India is likely to miss its direct tax collection targets for the fiscal under the impact of slowing economic activities and lower profit margins for Indian companies.
Salary cuts and retrenchments during the previous months caused lower revenue in February for the state exchequer. The department of income tax collected Rs 5,920 crore as personal income taxes in February as compared to Rs 8,762 crore during the same month last year.
Continuing its downward journey, the wholesale price index based inflation rate touched seven year low of 3.03% for the week ended February 21. The annual inflation rate was at 3.36% a week before while at 5.69% during the same period last year.
Decline in prices of food articles, metals and transportation articles helped to reduce the inflation at seven year low, a big respite to UPA government, which is going to face public opinion in the forthcoming general elections in April-May period.
Priority should be to ensure the global economic crisis does not lead to a social crisis
Evidence is mounting that the ongoing global economic crisis is the severest in over seven decades.
In spite of growth projections of around 5% for India and China, global economic growth is expected to be negative in 2009; and world trade is expected to also decline significantly. Global loss of livelihoods may approach 50 million, with Asia accounting for half the total.
There are eerie similarities between the Great Depression and our current economic crisis, says Liaquat Ahamed, a professional investment manager for 25 years who has worked at the World Bank and now advises several hedge fund groups.
Ahamed should know: he's the author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (The Penguin Press, 2009), an economic history of the Great Depression, narrated with a human perspective.
Taking a leaf out of rugby rule books, a bunch of techies working out of Bangalore are seeking to put the 'sprint' back into the IT services business by 'scrumming' workable code in the shortest possible time to meet client needs.
With the economic turmoil, customers have often been unable to commit investments, and decided to withdraw IT projects midway. Moreover, many are now demanding that IT vendors do more with less, that too in a shorter timeframe.
That is exactly what agile software development does.
India recoded 5.3 per cent growth rate, the lowest over the last five years, during October-December period of current financial year, reflecting grimmer situation ahead under the impact of global slowdown and recession across the world. The economy was growing at 8.9 per cent in the same quarter of 2007-08.
Government and the Reserve Bank have taken many fiscal measures to stimulate demand across various sectors of economy and announced special economic booster package to mitigate the impact of global slowdown on the economy. However, the results of these stimulus packages will take time to reflect results.
India is likely to miss its direct tax collection targets for the fiscal under the impact of slowing economic activities and lower profit margins for Indian companies. 
Continuing its downward journey, the wholesale price index based inflation rate touched seven year low of 3.03% for the week ended February 21. The annual inflation rate was at 3.36% a week before while at 5.69% during the same period last year. 
There are eerie similarities between the Great Depression and our current economic crisis, says Liaquat Ahamed, a professional investment manager for 25 years who has worked at the World Bank and now advises several hedge fund groups.
India recoded 5.3 per cent growth rate, the lowest over the last five years, during October-December period of current financial year, reflecting grimmer situation ahead under the impact of global slowdown and recession across the world. The economy was growing at 8.9 per cent in the same quarter of 2007-08.
