But have you thought what are the countries with highest inflation? Is India one of them? Lets see the countries with highest inflation rates:

1. Zimbabwe: 355,000% (US $1.00 = Zimbabwean $50,000,000)
2. Iraq: 53.2%
3. Guinea: 30.9%
4. San Tome and Principe: 23.1%
5. Yemen: 20.8%
6. Myanmar: 20%
7. Uzbekistan: 19.8%
8. Congo: 18.2%
9. Afghanistan: 17%
10. Serbia: 15.5%

Here is a picture for you for the recently released bearer’s check (currency note) of $500, 000, 000 by the Zimbabwean central bank, which can buy you 30 kgs of potatoes.

Given below is the list of countries where fuel (petrol/gasoline) prices are highest of lowest. Compare it with India.

1. Turkey: $2.68 - Highest in the world
2. Norway: $2.65
3. UK: $2.26
4. Hong Kong: $1.99
5. Brazil: $1.56
6. Canada: $1.35
7. India: $1.32
8. Pakistan: $1.07
9. USA: $1.05
10. Russia: $1.00
11. China: $0.74
12. Malaysia: $0.60
13. United Arab Emirates: $0.37
14. Saudi Arabia: $0.12
15. Venezuela: $0.05

So, Turkey is the country where fuel prices are highest as there are no subsidies and Venezuela is the country where fuel prices are cheapest due to lots of fuel subsidies.

Corporate Tax in India

Income Tax Rates: Corporates in India need to pay flat 30% income tax on the profits. They also need to pay 10% surcharge of the tax amount if the profits are more than Rs. 1,00,00,000 (Rs. 10 million). Education Cess of 3% is applied on top of it.

Advance Tax Payment Dates
15th June - First installment
15th September - Second installment
15th December - Third installment
15th March - Fourth installment

- Annual return must be filed by October 31.
- From 2005-06, electronic filing of company returns is mandatory.
- TDS collected should be paid before then 7th of next month.
- Statement of TDS from Salaries should be filed quarterly (15-Jan, 15-Jun, 15-Jul, 15-Oct)

Fringe Benefit Tax - (FBT 30% + SURCHARGE 10% ON IT = 33% + 2% EDUCATION CESS ON 33%= 33.66%)
Some fringe benefits and their taxable rates are mentioned:
20% of Medical reimbursements (effective: 6.8%)
20% of Telephone bills (effective: 6.8%)

Individual Tax Rates

- 10% “surcharge” is applicable to income in more than Rs 10,00,000 for 2008-2009
- “Education Cess” of 3% on full tax+surcharge. So effective (max) tax rate is 33.99%.

Capital Gains in India

• Long Term Capital Gain - Sale of an asset that has been held for 3 years or longer (or shares and MF held for more than one year). Rate on tax on long term capital gains is 20%. The cost is adjusted to the increase in Index and deducted from proceeds. Rate of tax on long term gains on shares and MF is 0%.
• Short Term Capital Gain - Sale of an asset that has been held for a shorter period than 3 years (1 year for shares and MF). Short term capital gains is added as the part of income, hence the rate of interest is 30%.

• Medical reimbursement: Up to Rs. 15,000 per year is tax free if supported by bills. (Company pays Fringe Benefit Tax on this amount)
• Conveyance allowance: Up to Rs. 800 per month (Rs. 9,600 per year) is tax free if provided as conveyance allowance. No bills are required for this amount.
• Professional taxes: Most states tax employment on a per-professional basis, usually a slabbed amount based on gross income. Such taxes paid are deductible from income tax.

Income from Housing Property
Income from housing property is max of following:

• Rent received
• Municipal Valuation
• Fair Rent (as determined by the I-T department)

If a house is not let out and not self-occupied, annual value is assumed to have accrued to the owner. Annual value in case of a self occupied house is to be taken as NIL. (However if there is more than one self occupied house then the annual value of the other house/s is taxable.) From this, deduct Municipal Tax paid and you get the Net Annual Value. From this Net Annual Value, deduct :

* 30% of Net value as repair cost (This is a mandatory deduction)
* Interest paid or payable on a housing loan against this house

In the case of a self occupied house interest paid or payable is subject to a maximum limit of Rs,1,50,000 (if loan is taken on or after 1st April 1999) and Rs.30,000 (if the loan is taken before 1st April 1999). For all non self-occupied homes, all interest is deductible, with no upper limits. The balance is added to taxable income.

Interest on Housing Loans
For self occupied properties, interest paid on a housing loan up to Rs 150,000 per year is exempt from tax. However, this is only applicable for a residence constructed within three financial years after the loan is taken and also the loan if taken after April 1, 1999. For let out properties, the entire interest paid is deductible under section 24 of the Income Tax act. If the house is not occupied due to employment, the house will be considered self occupied.

Recently RBI even cut the Repo rates (rate at which government lends money to banks for short term (overnight)) to reduce the liquidity in the market.

Worst is still to come as Indian Government increases fuel prices recently which will reflect in the next weeks inflation figures. I am expecting it to cross the figure of 9% for sure. The inflation was at 8.41% for the week before this.

So what is that the Government and RBI are planning to do? May some reduction in import duties, hike in export duty, further increase in repo rate and CRR. I am strongly expecting a hike in CRR to further suck the liquidity from the market. But this will hurt housing and auto segment in India very badly due to further increase in loan rates.

Kisan Vikas Patra
Interest: Money is doubled in 8 years and 7 months
Effective Interest Rate: 8.41%
Minimum Amount: Rs. 100
Maximum Amount: No Limit
Tax Breaks: None

Monthly Income Scheme
Interest: 8% + 5% bonus at maturity
Tenure: 6 years
Minimum Amount: Rs. 1,000
Maximum Amount: Rs. 4,50,000 for a single and Rs. 9,00,000 for a joint account
Tax Breaks: None

National Savings Certificate
Interest: 8%
Effective Interest Rate: 8.16% (half yearly compounding)
Tenure: 6 years
Minimum Amount: Rs. 100
Maximum Amount: No limit
Tax Breaks: Section 80C deduction

Public Provident Fund
Interest: 8%
Tenure: 15 years
Minimum Amount: Rs. 500
Maximum Amount: Rs. 70,000 per year
Tax Breaks: Section 80C deduction

Recurring Deposit
Interest: 7.5%
Tenure: 5 years
Minimum Amount: Rs. 10
Maximum Amount: No limit
Tax Breaks: None

Senior Citizens Savings Scheme - Minimum age is 60 years for the person
Interest: 9%
Tenure: 5 years
Minimum Amount: Rs. 1,000
Maximum Amount: Rs. 15,00,000
Tax Breaks: Section 80C deduction

Time Deposit
Interest: 6.25% to 7.5%
Tenure: 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 years
Minimum Amount: Rs. 200
Maximum Amount: No limit
Tax Breaks: Section 80C deductions

As of today IndiGo has 20 aircrafts in their fleet. So Spicejet and IndiGo combined can become a good big company. I think this is the last thing that Vijay Mallya (Kingfisher Airlines) and Naresh Goyal (Jet Airways) would like to see. Let the time come. We will see how this will move forward.

There were around 300 to 400 attendees for the event. I went there for attending blogcamp. It was being held in School of Management, IIT Bombay (my own college).

I went to IIT after around 3 years. Before entering the event, I drove around the campus of IIT to see what are the things which have changed since last I saw them. A lot of things have changed.

Finally I went to school of management and registered for the event. There was a informal sort of introduction on what barcamp is all about and what people are going to discuss/present in various threads. Then separate threads of the event started and I moved to the blogcamp seminar hall.

There were some presentations by various people about blogging, SEO and making money online. I also gave a presentation about how to make money online. My presentation was more of a question and answer session about various aspects of SEO, site building, link building and making money online.

I met with lots of interesting bloggers like Tarun Chandel, Moksh Juneja, Dinesh, Meetu, Rohit, Ashwin & Mani and some others.

DNA newspaper covered the event and there was a full page dedicated for the event on 31^st March 2008 Mumbai edition. I was also interview by Mahafreed from DNA. You can read more about it here. Thanks Mahafreed.

Here are some of the pictures from the event:

Presentation at BlogCamp

Posing for DNA Newspaper:

Introduction at BarCamp:

BlogCamp Seminal Hall:

My Interview in DNA Newspaper:

Will Apple do the tie-up with only one cellular provider or will they allow multiple carriers. That is still yet to see. Time will tell.

I am not a very old blogger. I started blogging on my other blog around an year back. This was my first bloggers meet. I really enjoyed the meet. Met with so many people from various different backgrounds.

The meet started with a not-so-formal introduction from indiblogger team (Anwin, Renie and ??) and great video play by Vineet. Here is the video for you.

After this, all the bloggers got around one minute each to tell about their blogs. I was really surprised to see the variety of bloggers present there. They were ranging from tech guys to movie buffs, architects to doctors, poets to celeb bloggers.

The event was sponsored by Microsoft. The event was also covered by two newspapers, Times of India and Indian Express.

Here are some of the pics of the events:

The Indiblogger Team

Vineet

People Present

My One Minute of Fame

The Pizza Time (Thanks Microsoft)

Discussion Time

Covered by Indian Express. Thats me in the pic. Click to enlarge.

Event Covered in Times of India

I am Karamveer. I bought this domain name karamveer.com quite some time back. Many times I had thoughts on what should I do with the domain? Finally I have decided to create a blog on it.

What what this blog is all about?
I am going to put anything and everything whatever I feel about. So its going to be sort of my personal diary.

I hope you would enjoy reading it as much as I would enjoy writing it.