Filing tax? Take your documents along
IT officers may ask for the same while filing.
Nearing July 31 and it is time to file the income tax return (ITR).
By this time, you may have received Form No 16 and be ready with your tax calculations in order to file the annual income tax return.
Even though the ITR forms have instructions, which clearly state that there is no need to submit any supporting document, it is in the interest of the assessee to carry the documents along.
DNA Money had earlier reported that income tax offices in Mumbai have not been accepting ITR forms unless these are accompanied by the relevant documents.
This is contrary to the existing regulations.
Instructions from the finance ministry state, "No document (including TDS certificate) should be attached to the form. Officials receiving the return have been instructed to detach all the documents enclosed with this form and return the same to the assessees.
This has been applicable in the assessment year 2007-08 and will now be applicable in the current assessment year of 2008-09 as well.
But, the tax officers are finding it difficult to process the information without the documents, especially tax deduction at source certificates.
It has been learnt that the IT department has been in touch with those who had filed returns last year without the supporting documents.
While going to file the ITR at the designated income tax office, make sure you have the TDS certificates, house rent receipts and investment proof for both the current financial year and previous ones ready at hand.
Those who have plans to discard old documents must make sure the old pile doesn't contain the TDS certificate on 2007 fixed deposits. Also, if you are planning not to collect the TDS certificate, education expense receipt, house rent receipts or agreement just because you no longer have to submit them, think again.
May be the tax officer in your city will accept the ITR forms without documents, but only to knock your door the next day. In effect, the IT department has shelved its burden of document storage on the tax assessee.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Good Lesson:
One of my colleagues recently lost his wallet while driving. He immediately called me up to check what needs to be done. I asked him to block his Debit and Credit Cards quickly and to request for the issue of new cards. He did the same without any delay. Also, I contacted ICICI Lombard to issue duplicate mediclaim card for him. And when he came to office, he applied for a duplicate PAN card by paying the appropriate fees online.
After 4 days, he got a call in the early morning from someone who claims to be the finder of his wallet. It seems that gentlemen tried to reach my colleague several times, but the latter did not pick those calls thinking that they were marketing calls from banks for loans / credit cards etc. This is because he has been getting annoying calls from various banks and hence, he doesn’t pick the calls from unknown numbers.
Though he got his wallet back, he ends up paying charges to all his bankers for issue of duplicate debit and credit cards, processing fees for duplicate PAN card, apart from facing mental stress and disturbances.
The lesson what we all can learn from this incident is that we should pick all incoming calls (for few days at least) if the wallet is lost. Who knows it might be from the finder of your wallet ?
The thing to note is that the gentleman who found my colleague’s wallet was ready to meet him and hand over it. How surprising it is that someone who finds your wallet tries many times to reach you, and when he gets you, he asks where should he come and hand it over ? In this fast-moving world with everyone having there own busy schedule of activities, it’s very difficult to find someone with helping tendency like this. Isn’t it ?? We should be like this, in case we find someone’s missing stuff.
Another thing, needless to say, is that the incoming marketing calls from banks are increasing day by day. The “Do Not Disturb” Registry is also not effective to a large extent. These marketing people simply say that they found our number on their data base and disturb us a lot. And that too, some times we get repeated calls from the same office and they are answerless if we question it. Quite painful !!
One of my colleagues recently lost his wallet while driving. He immediately called me up to check what needs to be done. I asked him to block his Debit and Credit Cards quickly and to request for the issue of new cards. He did the same without any delay. Also, I contacted ICICI Lombard to issue duplicate mediclaim card for him. And when he came to office, he applied for a duplicate PAN card by paying the appropriate fees online.
After 4 days, he got a call in the early morning from someone who claims to be the finder of his wallet. It seems that gentlemen tried to reach my colleague several times, but the latter did not pick those calls thinking that they were marketing calls from banks for loans / credit cards etc. This is because he has been getting annoying calls from various banks and hence, he doesn’t pick the calls from unknown numbers.
Though he got his wallet back, he ends up paying charges to all his bankers for issue of duplicate debit and credit cards, processing fees for duplicate PAN card, apart from facing mental stress and disturbances.
The lesson what we all can learn from this incident is that we should pick all incoming calls (for few days at least) if the wallet is lost. Who knows it might be from the finder of your wallet ?
The thing to note is that the gentleman who found my colleague’s wallet was ready to meet him and hand over it. How surprising it is that someone who finds your wallet tries many times to reach you, and when he gets you, he asks where should he come and hand it over ? In this fast-moving world with everyone having there own busy schedule of activities, it’s very difficult to find someone with helping tendency like this. Isn’t it ?? We should be like this, in case we find someone’s missing stuff.
Another thing, needless to say, is that the incoming marketing calls from banks are increasing day by day. The “Do Not Disturb” Registry is also not effective to a large extent. These marketing people simply say that they found our number on their data base and disturb us a lot. And that too, some times we get repeated calls from the same office and they are answerless if we question it. Quite painful !!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Few interesting facts:
The word budget's root word is the French word BOUGETTE, a little bag, once used for pills and medication.
Tight security: Almost 30 employees of the Finance Ministry press stay inside the ministry building for a week ahead of the Budget presentation. They're not allowed to communicate with the outside world. This is done to ensure that information from the Budget is not leaked out.
Morarji Desai was the only Indian Finance Minister to have presented two budgets on his birthday, February 29, in 1964 and 1968.
The world's first documented imprisonment for tax evasionwas in 306 A.D. by Emperor Constantine of the Holy Roman Empire.
The world's first income tax was levied in 1404 A.D. in England (it was so hated that Parliament later had all records of it burned).
The word budget's root word is the French word BOUGETTE, a little bag, once used for pills and medication.
Tight security: Almost 30 employees of the Finance Ministry press stay inside the ministry building for a week ahead of the Budget presentation. They're not allowed to communicate with the outside world. This is done to ensure that information from the Budget is not leaked out.
Morarji Desai was the only Indian Finance Minister to have presented two budgets on his birthday, February 29, in 1964 and 1968.
The world's first documented imprisonment for tax evasionwas in 306 A.D. by Emperor Constantine of the Holy Roman Empire.
The world's first income tax was levied in 1404 A.D. in England (it was so hated that Parliament later had all records of it burned).
Friday, April 18, 2008
A young man went overseas to study for quite a long time. When he returned, he asked his parents to find him a religious scholar or any expert who could answer his 3 Questions.
Finally, his parents were able to find a scholar.
Young man: Who are you? Can you answer my questions?
Scholar: I am one of God willing, I will be able to answer your questions.
Young man: Are you sure? A lot of Professors and experts were not able to answer my questions.
Scholar: I will try my best, with the help of God .
Young Man: I have 3 questions:
1. Does God exist? If so, show me his shape.
2. What is fate?
3. If Devil was created from the fire, why at the end he will be thrown to hell that is also created from fire. It certainly will not hurt him at all, since Devil and the hell were created from fire. Did God not think of it this far?
Suddenly, the Scholar slapped the young man's face very hard.
Young Man(feeling pain): Why do you get angry at me?
Scholar: I am not angry. The slap is my answer to your three questions.
Young Man: I really don't understand.
Scholar: How do you feel after I slapped you?
Young Man: Of course, I felt the pain.
Scholar: So do you believe that pain exists?
Young Man: Yes.
Scholar: Show me the shape of the pain!
Young Man: I cannot.
Scholar: That is my first answer. All of us feel God's existence without being able to see His shape... Last night, did you dream that you will be slapped by me?
Young Man: No.
Scholar: Did you ever think that you will get a slap from me, today?
Young Man: No.
Scholar: That is fate my second answer...... .. My hand that I used to slap you, what is it created from?
Young Man: It is created from flesh.
Scholar: How about your face, what is it created from?
Young Man: Flesh.
Scholar: How do you feel after I slapped you?
Young Man: In pain.
Scholar: That's it... This is my third answer, Even though Devil and also the hell were created from the fire, if God wants, the hell will become a very painful place for devil.
God said: "If you are ashamed of me, I will be Ashamed of you." If you are not ashamed, pass this message on...only if you believe.
Isn’t it smart ????
Finally, his parents were able to find a scholar.
Young man: Who are you? Can you answer my questions?
Scholar: I am one of God willing, I will be able to answer your questions.
Young man: Are you sure? A lot of Professors and experts were not able to answer my questions.
Scholar: I will try my best, with the help of God .
Young Man: I have 3 questions:
1. Does God exist? If so, show me his shape.
2. What is fate?
3. If Devil was created from the fire, why at the end he will be thrown to hell that is also created from fire. It certainly will not hurt him at all, since Devil and the hell were created from fire. Did God not think of it this far?
Suddenly, the Scholar slapped the young man's face very hard.
Young Man(feeling pain): Why do you get angry at me?
Scholar: I am not angry. The slap is my answer to your three questions.
Young Man: I really don't understand.
Scholar: How do you feel after I slapped you?
Young Man: Of course, I felt the pain.
Scholar: So do you believe that pain exists?
Young Man: Yes.
Scholar: Show me the shape of the pain!
Young Man: I cannot.
Scholar: That is my first answer. All of us feel God's existence without being able to see His shape... Last night, did you dream that you will be slapped by me?
Young Man: No.
Scholar: Did you ever think that you will get a slap from me, today?
Young Man: No.
Scholar: That is fate my second answer...... .. My hand that I used to slap you, what is it created from?
Young Man: It is created from flesh.
Scholar: How about your face, what is it created from?
Young Man: Flesh.
Scholar: How do you feel after I slapped you?
Young Man: In pain.
Scholar: That's it... This is my third answer, Even though Devil and also the hell were created from the fire, if God wants, the hell will become a very painful place for devil.
God said: "If you are ashamed of me, I will be Ashamed of you." If you are not ashamed, pass this message on...only if you believe.
Isn’t it smart ????
'A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure'
(Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum, Philadelphia, March 22, 2008)
Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?
Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India's "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.
By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order.
My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.
That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself.
He took responsibility for the failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.
The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, "You conduct the press conference today."
I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team.
The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.
(Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum, Philadelphia, March 22, 2008)
Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?
Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India's "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.
By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order.
My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.
That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself.
He took responsibility for the failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.
The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, "You conduct the press conference today."
I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team.
The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Trip to Vellore:
I was invited for the marriage of one my ex-colleagues' brother, which was scheduled to be held in Vellore on 10th of Feb 2008. Since I wanted to attend the marriage and also to visit the Vellore Golden Temple , I decided along with other friends that we could make it.
After thorough and repeated checks, finally it was clear that me, Hari and Deena can go from Chennai. Sai and Raju directly from Bangalore. The plan was confirmed only on the previous day of marriage and hence, we didn’t have any choice except to take a bus to Vellore (in fact, the headcount was less otherwise we could have taken a cab).
We planned to be at Koyambedu Bus Station at 7 p.m. Thanks to the traffic condition in Chennai (being a ‘Muhurtham’ day), I was able to reach at 7.05, Deena at 8.00 and finally, Hari at 9.00. Good thing happened was that, since I didn’t want to waste my time waiting for friends, I got the book “The monk who sold his ferrari” from a book shop over there and was able to complete about 30 pages before Deena reached.
We took a bus to Vellore at about 9.10 p.m. We couldn’t get together-seats to sit. Also, we were jam-packed by passengers who surrounded us by standing, by sitting and by laying on the floor very next to us and scratching purposelessly. So, the journey was that ‘pleasant’ :-).
Reached Vellore at 12.30 and got an auto to reach the Hotel. Surprised to see that Sai was waiting to receive us. And, in fact he helped to wipe off our hungry by offering a biscuit packet which served as a dinner. We slept at about 2.30.
Since weekends are nightmares for visitors, we decided to visit the temple in the early morning itself. So, we got up at 4 a.m. and left at 4.30 a.m. to temple. But surprised to note that the temple gate opens only by 8 a.m. We waited till then enjoying the hilarious conversation with Sai.
To talk about temple, Wow, it is awesome. I could say that the founder “Sakthivel” has really done a wonderful thing which is highly impossible for a normal man. Tonnes and tonnes of shining Gold, amazing workmanship, highly decorated and neatly maintained gardens,,,, ooof, we should be proud to tell the world that we got something like this….marvelous… Everyone must visit this temple once in a life time.
We then attended the marriage. Met CEO of ‘Arusuvai.com’ Babu and few of his friends. We caught the bus at 2 p.m back to Chennai.
Quite a short and memorable trip…..
I was invited for the marriage of one my ex-colleagues' brother, which was scheduled to be held in Vellore on 10th of Feb 2008. Since I wanted to attend the marriage and also to visit the Vellore Golden Temple , I decided along with other friends that we could make it.
After thorough and repeated checks, finally it was clear that me, Hari and Deena can go from Chennai. Sai and Raju directly from Bangalore. The plan was confirmed only on the previous day of marriage and hence, we didn’t have any choice except to take a bus to Vellore (in fact, the headcount was less otherwise we could have taken a cab).
We planned to be at Koyambedu Bus Station at 7 p.m. Thanks to the traffic condition in Chennai (being a ‘Muhurtham’ day), I was able to reach at 7.05, Deena at 8.00 and finally, Hari at 9.00. Good thing happened was that, since I didn’t want to waste my time waiting for friends, I got the book “The monk who sold his ferrari” from a book shop over there and was able to complete about 30 pages before Deena reached.
We took a bus to Vellore at about 9.10 p.m. We couldn’t get together-seats to sit. Also, we were jam-packed by passengers who surrounded us by standing, by sitting and by laying on the floor very next to us and scratching purposelessly. So, the journey was that ‘pleasant’ :-).
Reached Vellore at 12.30 and got an auto to reach the Hotel. Surprised to see that Sai was waiting to receive us. And, in fact he helped to wipe off our hungry by offering a biscuit packet which served as a dinner. We slept at about 2.30.
Since weekends are nightmares for visitors, we decided to visit the temple in the early morning itself. So, we got up at 4 a.m. and left at 4.30 a.m. to temple. But surprised to note that the temple gate opens only by 8 a.m. We waited till then enjoying the hilarious conversation with Sai.
To talk about temple, Wow, it is awesome. I could say that the founder “Sakthivel” has really done a wonderful thing which is highly impossible for a normal man. Tonnes and tonnes of shining Gold, amazing workmanship, highly decorated and neatly maintained gardens,,,, ooof, we should be proud to tell the world that we got something like this….marvelous… Everyone must visit this temple once in a life time.
We then attended the marriage. Met CEO of ‘Arusuvai.com’ Babu and few of his friends. We caught the bus at 2 p.m back to Chennai.
Quite a short and memorable trip…..
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
FACTS TO MAKE EVERY INDIAN PROUD:
----------------
Q. Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
A. Vinod Khosla
----------------
Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today's computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm
----------------
Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?
A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Lakshmi Mittal.
----------------
Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia
----------------
Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli
----------------
Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?
A. Rajiv Gupta
----------------
Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika
----------------
Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.
----------------
Q. We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives.
There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population) . YET,
38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
12% scientists in USA are Indians.
36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians.
----------------
Some of the following facts may be known to you. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA.
1. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.
2. India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
3. The world's first University was established in. M Takshila in 700BCore than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
4. According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.
5. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.
6. Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.
7. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word "Navigation" is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
8. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999) officially published that Budhayan's works dates to the 6 th Century which is long before the European mathematicians.
9. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11 th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 10 53.
10. According to the Gemmological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.
11. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
12. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.
13. Chess was invented in India.
14. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of anaesthesia was well known in ancient India.
15. When many cultures in the world were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilisation).
16. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.
----------------
Quotes about India:
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made - Albert Einstein.
India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition - Mark Twain.
If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India - French scholar Romain Rolland.
India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border – Hu Shih (former Chinese ambassador to USA).
----------------
Q. Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
A. Vinod Khosla
----------------
Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today's computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm
----------------
Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?
A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Lakshmi Mittal.
----------------
Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia
----------------
Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli
----------------
Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?
A. Rajiv Gupta
----------------
Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika
----------------
Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.
----------------
Q. We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives.
There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population) . YET,
38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
12% scientists in USA are Indians.
36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians.
----------------
Some of the following facts may be known to you. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA.
1. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.
2. India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
3. The world's first University was established in. M Takshila in 700BCore than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
4. According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.
5. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.
6. Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.
7. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word "Navigation" is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
8. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999) officially published that Budhayan's works dates to the 6 th Century which is long before the European mathematicians.
9. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11 th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 10 53.
10. According to the Gemmological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.
11. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
12. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.
13. Chess was invented in India.
14. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of anaesthesia was well known in ancient India.
15. When many cultures in the world were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilisation).
16. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.
----------------
Quotes about India:
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made - Albert Einstein.
India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition - Mark Twain.
If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India - French scholar Romain Rolland.
India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border – Hu Shih (former Chinese ambassador to USA).
Monday, January 21, 2008
The 10 biggest falls in the Indian stock market history:
May 18, 2006: The Sensex registered a fall of 826 points (6.76 per cent) to close at 11,391, it's biggest ever, following heavy selling by FIIs, retail investors and a weakness in global markets.
April 28, 1992: The Sensex registered a fall of 570 points (12.77 per cent) to close at 3,870, it's second-largest, following the coming to light of the Harshad Mehta securities scam.
May 17, 2004: Another Monday. Sensex dropped by 565 points, its third biggest fall ever, to close at 4,505. With the NDA out of power and the Left parties, part of the UPA coalition government, flexing their muscle, the Sensex witnessed its second-biggest intra-day fall of 842 points, twice attracting suspension of trading. At close, however, it regained some of its lost ground.
May 15, 2006: The market fell by 463 points to 11,822 points.
May 22, 2006: Sensex slumped by 457 points to 10,482.
May 19, 2006: Sensex slumped by 453 points to 10,939.
April 4, 2000: Sensex slumped by 361 points to 4,691.
May 12, 1992: Indian stock markets plunged 334 points to fall to 3,086.
May 14, 2004: Sensex lost 330 points to fall to 5,070.
May 6, 1992: Losing 327 points, the Sensex fell to 3,561 points
May 18, 2006: The Sensex registered a fall of 826 points (6.76 per cent) to close at 11,391, it's biggest ever, following heavy selling by FIIs, retail investors and a weakness in global markets.
April 28, 1992: The Sensex registered a fall of 570 points (12.77 per cent) to close at 3,870, it's second-largest, following the coming to light of the Harshad Mehta securities scam.
May 17, 2004: Another Monday. Sensex dropped by 565 points, its third biggest fall ever, to close at 4,505. With the NDA out of power and the Left parties, part of the UPA coalition government, flexing their muscle, the Sensex witnessed its second-biggest intra-day fall of 842 points, twice attracting suspension of trading. At close, however, it regained some of its lost ground.
May 15, 2006: The market fell by 463 points to 11,822 points.
May 22, 2006: Sensex slumped by 457 points to 10,482.
May 19, 2006: Sensex slumped by 453 points to 10,939.
April 4, 2000: Sensex slumped by 361 points to 4,691.
May 12, 1992: Indian stock markets plunged 334 points to fall to 3,086.
May 14, 2004: Sensex lost 330 points to fall to 5,070.
May 6, 1992: Losing 327 points, the Sensex fell to 3,561 points
Monday, January 07, 2008
Came across this news through my friend and as usual, just thought of sharing with you.
ESOPs benefits not taxable at source: SC
The Supreme Court has ruled that the benefit given to the staff of a company under the employees' stock option scheme cannot be considered as taxable income and the company was not obliged to deduct tax at source.
The court thus dismissed the appeal of the Commissioner of Income Tax, Bangalore against the judgment of the Karnataka high court which had ruled in favour of Infosys Technologies.
The company had created Technologies Employees Welfare Trust and allotted 7.5 lakh (750,000) warrants at Rs 1 each. Such warrants could be used after a five-year lock-in period to obtain shares. The plan was floated because of buy-back problems where employees left their jobs for one reason or the other. The stock exchange was informed that the shares were non-transferable.
The tax authorities, however, determined that the total amount paid by the employees while exercising their option was Rs 6.64 crore (Rs 66.4 million) whereas the market value of those shares was Rs 171 crore (Rs 1.71 billion). The difference was treated as 'perquisite value' on which TDS was charged at 30 per cent.
The company was treated as a defaulter for not deducting the perquisite value of Rs 165 crore (Rs 1.65 billion). The tax tribunal and the high court, however, held in favour of Infosys [Get Quote] when it moved the courts.
Dismissing the appeal of the tax authorities, the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice S H Kapadia ruled that the company was not bound to deduct tax on the amount earned by its employees from exercise of stock option granted to them through the trust.
"Warrant is a right without obligation to buy. Therefore, perquisite cannot be said to accrue at the time when the warrants were granted," the judgment explained.
The employee could resign, and there was no certainty that his option would be exercised after the lock-in period. "The benefit if any which arose on the date when the option stood exercised was only a notional benefit whose value was unascertainable."
The change in law introduced in the Finance Act in 2000 was not retrospective, the court asserted. The benefit was prospective and unless a benefit was in the nature of income it was not taxable. There was no legislative support to consider the benefit given in this case to the employees as income chargeable under the head 'salaries', the judgment concluded.
ESOPs benefits not taxable at source: SC
The Supreme Court has ruled that the benefit given to the staff of a company under the employees' stock option scheme cannot be considered as taxable income and the company was not obliged to deduct tax at source.
The court thus dismissed the appeal of the Commissioner of Income Tax, Bangalore against the judgment of the Karnataka high court which had ruled in favour of Infosys Technologies.
The company had created Technologies Employees Welfare Trust and allotted 7.5 lakh (750,000) warrants at Rs 1 each. Such warrants could be used after a five-year lock-in period to obtain shares. The plan was floated because of buy-back problems where employees left their jobs for one reason or the other. The stock exchange was informed that the shares were non-transferable.
The tax authorities, however, determined that the total amount paid by the employees while exercising their option was Rs 6.64 crore (Rs 66.4 million) whereas the market value of those shares was Rs 171 crore (Rs 1.71 billion). The difference was treated as 'perquisite value' on which TDS was charged at 30 per cent.
The company was treated as a defaulter for not deducting the perquisite value of Rs 165 crore (Rs 1.65 billion). The tax tribunal and the high court, however, held in favour of Infosys [Get Quote] when it moved the courts.
Dismissing the appeal of the tax authorities, the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice S H Kapadia ruled that the company was not bound to deduct tax on the amount earned by its employees from exercise of stock option granted to them through the trust.
"Warrant is a right without obligation to buy. Therefore, perquisite cannot be said to accrue at the time when the warrants were granted," the judgment explained.
The employee could resign, and there was no certainty that his option would be exercised after the lock-in period. "The benefit if any which arose on the date when the option stood exercised was only a notional benefit whose value was unascertainable."
The change in law introduced in the Finance Act in 2000 was not retrospective, the court asserted. The benefit was prospective and unless a benefit was in the nature of income it was not taxable. There was no legislative support to consider the benefit given in this case to the employees as income chargeable under the head 'salaries', the judgment concluded.
Bill Gates says:
"People are often curious about which applications and technology I use, and if there are features in the new version of Office that have changed the way I work. Without a doubt, Office 2007 enables me to get my work done more easily and quickly than before.
If you visit my office, you will probably notice right away that I have three large flat screen displays that sit together and are synchronized so they work like a single very wide display. The large display area enables me to work very efficiently. I keep my Outlook 2007 Inbox open on the screen to the left so I can see new messages as they come in. I usually have the message or document that I'm currently reading or writing in the center screen. The screen on the right is where I have room to open up a browser or look at a document that someone has sent me in e-mail.
I spend the majority of my time communicating with colleagues, customers, and partners. As a result, Outlook is the application that I use the most. I receive about 100 e-mail messages per day from Microsoft employees, and many more from customers and partners.
It's very important that I hear what people think about our products and our company. Yet I need to balance that against the very real risk of information overload from all the e-mail that I receive. The advances we made in Outlook 2007 for filtering, rules, and search folders have made it much easier to manage my e-mail than before, especially because so much happens automatically once I've set everything up.
A great thing is that all my voice mail, faxes, and even instant messages are sent to my Outlook Inbox using our unified communications technology. Another important feature of unified communications that we have integrated into Office applications is presence and identity. That means I can always tell at a glance whether the person I need to get in touch with is available or not.
One change to Outlook that I appreciate is tasks are now integrated with how I view my calendar. Before Office 2007, I never used the Outlook task feature, but now that tasks are automatically added to my calendar, it makes it much easier to stay on top of the important things I need to do.
Working with other people efficiently and effectively is more important than ever, not just for Microsoft but for any organization. I find that SharePoint, a software program that enables people to easily create internal Web sites so they can collaborate on projects, has become indispensable.
For example, each year I do something called ThinkWeek where anybody in the company can submit a paper about an idea they have to change the way our company works or to pursue a new development project. We used to rely primarily on printed documents, but now it's simple for us to create a Web site to manage the entire process. This year, more than 350 papers were submitted. Not only did I read and comment on many of them, but other technical leaders from across the company were able to go up to the ThinkWeek Web site and add their thoughts. This has led to many lively discussions and started numerous new projects, something that was much harder to do when everything was on paper.
This release of SharePoint also has many social networking features that I find enormously helpful. In addition to searching any corporate intranet site for documents, SharePoint now enables me to search for specific people based on their expertise, job title, or the department they work in. Also, employees can easily create personal Web sites where they can post photos and list their experiences and interests. SharePoint even automatically associates every document with its author, and explains his relationship to other employees on the same team and in his department. So SharePoint makes it far easier to quickly identify the two or three people who are experts in parallel computing, for example, even though there are more than 80,000 employees at Microsoft now.
Of course, collaborating often means meeting with my colleagues in person or remotely over the Internet via Office LiveMeeting. I always take a lot of notes about ideas to think about or things to follow up on. I try to bring my Tablet PC to meetings as often as possible so that I can use OneNote 2007 to write notes in ink that can later be searched or converted to text. Even if I forget my Tablet, I can scan a document or piece of paper and add that image to OneNote. One of the nice new features in OneNote 2007 is that it automatically recognizes the text in those scanned documents, so that it's easy to search for them later.
Then there are times when I really want to drill down into an industry or market trend. The new business intelligence and data visualization tools in Excel 2007 and SharePoint are fantastic for accessing the kind of data that used to be hard to find because it was stored in back-end databases, and then dig through that data to gain some real insights into what is going on. Now I can easily take a look at how a change to something like our assumptions about customer demand might affect the market for a certain product.
Taken together, the improvements in Office 2007 have certainly had a large impact on the way I work. I seem to discover a new feature or a better way of doing something almost every day, and I am hopeful that many of you will find the new Office to be as useful as I do".
About the author
William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
On June 15, 2006, Microsoft announced that effective July 2008, Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After July 2008 Gates will continue to serve as Microsoft’s chairman and an advisor on key development projects.
Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft's mission has been to continually advance and improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use computers. The company is committed to a long-term view, reflected in its investment of approximately $7.1 billion on research and development in the 2007 fiscal year.
"People are often curious about which applications and technology I use, and if there are features in the new version of Office that have changed the way I work. Without a doubt, Office 2007 enables me to get my work done more easily and quickly than before.
If you visit my office, you will probably notice right away that I have three large flat screen displays that sit together and are synchronized so they work like a single very wide display. The large display area enables me to work very efficiently. I keep my Outlook 2007 Inbox open on the screen to the left so I can see new messages as they come in. I usually have the message or document that I'm currently reading or writing in the center screen. The screen on the right is where I have room to open up a browser or look at a document that someone has sent me in e-mail.
I spend the majority of my time communicating with colleagues, customers, and partners. As a result, Outlook is the application that I use the most. I receive about 100 e-mail messages per day from Microsoft employees, and many more from customers and partners.
It's very important that I hear what people think about our products and our company. Yet I need to balance that against the very real risk of information overload from all the e-mail that I receive. The advances we made in Outlook 2007 for filtering, rules, and search folders have made it much easier to manage my e-mail than before, especially because so much happens automatically once I've set everything up.
A great thing is that all my voice mail, faxes, and even instant messages are sent to my Outlook Inbox using our unified communications technology. Another important feature of unified communications that we have integrated into Office applications is presence and identity. That means I can always tell at a glance whether the person I need to get in touch with is available or not.
One change to Outlook that I appreciate is tasks are now integrated with how I view my calendar. Before Office 2007, I never used the Outlook task feature, but now that tasks are automatically added to my calendar, it makes it much easier to stay on top of the important things I need to do.
Working with other people efficiently and effectively is more important than ever, not just for Microsoft but for any organization. I find that SharePoint, a software program that enables people to easily create internal Web sites so they can collaborate on projects, has become indispensable.
For example, each year I do something called ThinkWeek where anybody in the company can submit a paper about an idea they have to change the way our company works or to pursue a new development project. We used to rely primarily on printed documents, but now it's simple for us to create a Web site to manage the entire process. This year, more than 350 papers were submitted. Not only did I read and comment on many of them, but other technical leaders from across the company were able to go up to the ThinkWeek Web site and add their thoughts. This has led to many lively discussions and started numerous new projects, something that was much harder to do when everything was on paper.
This release of SharePoint also has many social networking features that I find enormously helpful. In addition to searching any corporate intranet site for documents, SharePoint now enables me to search for specific people based on their expertise, job title, or the department they work in. Also, employees can easily create personal Web sites where they can post photos and list their experiences and interests. SharePoint even automatically associates every document with its author, and explains his relationship to other employees on the same team and in his department. So SharePoint makes it far easier to quickly identify the two or three people who are experts in parallel computing, for example, even though there are more than 80,000 employees at Microsoft now.
Of course, collaborating often means meeting with my colleagues in person or remotely over the Internet via Office LiveMeeting. I always take a lot of notes about ideas to think about or things to follow up on. I try to bring my Tablet PC to meetings as often as possible so that I can use OneNote 2007 to write notes in ink that can later be searched or converted to text. Even if I forget my Tablet, I can scan a document or piece of paper and add that image to OneNote. One of the nice new features in OneNote 2007 is that it automatically recognizes the text in those scanned documents, so that it's easy to search for them later.
Then there are times when I really want to drill down into an industry or market trend. The new business intelligence and data visualization tools in Excel 2007 and SharePoint are fantastic for accessing the kind of data that used to be hard to find because it was stored in back-end databases, and then dig through that data to gain some real insights into what is going on. Now I can easily take a look at how a change to something like our assumptions about customer demand might affect the market for a certain product.
Taken together, the improvements in Office 2007 have certainly had a large impact on the way I work. I seem to discover a new feature or a better way of doing something almost every day, and I am hopeful that many of you will find the new Office to be as useful as I do".
About the author
William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
On June 15, 2006, Microsoft announced that effective July 2008, Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After July 2008 Gates will continue to serve as Microsoft’s chairman and an advisor on key development projects.
Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft's mission has been to continually advance and improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use computers. The company is committed to a long-term view, reflected in its investment of approximately $7.1 billion on research and development in the 2007 fiscal year.
I came across this article and thought that I should share it with you…….It’s about the mistakes that the employees of Microsoft commit…….
Even Microsoft employees are not immune from the everyday pitfalls and mistakes that everyone is bound to make at work. Read Philip Su's hilarious take on how some of us Office "experts" make the same mistakes our customers do ... over and over again.
A question I frequently get from all my readers (yes, both of you!) is, "What's it like working at Microsoft?" Most people imagine that life at The Big One must be like working in a Geekalicious Nirvana. Everyone wears 3D goggles ("It's a Unix system! I know this!") and goes by handles like Crash Override and Acid Burn. Specifications are written in I33t. DeLoreans equipped with Mr. Fusions are the cars of choice. That sort of thing.
When I tell strangers that I work at Microsoft, I see the gears turning in their heads as they contemplate their next question. Inevitably, they ask one of the following:
"Have you been in Bill's house?" Usually, it's the 12-year-old in the bunch that asks this. No, I have not, but I have been on his lawn. Yes, all interns were invited; no, I did not talk with him; yes, I gorged myself on free food. None of this is half is interesting to the stranger, however, as the story of the intern who was forced out of Bill's house in handcuffs after running in during a "bathroom break" to make a phone call to his mom. "Hi mom! You'll never guess where I'm at right...ow! OUCH!" But I digress.
"Wow — can I drive your Ferrari?" This is a perennial favorite with the provisional driver's license crowd. They quickly lose interest once I fondly mention my '98 Honda Accord (V6! Too fast! Too furious!).
"Hey, my Outlook's not working…" "I don't understand the thing in Excel where you [verb] the [noun] with your [relative/neighbor] using [ctrl/alt/shift][F7/Enter/NumLock]..." It's a veritable MadLib of questions of the pattern, "In [Microsoft product of choice], how do I [some important thing that should be easy to do but isn't at all obvious]?"
The last type of question is by far the most common, especially with the airport crowd. But these strangers base their questions on a critically-flawed premise: They assume that Microsoft employees actually know how to use Microsoft products.
So without further ado, and to show you that we struggle with technology just like everyone else, here are the Top 7 Microsoft Employee Bungles using Microsoft Office that I've witnessed.
Top 7 employee bungles using Office
1. Opening dangerous attachments. Viruses like Melissa ("I love you!") were a huge problem at Microsoft. The kicker about it is that everyone acted flabbergasted and incredulous. "What sort of idiot clicks on these things?!" It's like Hootie and the Blowfish: the best-selling debut album of all time has no fans. Have you ever met a single person who admitted to owning Cracked Rear View? Same with Melissa.
2. Forgetting to include attachments. This is the evil twin of #1: in addition to clicking on harmful attachments, we forget to include useful attachments. So when you see an email with the subject "Foolproof Plan for World Peace — Part Deux," don't get too excited. As awesome as the plan probably is, it's almost definitely not attached to the email.
3. Replying-all to huge mailing lists. Any email to a large alias inevitably results in someone (no doubt a proud Hootie CD owner) replying to everyone. The threads are always the same. Something rather mundane or obscure is sent to thousands of people. Then the fan mail starts pouring in:
"Why am I on this list?"
"Unsubscribe."
"Please also remove me!"
"Please stop replying to everyone — there are thousands of people on this alias."
"Me too!"
"SERIOUSLY — STOP REPLYING ALL!"
"Why are you shouting?"
"We never talk anymore."
The most famous of these threads at Microsoft started on a mysterious distribution list called "Bedlam DL3." 25,000 employees, 15.5 million e-mails, 195 GB of bandwidth, busted network. T-shirts were printed to commemorate the event.
4. Putting aliases in the "To:" field in order to see who's in them. To see names on an alias, you can put the alias in the "To:" field of an email and double-click it ... if you're a complete idiot. A friend of mine ("Jimmy") almost got fired by an executive for doing this. A product that this executive was in charge of was getting cancelled, but her team didn't yet know it. When Jimmy heard the scoop, he wrote his boss an e-mail that essentially said, "Hey there, so-and-so's team is getting canned. Here are the only three people worth keeping..." He then proceeded to add so-and-so's entire team to the "To:" line in order to find out the names of the "only three people worth keeping." The rest of what happened is left as an exercise to the reader.
5. Projecting a PowerPoint presentation. The amount of time wasted at Microsoft sitting in conference rooms waiting for the presenter to get the slides to work is mind-boggling. Does the projector handle your resolution? Press Fn-F5! Click the little icon in the lower left to resume your slide show. Not that icon! The other one! Oh, the screen saver's kicked in. Your laptop's suspending!
6. Getting instant messages (IMs) during presentations. Once the presentation is going, IM notifications inevitably pop up on the screen. This tends to happen most when you're presenting in front of hundreds of people. "Yo! How did the [blind-date/colonoscopy/armed-robbery] go?" "Hi, [term of endearment]! I can't wait to [verb] your [adjective][noun] [now/tonight/again/forever]!" I'm told that the latest version of Office fixes this. Let's hope so.
NOTE From the Editor: In 2007 Office system, Desktop Alerts for incoming e-mail messages are turned off by default when you run a PowerPoint 2007 presentation. See Turn Desktop Alerts on or off for more info.
7. Using Excel to cover up Unreal Tournament. Well, I've only seen this once, but it's so eponymous that it deserves to be celebrated. A few years ago, one of my team members frantically maximized Excel as I walked into his office. As I began discussing a technical issue with him, sounds of gunfire, grenades, and general human suffering erupted from his speakers. I had a difficult decision to make while recovering from my brief initial confusion: Do I acknowledge what was already mutually embarrassing and awkward, or do I ignore the obvious? I decided to conduct our technical discussion with the idyllic calm of a wartime correspondent. To his credit, I now know that should push come to shove, my team member could calmly discuss a spec during Armageddon without batting an eyelash.
As you can see, Microsoft employees are often just as befuddled as everyone else. It would blow your mind if you could hear how frequently basic Office tips are shared in my hallway at work. Spend a day here, and you'll find it impossible to believe that we're all Office mavens marching lockstep towards a streamlined plan for world dominion.
Then again, Office 2007 is far easier to use. I'm impressed by the many improvements in its user interface. So in a funny way, perhaps we're no longer as harmless as we used to be. World dominion may be within our grasp after all. If we could only remember to attach our plan in email…
About the author
Philip Su is a development manager in Microsoft Search. He has also been a developer in Office, MSN, and Windows. In his copious free time, Philip co-authored Building Tablet PC Applications, taught classes at the University of Washington, and managed to almost get fired twice. For more random wackiness about Philip, see his annually-updated blog.
Even Microsoft employees are not immune from the everyday pitfalls and mistakes that everyone is bound to make at work. Read Philip Su's hilarious take on how some of us Office "experts" make the same mistakes our customers do ... over and over again.
A question I frequently get from all my readers (yes, both of you!) is, "What's it like working at Microsoft?" Most people imagine that life at The Big One must be like working in a Geekalicious Nirvana. Everyone wears 3D goggles ("It's a Unix system! I know this!") and goes by handles like Crash Override and Acid Burn. Specifications are written in I33t. DeLoreans equipped with Mr. Fusions are the cars of choice. That sort of thing.
When I tell strangers that I work at Microsoft, I see the gears turning in their heads as they contemplate their next question. Inevitably, they ask one of the following:
"Have you been in Bill's house?" Usually, it's the 12-year-old in the bunch that asks this. No, I have not, but I have been on his lawn. Yes, all interns were invited; no, I did not talk with him; yes, I gorged myself on free food. None of this is half is interesting to the stranger, however, as the story of the intern who was forced out of Bill's house in handcuffs after running in during a "bathroom break" to make a phone call to his mom. "Hi mom! You'll never guess where I'm at right...ow! OUCH!" But I digress.
"Wow — can I drive your Ferrari?" This is a perennial favorite with the provisional driver's license crowd. They quickly lose interest once I fondly mention my '98 Honda Accord (V6! Too fast! Too furious!).
"Hey, my Outlook's not working…" "I don't understand the thing in Excel where you [verb] the [noun] with your [relative/neighbor] using [ctrl/alt/shift][F7/Enter/NumLock]..." It's a veritable MadLib of questions of the pattern, "In [Microsoft product of choice], how do I [some important thing that should be easy to do but isn't at all obvious]?"
The last type of question is by far the most common, especially with the airport crowd. But these strangers base their questions on a critically-flawed premise: They assume that Microsoft employees actually know how to use Microsoft products.
So without further ado, and to show you that we struggle with technology just like everyone else, here are the Top 7 Microsoft Employee Bungles using Microsoft Office that I've witnessed.
Top 7 employee bungles using Office
1. Opening dangerous attachments. Viruses like Melissa ("I love you!") were a huge problem at Microsoft. The kicker about it is that everyone acted flabbergasted and incredulous. "What sort of idiot clicks on these things?!" It's like Hootie and the Blowfish: the best-selling debut album of all time has no fans. Have you ever met a single person who admitted to owning Cracked Rear View? Same with Melissa.
2. Forgetting to include attachments. This is the evil twin of #1: in addition to clicking on harmful attachments, we forget to include useful attachments. So when you see an email with the subject "Foolproof Plan for World Peace — Part Deux," don't get too excited. As awesome as the plan probably is, it's almost definitely not attached to the email.
3. Replying-all to huge mailing lists. Any email to a large alias inevitably results in someone (no doubt a proud Hootie CD owner) replying to everyone. The threads are always the same. Something rather mundane or obscure is sent to thousands of people. Then the fan mail starts pouring in:
"Why am I on this list?"
"Unsubscribe."
"Please also remove me!"
"Please stop replying to everyone — there are thousands of people on this alias."
"Me too!"
"SERIOUSLY — STOP REPLYING ALL!"
"Why are you shouting?"
"We never talk anymore."
The most famous of these threads at Microsoft started on a mysterious distribution list called "Bedlam DL3." 25,000 employees, 15.5 million e-mails, 195 GB of bandwidth, busted network. T-shirts were printed to commemorate the event.
4. Putting aliases in the "To:" field in order to see who's in them. To see names on an alias, you can put the alias in the "To:" field of an email and double-click it ... if you're a complete idiot. A friend of mine ("Jimmy") almost got fired by an executive for doing this. A product that this executive was in charge of was getting cancelled, but her team didn't yet know it. When Jimmy heard the scoop, he wrote his boss an e-mail that essentially said, "Hey there, so-and-so's team is getting canned. Here are the only three people worth keeping..." He then proceeded to add so-and-so's entire team to the "To:" line in order to find out the names of the "only three people worth keeping." The rest of what happened is left as an exercise to the reader.
5. Projecting a PowerPoint presentation. The amount of time wasted at Microsoft sitting in conference rooms waiting for the presenter to get the slides to work is mind-boggling. Does the projector handle your resolution? Press Fn-F5! Click the little icon in the lower left to resume your slide show. Not that icon! The other one! Oh, the screen saver's kicked in. Your laptop's suspending!
6. Getting instant messages (IMs) during presentations. Once the presentation is going, IM notifications inevitably pop up on the screen. This tends to happen most when you're presenting in front of hundreds of people. "Yo! How did the [blind-date/colonoscopy/armed-robbery] go?" "Hi, [term of endearment]! I can't wait to [verb] your [adjective][noun] [now/tonight/again/forever]!" I'm told that the latest version of Office fixes this. Let's hope so.
NOTE From the Editor: In 2007 Office system, Desktop Alerts for incoming e-mail messages are turned off by default when you run a PowerPoint 2007 presentation. See Turn Desktop Alerts on or off for more info.
7. Using Excel to cover up Unreal Tournament. Well, I've only seen this once, but it's so eponymous that it deserves to be celebrated. A few years ago, one of my team members frantically maximized Excel as I walked into his office. As I began discussing a technical issue with him, sounds of gunfire, grenades, and general human suffering erupted from his speakers. I had a difficult decision to make while recovering from my brief initial confusion: Do I acknowledge what was already mutually embarrassing and awkward, or do I ignore the obvious? I decided to conduct our technical discussion with the idyllic calm of a wartime correspondent. To his credit, I now know that should push come to shove, my team member could calmly discuss a spec during Armageddon without batting an eyelash.
As you can see, Microsoft employees are often just as befuddled as everyone else. It would blow your mind if you could hear how frequently basic Office tips are shared in my hallway at work. Spend a day here, and you'll find it impossible to believe that we're all Office mavens marching lockstep towards a streamlined plan for world dominion.
Then again, Office 2007 is far easier to use. I'm impressed by the many improvements in its user interface. So in a funny way, perhaps we're no longer as harmless as we used to be. World dominion may be within our grasp after all. If we could only remember to attach our plan in email…
About the author
Philip Su is a development manager in Microsoft Search. He has also been a developer in Office, MSN, and Windows. In his copious free time, Philip co-authored Building Tablet PC Applications, taught classes at the University of Washington, and managed to almost get fired twice. For more random wackiness about Philip, see his annually-updated blog.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Marriage of ex-collegue on 25th Nov 2007 at Guruvayoor:
One of our ex-collegues - Santhosh invited us for his wedding which happened last week in Guruvayoor Temple.
Me, Hari joined them in Chennai Central Station to Thrissur.
Sai and Deena came from Bangalore and got us in Thissur.
Nakul came from Madurai.
Kannan Devendran came from Trivandrum.
We went to Chotanikarai Bagavathy Amman Temple on Saturday, the 24th Nov.
ON 25th, after attending the marriage, we had a good dharshan of Lord Krishna in Guruvayoor. Did shopping and bought many stuffs.
It was a fun-filling trip and we all enjoyed to the maximum core. Hope to have a trip like this again quite soon.
Few photographs:
One of our ex-collegues - Santhosh invited us for his wedding which happened last week in Guruvayoor Temple.
Me, Hari joined them in Chennai Central Station to Thrissur.
Sai and Deena came from Bangalore and got us in Thissur.
Nakul came from Madurai.
Kannan Devendran came from Trivandrum.
We went to Chotanikarai Bagavathy Amman Temple on Saturday, the 24th Nov.
ON 25th, after attending the marriage, we had a good dharshan of Lord Krishna in Guruvayoor. Did shopping and bought many stuffs.
It was a fun-filling trip and we all enjoyed to the maximum core. Hope to have a trip like this again quite soon.
Few photographs:
History of Accounting:
Bookkeeping and record-keeping methods, created in response to the development of trade and commerce, are preserved from ancient and medieval sources. Double-entry bookkeeping began in the commercial city-states of medieval Italy and was well developed by the time of the earliest preserved double-entry books, from 1340 in Genoa.
The first published accounting work was written in 1494 by the Venetian monk Luca Pacioli. Although it disseminated rather than created knowledge about double-entry bookkeeping, Pacioli's work summarized principles that have remained essentially unchanged. Additional accounting works were published during the 16th century in Italian, German, Dutch, French, and English, and these works included early formulations of the concepts of assets, liabilities, and income.
The Industrial Revolution of the mid-1700s created a need for accounting techniques that would be adequate to handle mechanization, factory-manufacturing operations, and the mass production of goods and services. With the emergence in the mid-19th century of large, publicly owned business corporations, owned by absentee stockholders and administered by professional managers, the role of accounting was further redefined.
Starting in the mid-20th century, machines—particularly computers—performed many of the bookkeeping functions that are vital to accounting systems. The widespread use of computers broadened the scope of bookkeeping, and the term data processing now frequently encompasses bookkeeping.
Bookkeeping and record-keeping methods, created in response to the development of trade and commerce, are preserved from ancient and medieval sources. Double-entry bookkeeping began in the commercial city-states of medieval Italy and was well developed by the time of the earliest preserved double-entry books, from 1340 in Genoa.
The first published accounting work was written in 1494 by the Venetian monk Luca Pacioli. Although it disseminated rather than created knowledge about double-entry bookkeeping, Pacioli's work summarized principles that have remained essentially unchanged. Additional accounting works were published during the 16th century in Italian, German, Dutch, French, and English, and these works included early formulations of the concepts of assets, liabilities, and income.
The Industrial Revolution of the mid-1700s created a need for accounting techniques that would be adequate to handle mechanization, factory-manufacturing operations, and the mass production of goods and services. With the emergence in the mid-19th century of large, publicly owned business corporations, owned by absentee stockholders and administered by professional managers, the role of accounting was further redefined.
Starting in the mid-20th century, machines—particularly computers—performed many of the bookkeeping functions that are vital to accounting systems. The widespread use of computers broadened the scope of bookkeeping, and the term data processing now frequently encompasses bookkeeping.
Alert on Tax Saving Efforts:
The Govt. of India has signed a contract with IBM for Rs.205 crores to create database of 375 lakhs income tax assessees based in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad. IBM was to start this work from Sep 2007.
Further, this year Income Tax dept has not been accepting TDS certificates, donation receipts etc. along with income tax returns. This tends to believe that Indian Income tax dept is coming in position to cross verify all your claims electronically.
An assessee can be issued notice of scrutiny for a period of 6 yrs. If you can't satisfy your ITO about genuineness of your return or payment of taxes, you could be asked to pay addl. tax with interest and the IT dept is empowered to levy 300% penalty.
One needs to engage efficient CA to attend scrutiny. An efficient CA may charge Rs.2,000/= or more per hour for time he devotes for visits to Income tax office and the time he spends in his office for preparation of replies. The CA's bill may come for more than Rs.25,000/=.
This year and last year income tax dept has issued plenty of notices to small income assessees whose capital is big.
Normally, the ITO gives tension to assessees. During scrutiny, he can ask for your passbooks and can verify correctness of your claims and in the process may come across various other issues.
Saving Rs.1,00,000/= in tax is no wise decision looking to the gravity and contract to IBM for creating database.
The Govt. of India has signed a contract with IBM for Rs.205 crores to create database of 375 lakhs income tax assessees based in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad. IBM was to start this work from Sep 2007.
Further, this year Income Tax dept has not been accepting TDS certificates, donation receipts etc. along with income tax returns. This tends to believe that Indian Income tax dept is coming in position to cross verify all your claims electronically.
An assessee can be issued notice of scrutiny for a period of 6 yrs. If you can't satisfy your ITO about genuineness of your return or payment of taxes, you could be asked to pay addl. tax with interest and the IT dept is empowered to levy 300% penalty.
One needs to engage efficient CA to attend scrutiny. An efficient CA may charge Rs.2,000/= or more per hour for time he devotes for visits to Income tax office and the time he spends in his office for preparation of replies. The CA's bill may come for more than Rs.25,000/=.
This year and last year income tax dept has issued plenty of notices to small income assessees whose capital is big.
Normally, the ITO gives tension to assessees. During scrutiny, he can ask for your passbooks and can verify correctness of your claims and in the process may come across various other issues.
Saving Rs.1,00,000/= in tax is no wise decision looking to the gravity and contract to IBM for creating database.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Are we really comfortable with the Government authorities?
Just thought of sharing couple of my incidents happened recently with Government officials……
As we all very much know, most of the Govt officials who interact with public do NOT themselves know the procedures to be followed and very importantly, details relating to latest developments like on-line returns, forms downloading from web sites, change in formats of forms / challans etc.
Recently, for making one of the high value payments to “Ministry of Corporate Affairs”, I faced lot of troubles and notably, nobody was able to help me.
It’s some thing like this, when we file our return for this purpose on-line, it auto-generates a challan with pre-filled details. We’ll have to print this and submit to any one of the authorized bank branches along with a cheque / DD for the applicable fee within 3 days, (will be invalid otherwise).
Problems faced:
a) The link on their website for knowing the authorized bank branches was / is not working.
b) When we enquired with the MCA office, no body knew the answer.
c) I checked up with various consultants whom I know, but they are also not sure about this but got me a list of banks, which ‘might’ accept this payment.
d) Sent my admin assistant to these banks and invariably, every bank was unable to accept this payment quoting their own idiotic reasons (all b’coz that they were not clearly instructed by the Govt officials)
i) Some says they are not authorized to accept (in spite of the fact that MCA says they are one of the authorized branches),
ii) Some says cheques are not allowed – only DDs or cash deposits are allowed (the other joint authorized signatory was in London and being high value payment cash deposit was also not possible)
iii) Some says that the cheque has to be drawn in a different name (but the form which was generated by the MCA site clearly indicates a different name, and I strictly followed that thinking that the bankers would create problems otherwise)
e) Then I checked up with another consultant in Chennai. He says that he used to make these payments in ICICI, Nungambakkam Branch. Then, I had no solution except to send the stuff to my ex-admin manager and requested him to submit it immediately since that was the last day. Though he was in hectic work schedule, was able to help me.
Another incident was / is regarding the remittance of service tax. (Need to write a separate blog about the levy of service tax, hence let me talk here only the fuss I faced in remitting the same).
I think that Service Tax authorities spend their most of the time in changing the formats of forms, challans etc very often. To our surprise, every time we remit the monies, there is a change in format with a strict instruction to all banks that old formats should not be accepted. For which, they should also let public know the new format. But what we usually hear is “Format is changed now, but we are not sure about the new one”.
When I remitted this time in Chennai in a format (which itself is a recently changed one and downloaded from the web site of Service Tax), the counter girl said “format is changed and you could try Income Tax Office for the new form”. I told that this is the downloaded form, but she said they are instructed not to accept a different format.
Then I went to Income Tax Dept and checked up about this… “Chanceless, we haven’t changed the format and also, we don’t sell forms”…. Yes, this is what I heard from the superintendent there. Since talking to him will of absolutely no use to me, I went to a law book selling shop and bought those forms whatever they had then and went back again to bank (which took about an hour in this traffic, also that it was raining).
This form insists for more details with a note that these details can be accessed to their web site. Then I called up my colleague to check the website and let me know these details. He called me back in few minutes and told these are not available on this site. I just filled up the form with whatever details I had and submitted to the bank, by clearly freezing my mind that when the concerned officials come back to me for any missing information, I’ll show who I am.
What I’m trying to say here is that taking a corporate decision for any statutory obligation is not so simple. We need to talk to various people like auditors, company secretaries, tax authorities, internal management guys at various hierarchies. After these are done, payment of concerned fees / amount is the last stage which completes the transaction and is supposed to be simple. But the situation is that we face more trouble in remitting the monies to Govt. than deciding the whole objective. Ironically, if the payment is not made on time, our Govt authorities are very perfect in threatening the corporates with penalty, interest, imprisonment etc.
“wat ? wat ? I can’t hear you clearly… “Seeking the help of Information Officer………”
Ha ha, good joke………we are in India man. What we expect from Govt Officials is to do some basic stuff, which they are supposed to do, for which seeking the help of an officer is something senseless effort. Anyway, would like to know whether any one has got justice through Information Officer anywhere in India.
Just thought of sharing couple of my incidents happened recently with Government officials……
As we all very much know, most of the Govt officials who interact with public do NOT themselves know the procedures to be followed and very importantly, details relating to latest developments like on-line returns, forms downloading from web sites, change in formats of forms / challans etc.
Recently, for making one of the high value payments to “Ministry of Corporate Affairs”, I faced lot of troubles and notably, nobody was able to help me.
It’s some thing like this, when we file our return for this purpose on-line, it auto-generates a challan with pre-filled details. We’ll have to print this and submit to any one of the authorized bank branches along with a cheque / DD for the applicable fee within 3 days, (will be invalid otherwise).
Problems faced:
a) The link on their website for knowing the authorized bank branches was / is not working.
b) When we enquired with the MCA office, no body knew the answer.
c) I checked up with various consultants whom I know, but they are also not sure about this but got me a list of banks, which ‘might’ accept this payment.
d) Sent my admin assistant to these banks and invariably, every bank was unable to accept this payment quoting their own idiotic reasons (all b’coz that they were not clearly instructed by the Govt officials)
i) Some says they are not authorized to accept (in spite of the fact that MCA says they are one of the authorized branches),
ii) Some says cheques are not allowed – only DDs or cash deposits are allowed (the other joint authorized signatory was in London and being high value payment cash deposit was also not possible)
iii) Some says that the cheque has to be drawn in a different name (but the form which was generated by the MCA site clearly indicates a different name, and I strictly followed that thinking that the bankers would create problems otherwise)
e) Then I checked up with another consultant in Chennai. He says that he used to make these payments in ICICI, Nungambakkam Branch. Then, I had no solution except to send the stuff to my ex-admin manager and requested him to submit it immediately since that was the last day. Though he was in hectic work schedule, was able to help me.
Another incident was / is regarding the remittance of service tax. (Need to write a separate blog about the levy of service tax, hence let me talk here only the fuss I faced in remitting the same).
I think that Service Tax authorities spend their most of the time in changing the formats of forms, challans etc very often. To our surprise, every time we remit the monies, there is a change in format with a strict instruction to all banks that old formats should not be accepted. For which, they should also let public know the new format. But what we usually hear is “Format is changed now, but we are not sure about the new one”.
When I remitted this time in Chennai in a format (which itself is a recently changed one and downloaded from the web site of Service Tax), the counter girl said “format is changed and you could try Income Tax Office for the new form”. I told that this is the downloaded form, but she said they are instructed not to accept a different format.
Then I went to Income Tax Dept and checked up about this… “Chanceless, we haven’t changed the format and also, we don’t sell forms”…. Yes, this is what I heard from the superintendent there. Since talking to him will of absolutely no use to me, I went to a law book selling shop and bought those forms whatever they had then and went back again to bank (which took about an hour in this traffic, also that it was raining).
This form insists for more details with a note that these details can be accessed to their web site. Then I called up my colleague to check the website and let me know these details. He called me back in few minutes and told these are not available on this site. I just filled up the form with whatever details I had and submitted to the bank, by clearly freezing my mind that when the concerned officials come back to me for any missing information, I’ll show who I am.
What I’m trying to say here is that taking a corporate decision for any statutory obligation is not so simple. We need to talk to various people like auditors, company secretaries, tax authorities, internal management guys at various hierarchies. After these are done, payment of concerned fees / amount is the last stage which completes the transaction and is supposed to be simple. But the situation is that we face more trouble in remitting the monies to Govt. than deciding the whole objective. Ironically, if the payment is not made on time, our Govt authorities are very perfect in threatening the corporates with penalty, interest, imprisonment etc.
“wat ? wat ? I can’t hear you clearly… “Seeking the help of Information Officer………”
Ha ha, good joke………we are in India man. What we expect from Govt Officials is to do some basic stuff, which they are supposed to do, for which seeking the help of an officer is something senseless effort. Anyway, would like to know whether any one has got justice through Information Officer anywhere in India.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Code of Bank's commitment to Customers
Many of us might be interested to know what exactly is the code of bank's commitment to customers............
For those who are looking for the answer and also about various rules and regulations about banking in India, here's the link........
Click here
Many of us might be interested to know what exactly is the code of bank's commitment to customers............
For those who are looking for the answer and also about various rules and regulations about banking in India, here's the link........
Click here
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Yesterday, the 17th day of July 2007, was a memorable day for about 20 employees in Cricinfo (which includes me too).
We were all awarded for "Long Term Achievement".
Those who had completed 4 yrs and 6 yrs of service were complemented with Tropy; and 4 & 6 gms of Gold Coin respectively (and of course, respectfully :-).
Friday, July 06, 2007
Investing in Mutual Funds ? - Impossible without Income Tax Permanent Account Number:
Till July 1,2007, only those people who invested in Mutual Funds for amounts more than Rs. 50,000 were needed to quote their IT PAN on the application. To avoid quoting this number and to be on a safer side, our people were wisely splitting the investments in to various parts either in their names or in the names of their relatives.
But, how long the Govt will sleep ?
Quoting IT PAN has been made mandatory by SEBI with effect from 2nd July 2007 for Capital markets and Mutual Fund investments irrespective of the amount of investment.
So, whether the investment is in your name or other's name, it doesn't matter anymore.
Photocopy of the PAN Card of the applicant has to be attached along with the application, without which it can't be processed.
It means that, if you want to invest but don't have PAN, you can do so only after applying for PAN. Of course, photocopy of acknowledged PAN application can be attached alongwith the investment application till the time you are allotted the number.
Till July 1,2007, only those people who invested in Mutual Funds for amounts more than Rs. 50,000 were needed to quote their IT PAN on the application. To avoid quoting this number and to be on a safer side, our people were wisely splitting the investments in to various parts either in their names or in the names of their relatives.
But, how long the Govt will sleep ?
Quoting IT PAN has been made mandatory by SEBI with effect from 2nd July 2007 for Capital markets and Mutual Fund investments irrespective of the amount of investment.
So, whether the investment is in your name or other's name, it doesn't matter anymore.
Photocopy of the PAN Card of the applicant has to be attached along with the application, without which it can't be processed.
It means that, if you want to invest but don't have PAN, you can do so only after applying for PAN. Of course, photocopy of acknowledged PAN application can be attached alongwith the investment application till the time you are allotted the number.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
There was lot of action in the stock markets yesterday with a volatile swing on selling and buying activities and the sensex closed with a moderate gain of 13 points.
There was buying in Capital Goods stocks.
BHEL extended its gain for the second consecutive day.
Oil company stocks also rose for the second day.
Banking stocks ended lower and other Indices closed flat or lower.
The rupee shed 0.6 paise against the Dollar.
The crude settled at $68/bbl.
The markets are expected to remain volatile in the next few days ahead of the expiry of Futures & Derivatives contract for the current month.
There was buying in Capital Goods stocks.
BHEL extended its gain for the second consecutive day.
Oil company stocks also rose for the second day.
Banking stocks ended lower and other Indices closed flat or lower.
The rupee shed 0.6 paise against the Dollar.
The crude settled at $68/bbl.
The markets are expected to remain volatile in the next few days ahead of the expiry of Futures & Derivatives contract for the current month.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Market update:
The markets closed on a positive note on monday at 14,487 with a gain of 20 points over the previous close on the back of roll over of derivatives position, amid weak Global cues.
The markets were pushed up by index weight scrips like ONGC & BHARTI AIRTEL. There was also support from Capital goods heavy weights L&T & BHEL.
Oil stocks were on the limelight and closed higher.
BEML's FPO price was fixed at 1020-1090. Midcap stocks ended higher and the midcap index closed at a new high.
Banking and technology stocks however closed on a negative territory.
The rupee came under pressure and closed as 40.88 to a Dollar due to monthend purchase by the importers and the oil marketing companies.
The crude was traded around $68/bbl.
The markets closed on a positive note on monday at 14,487 with a gain of 20 points over the previous close on the back of roll over of derivatives position, amid weak Global cues.
The markets were pushed up by index weight scrips like ONGC & BHARTI AIRTEL. There was also support from Capital goods heavy weights L&T & BHEL.
Oil stocks were on the limelight and closed higher.
BEML's FPO price was fixed at 1020-1090. Midcap stocks ended higher and the midcap index closed at a new high.
Banking and technology stocks however closed on a negative territory.
The rupee came under pressure and closed as 40.88 to a Dollar due to monthend purchase by the importers and the oil marketing companies.
The crude was traded around $68/bbl.
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