06.02.2007

• Definition of senior citizen undergoing change
• At present various agencies of the government define senior citizens varyingly. Some consider persons as senior citizens at 60, some at 65 etc.
• Government is coming out with a National Policy on Older Persons. It proposes to confer the status of senior citizen to a person who has attained the age of 60 years.
• Senior citizens get an exemption of upto Rs. 1,85,000 under the income tax law, against Rs. 100,000 for individuals.
• They would also be entitled to a higher interest on bank deposits (three years and above). Banks offer 9.5% for senior citizens compared to 8.5% for others.
• Government may also raise the TDS limit from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 10,000 for income from interest on bank deposits.
• Telecom sector
• The annual outgoing ILD (International Long Distance) minutes from India were 250 crore in 2005-06. This is expected to touch 350 crores by this March.
• Yesterday, we noted that the Cauvery water disputes tribunal is about to give its final verdict. See the details:
• The tribunal determined the total availability in a normal year at 740 tmc ft.
• It allocated 419 tmc ft to TN, 270 tmc ft to Karnataka, 30 tmc ft to Kerala and 7 tmc ft to Puducherry.
• In a distress year, the share of each state will decline pro rata.
• Of the balance 14 tmc ft, 10 tmc ft has been set aside for environmental upkeep and four tmc ft of water has been set aside as wastage.
• Ashok Mitra, the former West Bengal finance minister
• He wrote a book titled “A Prattler’s Tale”.
• In this book he claims that there was American pressure in the selection of Dr. Manmohan Singh as the finance minister during the PV Narasimharao’s tenure as PM.
• India-Bhutan friendship treaty for revision
• The two countries will sign a revised treaty, ending 57 years of India directly guiding Bhtan’s foreign policy.
• The new treaty is expected to be signed during the King of Bhutan – Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck’s visit to India.
• Bhutan is moving towards constitutional democracy. The final draft of Bhutan’s constitution is ready and is to be made public soon. Bhutan is also going to have its first national polls after which the constitution will be adopted by the new parliament in 2008.
• A little about IPTV
• It is often confused with television on the internet. But it is not. Simply put, it means getting TV through the good old MTNL/BSNL telephone line.
• Users will need a broadband connection and set top box to get IPTV. IPTV uses a two way signal sent through the service provider’s network servers.
• India has currently about 18.17 lakh broadband connections.
• India and the CDM market
• India continues to be the leader in the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) market with the largest number of registered CDM projects in the world. The CDM is defined in Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol.
• The mechanism enables candidates in developing countries like India and China that have no mandatory obligation to reduce their GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions to go ahead and implement emission reduction projects and encash the resulting carbon credits. With each tonne of carbon dioxide reduced, one CER (Certified Emission Reduction) is claimed.
• Chillies production
• Andhra Pradesh accounts for 60% of the country’s chillies production.
• NMCE – National Multi Commodity Exchange of India
• It is located in Ahmedabad
• Chief of DRDO
• M. Natarajan
• SSI tax sops
• The government loses a whopping Rs. 14,000 crores annually on account of excise exemptions to the SSI sector.
• Small scale units with a turnover of up to Rs. 4 crores that are not claiming cenvat credit on inputs are exempt from excise payments on the first Rs. 1 crore of clearances.
• A little about reverse mortgage
• It is the reverse of a home loan. It enables the retired home-owners to get a regular income against the security of their home. The only difference between a loan (against mortgage) and this is that the money advanced is in the form of a fixed regular annuity as long as the person lives. The amount of money advanced to the retired person is not repaid unless the borrower passes away or sells his home. The proceeds of the loan are then used to repay the loan.
• American presidential aspirants and books
• Almost all the presidential aspirants of recent times have authored books. But it is the book by Hillary Clinton titled “Living History” that has clocked a record sale of 12 lakh copies.
• Hyundai head gets 3 year jail term
• Chung Mong-koo, the 68 year old head of the South Korean car maker Hyundai Motor was sentenced to 3 years for embezzling funds from the company to pay for political favours.