account. To boost financial inclusion, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday said that banks were at liberty to allow minors
above 10 years to independently open and operate savings bank accounts. As of now, banks allow minors to operate bank accounts
only along with a parent or a guardian. All children and teenagers below the age of 18 are considered minors under current rules.

RBI also allowed banks to offer additional facilities like internet banking, ATM, debit card and chequebook to a minor. However, the
central bank said that such facilities should be within the overall norms that banks will not allow a minor's account to be overdrawn
and that these accounts should always remain in credit.

However, RBI has given the leeway to banks to fix the minimum age at which they will allow minors to operate savings bank
accounts independently. Banks can also fix a maximum limit on money such minors can have at their disposal through such account.
Banks can also decide on what kind of documents will be needed to open accounts by minors, a notification from RBI said.

In a separate notification, the RBI said banks cannot slap charges on customers for not maintaining the minimum balance in
inoperative savings and current accounts in which no transactions have been made for two years. The central bank had
announced this change in its April 1 monetary police and was made effective on Tuesday.

In its last policy meeting document, the RBI had also said that banks should not take undue advantage of customer difficulty or
inattention relating to banking services. "Instead of levying penal charges for non-maintenance of minimum balance in ordinary
savings bank accounts, banks should limit services available on such accounts to those available to Basic Savings Bank Deposit
Accounts and restore the services when the balances improve to the minimum required level," the policy document had said.

In recent times, there have been cases where due to penal charges in inoperative accounts, customers had negative balances. And
when they went to close such accounts, they were asked to pay up. The latest RBI circular will avoid such situations..
Sexual harassment at workplace law gets tepid response
BANGALORE: It's been a year since the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act was passed; one of Parliament's several
responses to increasing attacks on women. The act has been described by some as one of the most exacting in the world, especially
with regard to the responsibilities it places on employers.

To understand what has changed since the act came into being, TOI spoke to a number of people HR heads, employees, and legal
and workplace harassment experts. The findings are mixed.

Many of the larger and more progressive companies have taken important steps, but even among them, most are yet to implement
measures in the full spirit of the act. The vast majority of business establishments, however, are still trying to figure out what to do.

Gaurang Kanth, a Supreme Court lawyer who specializes in workplace harassment cases, provides a particularly harsh assessment.
He says organizations have "completely failed" in their obligations. "I find more and more sexual harassment cases coming from
workplaces." He points to a teacher's case against the principal and two other management committee members of Chinmaya
Vidyalaya, Delhi, and one from a major technology company that he does not wish TOI to name because the case is not yet public.

On the contrary, Nirmala Menon, founder of Interweave Consulting, an organization focusing on diversity management and
inclusion at the workplace, says there is some visible change. "Companies are far more proactive in addressing issues around
workplace harassment. It's more than putting a check in the box. It's like fire insurance, and firms realize that there is too much to
lose, including the company's brand equity, besides stringent penalties imposed by law. Companies have put in place stringent
polices and set up committees to look at issues," she says.

Some have even asked Interweave to create policy documents and literature in regional languages for the benefit of their
housekeeping and administrative staff who may not understand English.

Experts agree that most companies have, at best, taken only partial steps in all of these areas. Many rushed to establish internal
complaints committees soon after the act was passed. But not many of these committees have, as required by the law, a person from
an NGO or association committed to the cause of women.

"Companies are mechanically putting together three people from the legal team and one woman employee. They are treating it in a
legal mode, rather than in a resolution mode," says Pankaj Sharma, chief trustee of the non-profit Centre for Transforming India and
an expert on workplace sexual harassment issues.

He notes that the committee has been bestowed partial powers of a civil court to take penal action, impose fines. "It's the first time
private entities have been offered such powers. But most companies are yet to define their sexual harassment policies and service
rules, what would constitute, for instance, a sexually coloured remark. They have not defined their investigation process. So on what
basis will these committees act?" Sharma asks.





The biggest ground yet to be covered is in educating and sensitizing employees. Some have one-off workshops for department heads,
but make no effort to ensure the message filters down.

"Many organizations are not actively communicating the policy among its employees ... Merely having the policy as part of the
induction does not suffice. They have to communicate it at regular intervals so that it comes alive through campaigns and creative
platforms like theatre," says Menon.

Some do have regular programmes. Priti Kataria, chairperson of Wipro's Prevention of Sexual Harassment Committee, says the
company has put up its policy and redressal mechanism on the intranet, conducts regular awareness campaigns, and encourages all
employees to take the company's 'Prevention of Sexual Harassment' online training module to understand what behaviours
constitute harassment.

Infosys has classroom sessions, e-learning programmes, poster campaigns and mailers stressing on the importance of professional
behaviour at the workplace. Mindtree has made an e-learning course on sexual harassment mandatory.

But in most cases, such programmes are not mandatory and, therefore, have limited impact. Several employees in different
companies that TOI spoke to confirmed this. "I know the policy exists because of the group mail and intranet. The company
conducts quizzes once in three months, but it's not mandatory, so most of us don't take it. Many employees don't really go through
the policy document," said an employee in a large Indian IT company.

Sharma says companies are following a minimal approach fearing that if employees know more, they will raise more complaints.
Menon has a different take. She says now when companies are focusing on being fun workplaces, they are concerned about
impacting the camaraderie between employees. "They are working to see how the policy can be communicated in the right spirit."
You are corrupt, defendant tells judge
Producer Sanjay Punamiya makes allegation in court; Refusing to relent, Justice Roshan Dalvi says she will continue hearing case.

In a first of its kind courtroom drama, a defendant levelled allegations of corruption against a Bombay High Court judge, and asked her to
recuse herself from the matter. The incident occurred during Wednesday's hearing of the case between the Kuwaiti Royal family and film
producer Sanjay Punamiya, pertaining to ownership of a Marine Drive flat.

Punamiya's advocate told the court that he was allegedly promised a favourable order if he coughed up Rs 25 lakh, and that he filed a
complaint against the judge with Chief Justice of HC, CBI, among others and hence she should not hear the case.

Justice Roshan Dalvi, who was hearing the case, however, refused to relent and said she will continue hearing the case. She asked for a copy
of the complaint that Punamiya's lawyers O D Kakade and Nilesh Ojha filed against her. She then went through the nine-page complaint,
while counsels representing Faizal Essa, former Kuwaiti consul-general and caretaker of the property, waited.

The complaint alleged that Punamiya met Justice Dalvi's husband Shamim Dalvi in March through another lawyer, and alleged that he was
promised a favourable order in the case to be heard by Justice Dalvi if paid the amount.

The meeting allegedly took place on April 19 in Shamim Dalvi's office at Yusuf Building in Fort. "Shamim Dalvi told the applicant (Punamiya)
that he will have to pay an amount to get a favourable order. Mr Dalvi asked the applicant and an advocate, Nitin Parikh, to meet another
advocate in a day or two."

Couple of days later, Punamiya claims he met the advocate as directed, and was allegedly told he would have to pay. "In order to get a
favourable order, the applicant will have to make an application under Section 9 of the Civil Procedure Code and the rest would be done by
Mrs Roshan Dalvi if the applicant deposits Rs 25 lakh," the complaint alleges.

Justice Dalvi read the complaint and instead of giving in and recusing herself, said she would continue to hear the case. She, in fact, asked
Punamiya's lawyers to furnish transcripts of the conversations they had with her husband and the other advocate, with regards to the
allegations. Punamiya's lawyer, however, could not produce a copy of the transcript.

The arguments pertaining to the Marine Drive property then continued till 1.40 pm. Before rising, Justice Dalvi said she would not take the
allegation lightly and placed Punamiya and his lawyer in court's custody. Ojha then filed a complaint to the CJ about the detention of Kakade
and Punamiya. Justice Dalvi then got Ojha to remain in court custody, but later ordered their release. "This happened only because we filed a
complaint with the CJ," Ojha said.

Around 4.45 pm, Justice Dalvi ordered that no third party rights in the property should be created. As for the allegations against her, she said
the CJ will take appropriate action.

Punamiya's lawyers moved a complaint of contempt against Justice Dalvi and also complained about unlawful detention. They demanded Rs
50 crore as compensation for being detained against procedure of law. "We will also move a writ petition asking as to why the CBI has not
taken action on the complaint. Justice Dalvi also went on to investigate a complaint made against herself contrary to procedure. We brought
all of this to the CJ's notice," Ojha said.

The case

The dispute pertaining to a 7,000 sq ft Marine Drive flat began last May when Faizal Essa Al-Yousuf Al-Essa, former Kuwaiti consul-general
and caretaker of the property, approached the police accusing Punamiya of illegally taking over the apartment, a vault housed in it, and two
5th floor offices of Al-Sabah Court. The property is said to be worth Rs 125 crore. The Kuwaiti royal family had bought the entire building in
the early 1950s.

Essa, 83, said when he left for Kuwait in April 2013 following a kidney replacement surgery, Punamiya forcibly occupied the flat in his
absence. Punamiya, on the other hand, claimed Essa handed over the flat's tenancy to him in October 2012 for a rent of Rs 50,000 a month.
The two sides have been involved in litigations over the issue and Faisal Essa recently approached HC.
Settle marital row, HC tells couple
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Friday asked the parents of a teenager, who was abducted and killed by his friends in 2007, to
explore the possibility of settling their matrimonial dispute.

Justice Revati Mohite-Dere heard a petition by the husband challenging the family court's order granting his estranged wife interim
monthly maintenance of Rs 40,000. The wife also filed a petition for enhancement of the amount saying that it is insufficient. She
continues to stay in her matrimonial home at Oshiwara.

She had sought interim monthly maintenance of Rs 2.5 lakh claiming that she had "lived a lavish lifestyle for 25 years and was used
to travelling in luxurious cars, wearing good clothes, enjoying annual holidays abroad and sleeping in an air-conditioned bedroom".

During the hearing both sides indicated to the judge that they are ready to work out a settlement. However, the judge directed that in
the intervening period the husband shall pay Rs 4 lakh over the next five weeks as arrears of the interim maintenance.

The wife's advocate, Saeed Akhtar, said he has to pay Rs 9.3 lakh total arrears. The judge also directed that without prejudice to his
rights, the husband shall pay for her electricity and telephone bills and provide her with a car and driver.

The husband's advocate opposed giving her a private car saying they will hire a private taxi instead. But Akhtar submitted, "He has
got several cars. It is ridiculous for her to travel in a private taxi after the lifestyle she has enjoyed."
Rs80,000 payout for defective fan
MUMBAI: A consumer forum on Thursday directed Bajaj Electricals Ltd and its dealer, Nakoda Steel Centre, to pay a compensation
of Rs 80,000 to a family in Parel after a defective fan they purchased scorched their walls and a table.

"The complainant, Madhav Palkar, had to suffer in the summer heat and is therefore entitled to compensation," the forum said. In
his complaint before the Central Mumbai District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in 2012, Palkar stated that, the fan was
breaking down intermittently soon after it was purchased in 2011. The company replaced the fan on June 15, 2011.

On July 25, 2011, Palkar observed that the fan was on fire and the surrounding area was damaged. Palkars claim for compensation
went unanswered. The company claimed that it was a wall mounted fan that was being wrongly used as a table fan. However, Palkar
claimed that the shop told him that the fan could be used in both ways.
Make senseless litigants pay: SC
Citing the Sahara case, the bench said Indian judiciary was grossly afflicted with frivolous litigation and the need was to find ways
and means to deter litigants from their compulsive obsession towards senseless and ill-considered claims.
NEW DELHI: After hearing arguments for countless hours for more than two years in the Sahara case, the Supreme Court on
Tuesday sent a request to Parliament: please enact a 'Code of Compulsory Compensation' (CCC).

"The suggestion to the legislature is to formulate a mechanism that anyone who initiates and continues a litigation senselessly, pays
for the same. It is suggested that the legislature should consider introduction of a 'Code of Compulsory Cost'," said a bench of
Justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar.

Citing the Sahara case, the bench said Indian judiciary was grossly afflicted with frivolous litigation and the need was to find ways
and means to deter litigants from their compulsive obsession towards senseless and ill-considered claims.
"What is sought to be redressed (through CCC) is a habituation to press illegitimate claims. This practice and pattern is so rampant
that in most cases, disputes which ought to have been settled in no time at all before the first court of incidence, are prolonged
endlessly, for years and years, from court to court, up to the highest court," it said.

"A conscious effort on the part of the legislature in this behalf would serve several purposes. It would, besides everything else, reduce
frivolous litigation," it said.

The bench said the tendency for such abuse of judicial process was not limited to any particular class of litigants. Justices
Radhakrishan and Khehar said, "The state and its agencies litigate endlessly up to the highest court, just because of the lack of
responsibility to take decisions. So much so that we have started to entertain the impression that all administrative and executive
decision-making are being left to the courts, just for that reason."

It said private litigants too adopted a similar approach of contesting judgments till the final court. It clarified, "The effort is not to
discourage a litigant in whose perception his cause is fair and legitimate. The effort is only to introduce consequences if the litigant's
perception was incorrect, and if this cause is found to be not fair and legitimate, he must pay for the same.

"In the present setting of the adjudicatory process, a litigant, no matter how irresponsible he is, suffers no consequences. Every
litigant, therefore, likes to take a chance, even when the counsel's advice is otherwise."

And there are some litigants who continue to pursue senseless and ill-conceived claims to somehow or the other defeat the process of
law, the bench said and cited the Sahara case as a "classic example" of what it was referring to.

New implant tames high blood pressure
A research group in Germany has created an implantable device that reduces blood pressure by 40 per cent by sending
electrical signals to the brain

The device has successfully reduced the blood pressure in rats by 40 per cent without any major side effects, and could offer hope for a
significant proportion of patients worldwide who do not respond to existing medical treatment for the condition. The first results have been
published in IOP Publishing's Journal of Neural Engineering.

The device consists of 24 individual electrodes that are integrated into a micro- machined cuff. It is designed to wrap around the vagal nerve,
which extends from the brainstem to the thorax and abdomen, supplying and stimulating various major organs including the heart and major
blood vessels. The device works by picking up signals from specific sensors, known as baroreceptors, which are activated when blood vessels
stretch.

Some baroreceptors are grouped together in concentrated areas in the aortic arch and report their information to the brainstem via in the
vagal nerve. These baroreceptors function to control short-term fluctuations in blood pressure. The device has been designed to identify only
those fibres that influence the blood pressure and avoid those that are responsible for heart rate, the power of heart beat, ventilation and
other vital functions.

In their study, the researchers, from the University of Freiburg, tested a prototype device on five male rats. The device was 2 cm long, with a
0.8 mm diameter, and delivered 40 pulses per second to the fibres of the baroreceptors in the vagal nerve. The researchers experimented on
various areas of the vagal nerve, exploring different stimulation sites around the nerve with different frequencies, amplitudes and durations
of stimulation.

Using the appropriate parameters, the researchers showed that the blood pressure could be easily reduced to 60 per cent of its original value
in a wide range of stimulation frequencies and pulse widths. No major side effects, such as a significant decrease in heart rate or breathing
rate, occurred when the electrode sites closest to the baroreceptor fibres were chosen for stimulation.

"Our proof-of-concept interface has shown that it is possible to use the left vagal nerve to reduce blood pressure without any adverse side
effects, which is important for a wide variety of potential treatments that could utilise nerve stimulation without actually penetrating the
nerve," lead author of the research, Dennis Plachta, said.

"As the device will require surgery, it is not intended to be the first port of call for treatment and will come into play when patients, for
whatever reasons, are resistant to medication. Nevertheless, the long-term goal is to provide 'treatment-on-demand' for the patient, whereby
the implantable device uses an intelligent circuit to record the activity of the patient, for instance when they are doing exercise, and adjust the
blood pressure accordingly."

"We will now look to develop the implantable device further and investigate whether it interferes with existing medication, and ultimately test
it on larger animals such as pigs and sheep."

WORLD HEALTH DAY HYPERTENSION
FEELING THE PRESSURE

A raised BP reading may not always be an indicator of hypertension.Sometimes it could just be the white-coat effect playing havoc,making diagnosis tricky

Malathy Iyer | TNN


Diagnosing hypertension would seem the easiest task in medicine.Get strapped to a simple sphygmomanometer and the diagnosis is ready in the few seconds
that it takes the heart to beat out a lub-dub tune.
But Indias hypertension storywith over 139 million patients at a conservative estimateis far from simple.On the one hand,experts warn of a silent epidemic in which
people,especially those in rural areas,fail to get diagnosed before some organ failure sets in.The World Health Organisation has,in fact,dedicated this ye a r s Wo
rl d Health Day to the perils of untreated hypertension on ones heart,kidneys and brain.On the other hand,there is the human elementa sudden burst of self-
concern at seeing the doctor wearing a white coat that sends blood pressure soaring.
While a lot has been written about underdiagnosis of hypertension,it is only recently that the medical fraternity has begun vocalising the perils of overdiagnosis and
overmedication.The reaction to the white coatawarded a medical nomenclature as the white-coat effect creates a huge increase in BP readings.Many patients will
have high blood pressure when visiting their doctors office, says Dr Anoop Misra,who heads the department of DIABETES and metabolic diseases in Fortis
Hospitals,Delhi.Endocrinologist Shashank Joshi from Mumbais Lilavati Hospital says almost 30% of the patients who walk into a doctors clinic would suffer from
the white-coat effect.
A team from Duke University in the US studied the phenomenon in the management of hypertension.In the study,published in the Annals of Internal Medicine,BP
readings taken in doctors offices were consistently higher than those taken at home or in a research setting.The study concluded that the white-coat effect was
responsible for patient overtreatment.
In India where one in five (and in some cities,one in four) adults is supposed to be suffering from hypertension and taking pills,there is a need to weed out the
white-coat effect.Pilots often have a higher BP reading at their aviation company doctors clinic.But when they are sent to us for a re-evaluation,the pressure is
lower, says cardiologist Ganesh Kumar with L H Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai.The same is the case with people appearing for preemployment health checks.
Why does the white coat affect blood pressure so much People are anxious about their health when they go to a doctors clinic,placing an unrealistic emphasis on
the white coat.Dr Joshi calls it a biochemical reaction : Stress and anxiety lead to a rise in catecholamines (hormones released by adrenal gland in times of stress)
which,in turn,leads to an increase in BP.
However,this can be easily neutralised.Dr Misra says persons should be asked to sit quietly for at least five minutes in a chair with their feet on the floor and arms
supported at heart level.Caffeine,exercise and smoking should be avoided at least 30 minutes prior to the measurement, he adds.
The medical advice now is to have at least two-three BP readings before ruling that the pressure is indeed high and starting medication.The only exception would
be if the patients first-visit BP is very high, says Dr Misra.
The Duke University study had,in fact,said that repeated measurements should be taken at home to get an accurate picture of BP control than a single reading in a
doctor's office.In fact,we now order an ambulatory blood pressure reading for some patients, points out Dr Joshi.The patient has to walk around with a tiny
machine that records various readings over a 24-hour period.


RISING CRISIS


1 in 5 adult Indians suffers from hypertension
Ministry of health defines hypertension in adults as systolic BP of 140 or greater and/or diastolic of 90 or greater,based on average of two or more properly
measured,seated BP readings on each of two or more visits
Treatment: Lifestyle changes and medicines.Patients with Stage 1 hypertension without any other risk factors may not need medication if they modify their lifestyle

WAY TO GO

Got hypertension Its best to make basic changes in lifestyle

FIGHT FLAB |

WEIGHT LOSS of as little as 4.5kg reduces BP

EAT RIGHT |

A diet rich in fruit and vegetables;opt for low-fat dairy products

CUT SALT |

Restrict sodium intake to less than 2.4gm per day

EXERCISE REGULARLY |

Walk briskly at least 30 minutes a day

AVOID ALCOHOL |

The upper limit for men is 30ml of ethanol,or 2 drinks a day.For women,its one drink

QUIT SMOKING

Source: Ministry of health & family welfare

DASH FOR LIFE: LESSONS FROM ABROAD


In America,Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH diet) has been shown to reduce BP by a few points in just two weeks.The diet seeks to reduce
sodium and encourages consumption of foods rich in nutrients (such as potassium,calcium and magnesium).Details on US medical sites.
A small,steady reduction of sodium in American diet could save up to half a million lives over the next decade,says a new report by experts.
Since the early 1970s,when Finland launched a campaign to reduce salt intake,individual consumption has dropped by 3,000mg a day,with a decline of 75-80 % in
death rates from strokes & heart disease,reports NYT.





THE FINNS ARE FITTER

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