Was Kumar 'more a reformer than a wrongdoer' ?

How opaque Kumar got kicked, got wild, and got a lifer

On the PEP trail...

Minding those who meddle with money

KYC - Know your customer

From a 'friendly chat', KYC is now `a modern day intelligence art form'

Do accountants need Karate lessons?

If IT employees can benefit from Karate, should accountants be far behind?

IT's time to get tough

Heritage site - Mahabalipuram

More....

Accounting for heritage assets

Before accountants turn into fossils, it is quite likely that balance sheets will have place for dinosaur bones.
More...

References:

1) Accounting for Heritage Assets under the Accrual Basis of Accounting
2) Heritage Assets: Can Accounting Do Better?
3) Heritage Assets in an Accrual Accounting Perspective
4) The Road to Accrual Accounting in the United States of America
5) See the Shore Temple, Mahabalipuram also on WHT Tour.

Compliance Report for labour laws?

Do you know that the ICSI (Institute of Company Secretaries of India) has mooted reporting of compliance under labour laws?
“Labour law is an area where practising company secretaries (who are independent, qualified, and compliance-oriented professionals) have adequate knowledge and thus, they can support and advise factories, industries and commercial establishments significantly in improving the level and standard of compliance of various labour laws,” reads a press release from the ICSI, dated April 5.
The Institute is organising on April 8 a national seminar on ‘labour law reforms for good corporate governance’.
Why? Because, “Compliance of labour laws can be an effective tool for good corporate governance in industry. That can be achieved by introducing compliance report by an independent professional to strengthen the hands of the Government and protect the interests of the industry and save it from penalties and prosecutions,” says the ICSI.
Seminar details
Chief Guest: Shri Chandra Sekhar Sahu,Minister of State for Labour & Employment
Address by: Mr. Coen Kompier, Specialist in International Labour Standards, ILO
Topics to be covered at the National Seminar

• Labour law reforms and compliances for good corporate governance
• Role of independent professionals in labour law compliances
• Recent judicial pronouncements in labour laws
• Social security legislations: Payment of Gratuity Act, EPF Act & ESI Act
• Wages laws: Minimum Wages, Payment of Wages, and Payment of Bonus Act
• Industrial Disputes Act & Standing Orders
• Labour law reforms and globalised markets
• Recent judicial pronouncements on social security legislations, Industrial Disputes Act and Contract Labour (Reg. & Abolition Act)

When is a sale complete?

Recently, the Madras High Court decided an interesting case: Rajarajan Electrical Equipments P Ltd vs The Deputy Commissioner of Income-tax, Chennai.
The Assessing Officer (AO) had made addition to the company's income, alleging that sales turnover wasn't brought to account. Rajarajan argued that though the sale in question was effected on March 31, 1998, it was completed only in June 1998, "when the purchaser received the goods sold." The company's contention was that the issue of invoice and delivery chalan on March 31, 1998 could not be construed as confirmation of sale.
The AO reasoned that the sales bill was dated March 31; also, the company had filed its sales tax return admitting the same as turnover for the month of March 1998, and paid sales-tax for the same.
The question before the Justice P.D. Dinakaran and Justice P.P.S. Janarthana Raja was this: Did the assessee concel income?
This is what the judges said in their verdict dated February 23:
"The act of the assessee that it has paid sales-tax for the AY 1998-99 with regard to the sale of the goods based on the invoice dated March 31, 1998 and claimed deduction under the General Sales Tax and also paid Central Excise duty for the goods would not by itself be a justification to find the assessee at fault that he has concealed income or furnished inaccurate particulars to levy penalty. It is also not in dispute that the assessee paid the income-tax for the sale receipt in the AY 1999-2000 voluntarily, even before the scrutiny of the assessment for the AY 1998-99 which has not been duly weighed by the authorities below. We are therefore of the considered opinion that the penalty could not be levied."
For the assessee, it was M.Aravind Subramaniam who argued. And, for the Department, Pushya Sitaraman.

Microfinance program

The Centre for Micro Finance Research at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) is organising a course on ‘the economics of microfinance’ from June 5 to 10.

“The course is aimed to bring about a convergence between what economic theory suggests and what is observed in the practice of microfinance. This is the second consecutive year that it is being offered,” informs IFMR. “The course draws upon the book ‘Economics of Microfinance’ by Beatriz Armendariz de Aghion and Jonathan Morduch.” Adel Varghese of Texas A&M University will lead the training program.
Some of the questions discussed during the course are:

• How does microfinance overcome the challenges (adverse selection, moral hazard, costly state verification and enforcement) encountered in provision of financial services to the poor?
• What is the role of microfinance in impacting the poverty trap?
• How might the access to financial services through micro level intervention translate into impacting macro economic growth?
• What are the avenues for improving outreach of institutions and challenges of scaling?
• How do we properly assess the impact of microfinance?
• What are the new frontiers and areas for further research in microfinance?

“Last year’s participants included micro finance researchers and developmental economists, particularly from India and Sri Lanka. In addition to classroom sessions, the course also featured guest lectures from Indian microfinance practitioners including Vijay Mahajan from BASIX and Padmaja Reddy from Spandana, and a field trip to the Chidambaram branch of Microcredit Foundation of India (MCFI) to understand the operations of a microfinance organisation.”
The Centre’s website http://ifmr.ac.in/cmfr contains information about its activities as well as the course details. The application form can be downloaded from http://ifmr.ac.in/cmfr/summer_courses. If you have any questions related to the course, please contact Rati Tripathi (rati@ifmr.ac.in) or call +91-44-28228194.

Congrats VG!

Vijay Govindarajan (VG), professor in Tuck School of business, Dartmouth College, US, and his colleague Chris Trimble have won the Accenture Award for the Best Paper published in California Management Review (CMR) in 2005. Their article was titled, ‘Organizational DNA for Strategic Innovation.’

VG mails in, “This is a major award. Our CMR article addresses a very important issue – how can large, tradition bound companies execute breakthrough strategies and innovation.”
Innovation and growth are crucial for India’s future, emphasises VG. “Even world-class companies with successful business models eventually hit the ceiling on growth. That’s what makes emerging industries so attractive. These markets represent huge opportunities for capturing long-term growth and competitive advantage. But because they lack a proven formula for making a profit, they are risky and expensive – with dire consequences for failure.”

In his co-authored article, VG had argued that every organisation’s survival depends on strategic experiments that target such untested markets, but few firms understand how to implement them successfully. “Too many managers think that a great idea is enough to get them from business plan to profitability, but somewhere in the middle of the innovation process, most organisations stumble,” explains VG.

The article revealed where firms go wrong on their journey from idea to execution – and outlines exactly what it takes to build a breakthrough business while sustaining excellence in an existing one. Ideas of high relevance, VG points out, especially for “successful tradition-rich Indian corporates such as the Tatas and Birlas, even as they pursue exciting new and innovative opportunities in the liberalised India.”

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