State GST at 8%??

An update on the GST Story. The pink papers last week reported that Asim Dasgupta(West Bengal Finance Minsiter) who is the head of the empowered comittee of ministers on GST has said two important things:-

• GST is on Track for implementation from 1st April 2010. This is a very important development considering the fact that Asim Dagupta has risen above Party lines and is NOT opposing GST even though, politically the Left and UPA are at loggerheads today.
• He also went on to say that proposed rate of State GST would be 8%. This too is a significant development that atleast their is some talk in the public domain as to what the rate of  State GST will be.

A Good Deed or No ?

Yesterday evening I saw many employees in my office reading the newspaper and cursing a particular politician/businessman about whom it was in the papers that this man indulging in illegal business of some kind donated the most expensive gift in centuries to a particularly well known temple. After donating the gift, this politician/businessman well known to be indulging an illegal business went on to say that he donated the wealth to God in return for wealth God has showered on him. This got me wondering whether the mere act of giving wealth away qualifies as a Good Deed??
(For obvious reasons I am not naming the businessman/politician or the business they do nor the temple where they donated their expensive gift)

India’s Most Colourful Company

There is one company in India I really admire for the way they add colour and design into everything they do. The Company I am talking about is ‘Asian Paints Ltd’. Let me state here that I have or have never had any business dealing of any kind with them but yet I still really admire them. My only stake in Asian Paints is the fact that I am a minisicule share holder holding 10 Shares of this company. And it is by the virtue of being this minisicule shareholder I got a hand at their Annual Report copies. And I reproduce below the Cover Pages of the Annual Reports which I found were really well designed keeping in sync with the fact the business of the this company is all about colours. Hats off to their Design Team for taking the effort to design these Annual Report cover Pages

Asian Paints 08-09 Annual Report Cover

Asian Paints 07-08 Annual Report Cover

Asian Paints 05-06 Annual Report Cover

This is a Screen Shot of the Asian Paints Corporate Website. It is one of the most colourful corporate websites I have ever seen. If you goto http://www.asianpaints.com you can even check out an online Colour Palette of their paint colours.

Asian Paints understood the concept of design long ago in an era when Indian companies did not know what design was all about. They had the famous cartoonist RK Laxman design their mascot for many years : “Gattu”.

 

Also Asian Paints has an interesting story about how it was found. I saw this in a wiki Entry about Asian Paints as well as on their corporate file.  Chimanlal Choksi,Champaklal Choksey,Suryakant Dani and Arvind Vakil were the four friends(shown in the picture above) who started the company. Chimnalal Choksi was a painter whose daughter had died.Chimanlal Choksi was unable to save her because of financial problems. Suryakant Dani owned a Garage where he did the painting work for Machines & Vehicles. The same garage is where Asian Paints started off its operations. Arvind Vakil was a worker who did the bicycle painting work for Suryakant Dani. These 4 friends started a partnership firm to manufacture paint in India to take on the big foreign paint companies operating in India in the 1940s and 1950s. And today 6 decades later Asian Paints was rated by Forbes magazine as one of the best 200 Small Companies in the world and Economic Times rated it as one of the most respected companies in India. No mean achievement for a company started by 4 Painters all bound together for their love for COLOUR !!!

 

Spanner in the Reformist Wheel

I loved today’s editorial caption in the New Indian Express. It says “Spanner in the Reformist Wheel”. In 5  words this title has rightly expressed the truth about UPA Government in it’s second avatar. Big bang reforms like deregulation of petroleum sector, 100% FDI in Retail, increase of FDI in insurance have all fallen on the back burner in less than 1 month of the Government taking over. Allies like Trinamool and DMK have also fiddled in with their objections on SEZs and Disinvestment. This was supposed to be the Government with a greater vigour for reforms. But the first few feelers coming out of the Government express the mood that their old leftist allies seem to have a left of shadow of their socialist ideas into the UPA Vein. The UPA immediately needs to get its act together and put on the gas pedal on Reforms and get out of this socialist shadow.

When Cheques Bounce..

When I realize that a Cheque given to me by a Customer has bounced due to insufficient funds, my next few thoughts go into wondering why this could have happened. I ask questions like
• “This Company/Person has such reputed a Name, Why would they issue cheques if they didn’t have the money in their account. Aren’t they worried about their reputation?”
• “Is this, such an inefficient company that their accountants issue cheques without knowing how much balance they have in their Bank Account?”
• “Does this person really have an intention to pay, is he a willful fraudster?”
• “Why don’t people understand that Cheque Bouncing is a criminal offence under law and still commit this offence?? (some willingly , some due to negligence”)

Most often I am unable to answer these questions with credibility. And I am left wondering what could be the story behind each bounced cheque?

And when I confront some of the people to know the story behind their bounced cheque , I am surprised at some of the reactions I get like
• “Oh Really !! Did the Cheque bounce??? Oh, Actually I have some incoming cheques which have not cleared, Please represent the cheque.” (I wonder if you know that you have uncleared cheques why did you issue the Cheque Dumbo!!)
• “Bounced ??? Can’t be I have double that amount in my bank. You please represent it, I will speak to the Bank Manager and have it cleared” (I wonder if you really have double the amount in your Bank why do you need to speak to your Manager to get the Cheque cleared!!)
• “Oh! I see actually I have money in my Other Bank Account and not in this one. I will issue you another cheque from a different account” (I wonder if you knew it, why did you waste my time and yours to issue me a cheque from an account which was an empty tank !!)
• “Yes. I have a funds problem. Please bear with me for some time” (These are the Truthful kind. I wonder if you are so truthful, why didn’t you tell me this truth before issuing a cheque”)

Moral of the Story: In Business, Cheques will continue to bounce, and people will continue to lie about the reasons behind them , But the Most Important thing in Life and Business is NOT to worry about the Cheques that Bounce but to Rejoice about those that Cleared !!!