Dr M Khalid's global village blog

Kota is a city where there are a lot of residential coaching institutes drawing students for preparation of medical and engineering entrance examinations. "HAMARA AGAR selection nahin hua toh hum aap logon se nazrein nahi mila payenge. I am sorry. Mein apni marzi se aaj apni life khatam karti hoon (I cannot face you if I am not selected. I am ending my life)." On the night of October 31, eight days before she was to reach home for Diwali, Anjali Anand scribbled these lines on a sheet of paper before hanging herself from the window of her hostel room at Rajiv Gandhi Nagar in Kota. This 18-year-old had arrived here just 18 months ago after her Class 12 from Moradabad to become one among the 77,000 students at Allen Career Institute and chase her dream of cracking the medical entrance examination. Investigating the deaths, The Indian Express accessed police records and interviewed over 50 stakeholders, including students, institute representatives, parents and doctors

Use Mortgage as an Overdraft Account This is one of the least used options available in the market. Outside India, the product is generally called as an Offset mortgage. In India, the product is sold by State Bank of India by the name Max Gain.  In this type of mortgage account, if you have surplus funds, you can deposit the funds in your bank / mortgage account and interest shall be computed on the balance mortgage loan. You are free to withdraw the deposit and the interest shall levied on the remaining balance. Hence, when ever you have surplus funds, you reduce your interest payouts. If you find an investment opportunity, you can withdraw the funds from your mortgage to fund your investments. By this way, you tend to get a good mix of putting surplus funds into work (by reducing interest payouts) and at the same time having the flexibility to get the funds back when needed. It is important to note that any deposits made in such an account do not end up reducing your mortgage balance

Below information is true as of 2011. Please check for revised rule. RBI was pushing to relax prepayment rules. Prepayment limits If you have recently taken a home loan, you may not be eligible for prepayment. Most lenders have a time frame, usually six months after taking the loan, within which you cannot prepay.   IDBI Bank   levies a 2-3% charge on prepayment of loans if it's done within six months. If you are not faced with this restriction, check whether the penalty is applicable for complete or partial prepayment. HSBC does not levy a penalty if you prepay up to 25% of the sanctioned loan amount, but will be charged 3% if you cross this limit. In the case of HDFC, the 25% limit is calculated on the opening balance (that is, the remaining loan) in a financial year. Some lenders, such as Axis Bank, do not levy any prepayment charge. Some banks do not levy a penalty on partial prepayments, but this will depend on when you foreclose the loan. If the loan is partially paid within

Wu Pei, a 35-year-old former computer programmer with Foxconn Technology Group is tapping growing demand from parents intent on preparing their preschoolers for a world in which Oxford University researchers predict half the jobs in some countries may be eliminated by robots and computers. Similar classes are taking off across China. Reynold Ren has taught about 150 primary school-age children in Beijing to use Scratch, a project developed by the MIT Media Lab and Arduino, which enables users to create interactive objects such as robots. In Hong Kong, about 2,500 students have taken courses that Michelle Sun runs at her First Code Academy. "Teaching the next generation coding is something that should be elevated to a strategical national importance," said Wang Jiulin, the Xi'an-based creator of Kidscode.cn, a website that shares free information and courses. "Even today, the majority of programmers in China can only perform very basic-level tasks and there's huge

1. The First World War 17 million dead (caused by non-Muslims) 2. The Second World War 50-55 million dead (caused by non-Muslims) 3. Nagasaki atomic bombs 200,000 dead (caused by non-Muslims) 4. The war in Vietnam over 5 million dead (caused by non-Muslims) 5. The war in Bosnia / Kosovo over 500,000 dead (caused non-Muslims) 6. War in Iraq (so far) 1,200,000 deaths (caused non-Muslims) 7. Afghanistan, Burma etc. (caused by Non- Muslims) You still think that Islam is the problem?! And when it is said to them, "Do not cause violence on the earth," they say, "We are but reformers." Al-Quran (2:11)

Click on the image to enlarge

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) - is a legislation introduced by the United States (US) Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to prevent US persons from using non-US accounts and non-US businesses to avoid US taxation on income generated from such wealth and assets. Similar to FATCA, the purpose of CRS is to aid automatic exchange of information between bilateral treaty partner countries about accountholders/investors maintaining accounts in foreign jurisdictions. FATCA / CRS obliges banks and financial institutions to report information about such account holders having accounts with them. You are therefore requested to provide the required confirmation and comply. If you have a citizenship of a country other than india or have dual citizenship,  then you need to talk to your bank/stockbrocker co./bank to provide some details. Reporting requirement under Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Common Reporting Standards (CRS) can be found