What does the Budget mean for the home buyer?
The
existing provisions as per Section 88 (2) (xv) (c) provide for
tax rebate on repayment of loans taken for purchase or construction
of a residential house. This is up to a limit of Rs 20,000 in one
year within the overall investment ceiling of Rs 70,000. The
loans have to be from the central government; any state government;
any bank—including
a cooperative bank; the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of
India, the National Housing
Bank; any public company engaged in the business of housing finance;
from an employer who is a public company or a public sector company;
a university or a local authority; or a cooperative society.
Construction materials like granite, tiles, lime, gypsum and
sand will now cost more. The prevailing guidelines for evaluation
of property for registration are reviewed. The revised guidelines
are proposed to be at par with the prevailing market rates. As
such, the stamp duty and registration charges will go up, increasing
property rates further.
Capital-based self-assessment scheme for property tax, based
on guideline rates, is proposed by the Bangalore Mahanagar Palike.
As guideline rates increase, it will push up rentals as well
as property rates.
India on the verge of something big
With China’s ascendance in recent
years, it's been easy to overlook India. Not anymore.
Its world-class software developers are moving into high-margin
consulting with the goal of taking business from the likes of
Accenture and IBM. Its drugmakers, denounced as patent pirates
a few years ago, are being wooed by the same global giants whose
medicines they were copycatting. Outsourcing specialists are
climbing the value chain, moving from filling orders for infomercial
ab crunchers to handling financial analysis for Wall Street firms.
India's economy is expanding at 8% annually, making it one of
the fastest-growing in the world. The stock market hit a record
high and finished the year up 80%. Foreign currency reserves
are at a high. India's foreign debt recently got its first investment-grade
rating; the rupee also has been upgraded.
The result is a mix of confidence, euphoria and wonder. At independence
in 1947, India set out to achieve swadeshi, or self-reliance.
Today, India has attained a measure of self-sufficiency by turning
into a fast-globalising economy. In January, it signed a free-trade
pact with seven other South Asian countries. Last fall, it walked
out of a World Trade Organisation summit because the talks didn't
promise enough liberalisation.
Since 1991, the government has relaxed limits on foreign investment
across most industries. Foreign-exchange controls have been relaxed,
allowing multinationals to take their Indian profits home. Protection
of patents and copyrights has been stiffened. Tariffs on most
imports are set to fall to 20% or below this year.
‘Offshoring’ in spotlight
It's
India's "offshoring" industries
that have gotten the most attention, as cheaper workers in
Bangalore and Bombay
have been performing jobs once done by Americans.
Indian companies are pushing up the value chain offering increasingly
sophisticated services to customers in the USA, Europe and Asia.
Indian accountants are preparing tax returns for Americans. Labs
in Bangalore are doing some of the most cutting-edge research
anywhere, the kind of work once done in the USA.
Whether it's for research and development, analysis or design
of critical processes, India is a hub for a growing number of
blue-chip names. The world's leading drugmakers are moving research
or manufacturing to India.
There is a buzz that permeates daily
life in India now. There's a sense that ‘we are on the verge of something big’.
—Excerpted from USA TODAY, 9 February
Offshore Bangalore gets
international airport boost
Western execs will soon be able to fly
direct…
The new Indian government has given the high-tech offshore hotspot
of Bangalore a boost by signing an agreement for a new $284m international
airport in the city.
The government has opted for a public-private partnership model
and the greenfield airport will be three-quarters owned by a consortium
led by German company Siemens, India's Larsen & Toubro and
Unique Zurich airport.
The Indian IT sector in Bangalore's Karnataka state has been pushing
for the airport for three years to cope with the influx of western
businesses to India's answer to Silicon Valley.
UK executives wanting to go to Bangalore currently have to fly
to the ageing Mumbai international airport and then get a connecting
one hour internal flight to Bangalore.
The airport is likely to be open by 2007, with capacity for five
million passengers a year and a four kilometre runway capable of
taking the largest Airbus and Boeing 747 planes, although the plans
are for an ultimate capacity of 40 million passengers a year.
— www.silicon.com, 6 July
U.S. Outsources Obesity to India!
The United States is rapidly outsourcing obesity to India and hopes
to shed as many as three trillion pounds of unsightly cellulite
annually, President George W. Bush announced.
In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
in Milwaukee, he said that since most of the jobs outsourced
were sedentary, “Those
jobs are now making the people of India fat instead of us.”
“
In the long run, the weight loss more than makes up for the job
loss”, he added.
In India, where U.S. companies have outsourced customer service
jobs at a blistering pace in the last three years, workers confirmed
that they have never been fatter in their lives.
“Before I got this job, I used to get out of my chair
occasionally, but those days are long gone,” said Sisirkana
Bhatia, 27, who works at a Verizon call center in Bangalore. “The
minute I'm off work I head on over to the Olive Garden for their
all-you-can-eat bread sticks.”
Indeed, Indian President A.P.J. Abdul
Kalam recently said in a nationally televised address that
India was ”in the throes
of a supersizing epidemic,” adding that “the time
has come for the Indian people to decide whether or not they
want to look like Dick Cheney.”
—Newsweek Web Exclusive, 13 April
Realty firms among the top five ad spenders
Globally, real estate has emerged as the largest industry outgrowing
sectors like steel and petroleum. In India too, the sector is going
through a boom aided by low interest rates on housing loans.
For the first time in India, real estate has broken into the
ranks of the top five categories in terms of ad spends, overtaking
the likes of telecom services and insurance.
Home
