Dr M Khalid's global village blog

Deductions Allowable under various sections of Chapter VIA of Income Tax Act : •  Section 80C (Various investments) •  Section 80CCC (Premium for annuity plans) •  Section 80CCD(1) (Assessee's contribution to pension a/c) •  Section 80CCD(2) (Employer's contribution to pension a/c) •  Section 80CCD (Additional contribution to NPS) •  Section 80CCG (Rajiv Gandhi Equity Saving Scheme) •  Section 80D (Medical/health ensurance) •  Section 80DD (Reh. of handicapped dependent relative) •  Section 80DDB (Medical exp. on self/dependent relative) •  Section 80E (Intt. on loan for higher studies) •  Section 80G (Donations) •  Section 80EE (Intt. on loan for residential house property) •  Section 80G (Donations) •  Section 80GG (House rent) •  Section 80GGA (Donations) •  Section 80GGC (Sci. Research/Rural Dev.) •  Section 80RRB (Royalty on patents) •  Section 80Q...

The Affordable Care Act—also known as Obamacare—is "not an affordable product" for many people and it does not fix the underlying problems causing high health-care costs,  Aetna  Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC on Wednesday. "If we're going to fix health care, we've got to get at the delivery of care and the cost of care," Bertolini said in a " Squawk Box " interview. "The ACA does none of that. The only person who's really going to drive that is the consumer and the decisions they make." "Getting everybody insured should probably be our goal, but you have to have a more affordable system," he added. "We have a 1950[-style] health care system in the Unites States." Aetna said Tuesday that its  medical spending rose  more than estimates in the second quarter, due in part to the higher costs of covering patients who bought insurance under Obamacare for the first time. But the third-largest U.S. heal...

NEW DELHI: A day after Flipkart announced raising $1 billion in funds, e-commerce giant Amazon on Wednesday said that it will invest an additional $2 billion in India to support its growth in the country.  It has also launched a slew of customer service programmes, like next-day and same day delivery. These initiatives are bearing fruit with the company already catching up with the number two online retailer in the country, Snapdeal, in terms of sales.  Both Amazon and Snapdeal have sold about $600 million (about Rs 3,600 crore) worth of products this year and are targeting $1 billion or Rs 6,000 crore sales this fiscal. Flipkart, the market leader, reached that milestone last fiscal. Amazon has scaled up rapidly in the country since its launch in June last year. It now sells over 17 million products across 28 categories and hosts about 8,500 merchants on its marketplace. The company has heavily invested in logistics and marketing. It has created a network of wareh...

Oculus and others are proof that even after the crowdfunding process ends, money continues to change hands.  Last month, for example, LIFX, whose Wi-Fi enabled multicolor LED lightbulbs raised $1.3 million from backers in November 2012, secured a $12 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital (bringing the company's total equity funding to $16.6 million). Formlabs, whose 3-D printer reached its goal in three hours in 2012, ultimately raising nearly $3 million via crowdfunding, received $19 million in Series A funding in the fall of 2013. That same year, the OUYA game console secured $15 million from Mayfield Fund, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and others. And Pebble, a smartwatch developed by Pebble Technology that was rejected by numerous venture capitalists, later picked up $15 million from Charles River Ventures after its enormously successful Kickstarter campaign. Read More Potato salad crowdfunder's plan for leftover cash? One of the advanta...

A federal appeals court delivered a potentially serious setback to President Barack Obama's health care law Tuesday, imperiling billions of dollars in subsidies for many low- and middle-income people who bought policies. The Obama administration immediately declared that those policyholders will keep getting financial aid for their premiums as it seeks review of the ruling. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the decision would have "no practical impact" on tax credits as the case works its way through further court appeals. In the case, decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a group of small business owners argued that the law authorizes subsidies only for people who buy insurance through markets established by the states — not by the federal government. A divided court agreed, in a 2-1 decision that could mean premium increases for more than half the 8 million Americans who have purchased taxpayer-subsidized coverage under...

Whatever happened to honor among thieves? When the National Security Agency was caught eavesdropping on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone, it was considered a rude way to treat a friend. Now U.S. intelligence officials are saying—albeit very quietly, behind closed doors on Capitol Hill—that our Israeli “friends” have gone too far with their spying operations here. According to classified briefings on legislation that would lower visa restrictions on Israeli citizens, Jerusalem’s efforts to steal U.S. secrets under the cover of trade missions and joint defense technology contracts have “crossed red lines.”  Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly, counterspies have told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, going far beyond activities by other close allies, such as Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan. A congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony “very sobering…alarming…even te...

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on some of Russia's biggest firms for the first time, striking at the heart of Vladimir Putin's powerbase by targeting companies closest to him over Moscow's failure to curb violence in Ukraine. In the latest escalation of the conflict on the Ukrainian-Russian frontier, Kiev said a Russian jet had shot down one of its warplanes, its strongest accusation yet of direct Russian military involvement in the war. A Ukrainian military spokesman said the pilot of the SU-25 fighter ejected to safety. After months of measures that hit only individuals and smaller firms, Washington imposed sanctions on Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft ( ROSN.MM ), its second largest gas producer Novatek and its third largest bank Gazprombank. The firms are run by Putin allies who have become wealthy during his tenure. Moscow denounced what it called primitive revenge for events in Ukraine and pledged to retaliate. ...

Microsoft to cut 18000 jobs this year as it chops Nokia PC-maker Hewlett-Packard Co is in the midst of a radical three-to-five-year plan that will lop up to 50,000 from its staff of 250,000. International Business Machines Corp is undergoing a "workforce rebalancing," which analysts say could mean 13,000, or about 3 percent of its staff, being laid off or transferred to new owners as units are sold. Chipmaker Intel Corp and network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc both said in the past year they were cutting about 5 percent of their staffs. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101845277

SEATTLE, July 17 (Reuters) - In an act of irresponsibility, Microsoft Corp will slash up to 18,000 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce, this year as it almost halves the size of its newly acquired Nokia phone business and tries to transform into a cloud-computing and mobile-friendly software company. It may be recalled that there are widespread allegations of Microsoft resorting to unethical practice to engineer the takeover by planting its troajan into Nokia. The larger-than-expected cuts, announced on Thursday, are the deepest in the company's 39-year history and come five months into the tenure of Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella. He outlined plans for a "leaner" business in a public memo to employees last week. "We will simplify the way we work to drive greater accountability, become more agile and move faster," Nadella wrote to employees in a memo made public early Thursday. "We plan to have fewer layers of management, both top down and s...

  As  we suggested last night , the anti-dollar alliance among the BRICS has successfully created a so-called "mini-IMF" since the BRICS are clearly furious with the IMF as it stands currently: this is what the world's developing nations just said on this topic "We remain disappointed and seriously concerned with the current non-implementation of the 2010 International Monetary Fund (IMF) reforms, which negatively impacts on the IMF’s legitimacy, credibility and effectiveness." As Putin explains, this is part of "a system of measures that would  help prevent the harassment of countries that do not agree with some foreign policy decisions made by the United States and their allies ." Initial capital for the BRICS Bank will be $50 Billion - paid in equal share among the 5 members (with a contingent reserve up to $100 Billion) and will see India as the first President.  The BRICS Bank will be based in Shanghai and chaired by Russia . Simply put, ...

WASHINGTON — Five years after the U.S. financial crisis helped cause a deep global recession, foreign leaders are worried that history is going to repeat itself. The fiscal impasse that has partially shut the federal government now threatens to trigger a U.S. default that would roil financial markets worldwide, leading an agitated China to suggest replacing the dollar as the international reserve currency. "As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world," China's official state-run news agency, Xinhua, said in an English-language commentary Sunday. There is no viable alternative to the dollar as the centerpiece of the global financial system, and there probably won't be for the foreseeable fut...

The United States warned Beijing on Monday that the recent depreciation of the Chinese currency could raise "serious concerns" if it signaled a policy shift away from allowing market-determined exchange rate s. Washington has been pressing China for years to allow its currency to trade at stronger values. A weak yuan makes Chinese exports cheaper for US consumers at the expense of US producers. A weaker yuan also makes Chinese consumers less able to buy foreign goods. Last month,  US Treasury  Secretary Jack Lew welcomed a decision by China to allow its currency to vary more against the dollar in daily trading. Monday's comments by a senior official from the Treasury Department suggested the United States was not completely sold on China's intention to reduce authorities' interventions in exchange markets. "If the recent currency weakness signals a change in China's policy away from allowing adjustment and moving toward a market-determined excha...