Five post-graduate programme (PGP) students of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have set up a Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) club to help students get hands-on experience by involving PE/VC players from India and abroad. Unlike finance clubs run by most B-schools in the country, this club exclusively focuses on PE and VC funding.

The lack of opportunities and experience in the PE and VC space led five students to set up the club called ‘Leverage’. With around 50 students interested in being members, the club will be a forum for students interested in all aspects of private equity and venture capital.

“We came up with an initial skeletal structure of the PE club by looking at institutes like Harvard and others from the Ivy League. But the end product has been entirely our idea of how a PE club should be. Although we prefer to call it an interest group for the time being, we plan to run a full-fledged club with more activities soon,” says Anirudh Singh, a member of the club.

“PE as an industry has boomed in India and we plan to invite speakers to the campus, hold conclaves, workshops and other events to provide a platform for the students and corporates to interact. Also, we are looking forward to hold intra-institute events, where the students can write an investment proposal and a panel of faculty members can judge them.

We have no restrictions when it comes to corporates as we would be involving both top- and middle-level players to encourage more and more activities in the field of PE and VC,” says Gagandeep Singh, another member of the club.

As part of formalising the club, the students are holding the first intra-institute event called the ‘Zen of Investing’, where the club plans to invite alumni working in the area of private equity, besides involving the faculty and students for the activity.

The club also has plans to tie-up with Post-Graduate Programme in Management for Executives (PGPX) students to getter a better perspective of private equity. “The PGPX students would be able to share their experiences about private equity and with their support, we plan to involve ourselves with the corporates in a deeper way through various activities, including projects and case workshops,” adds Anirudh Singh.

The club is in talks with a few corporates, who have shown interest in sponsoring the club.

“We are considering more options for funding besides the institute and the corporates we are in talks with. Currently, we are in the stage of gauging the responses from the people about the club,” says Anirudh Singh, before adding, “Although we have started out PE and VC, we may consider branching out to other areas like micro finance later.”

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In an interview with the media today, PraMod Dr Kumar, director SIBM, “said Conference in regard to questions about the role of banks and financial institutions, the role of multinationals and public sector ’s role information technology industry, R & D and technology human resource management, management and the changing role of unions. The role of industry in the development of ethical standards and standards discussed.

Presidents of eminent Mr. NK, PSU, human resources specialists, bankers and managers of the technology involved in achieving the objectives on strengthening business relationships prospects for the future, including government influence political and understanding the impact of the activity of India in the global economy.

Among the participants are former Ministers of Finance Dr. Manmohan Singh, Rajesh Pilot, MP, Ram Jethmalani, Union Minister for Urban Development, Dr. RA Mashelkar, Director General, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and Professor Rammohan Rao, director, IIM, Bangalore

Looking merely at direct taxes, it is often suggested that India is an under-taxed nation. This, says R. Vaidyanathan, does not take into account the speed money paid for government service. This rent-seeking makes the nation high-taxed.

THERE is a view among some experts that India is an under-taxed economy. Many a time Finance Ministers believe in this and exhort people to pay their dues.

Advertisements are issued to induce people to pay taxes and novel schemes are suggested before every Budget to augment government revenues. One of the common arguments is based on the share of taxes to GDP and it is suggested that it can be much higher. Another is in terms of the composition of the taxes - direct and indirect - and it is suggested that the latter, which are regressive, are larger share of the pool.

Table 1 gives the share of taxes to GDP for select years from 1991. The share of taxes, both direct and indirect, has been around 15 per cent of GDP in the last decade and half. The share of indirect taxes was of the order of 11.5 per cent and that of direct taxes 3.6 per cent.

Based on this data of direct taxes to GDP of nearly 4 per cent, many experts, particularly of the Left persuasion, argue that we are a under-taxed nation from the view of the direct taxes. But, as we will show, they do not take in to account the payment to be made to government employees (variously called bribe, rent seeking, speed money, lubrication, etc.) for carrying on any activity and to that extent the total taxes are much higher than reflected.

Table 2 gives the level and composition of taxes of both Central and State governments in the last decade. A slight shift in the proportion of direct taxes from 1991 to 2003 is seen. It has gone up from 14 per cent of all taxes to nearly 24 per cent during this period when the proportion of the indirect taxes came down from 86 per cent to 76 per cent.

A substantial drop is seen in the Customs duties due to our international commitments. Excise duties declined from 28 per cent to 23 per cent during 1991 to 1996 and by a similar magnitude later. The share of personal income-tax showed an increase from 6.6 per cent to 9.9 per cent. As personal income-taxes and excise duties are shared with State governments, there is no enthusiasm for the Centre to reform them.

The aggregate taxes do not reveal the full picture of evasion and coverage. Table 3 provides the number of returns filed by salaried and non-salaried persons in 1999-2000 according to the I-T Department.

It says that there were no salaried persons earning more than Rs 1 crore annually and in all only 200 persons above Rs 25-lakh. In the case of self-employed, the number is around 900 in the Rs 25-lakh category with none in the Rs 50-100-lakh category.

From Table-3, it looks as if a relief fund should be created for all our top film-stars, cricket players, surgeons, lawyers, chartered accountants, architects, tax consultants and other self-employed persons. They all seem to be in distress!

Table 4 provides the number of returns from some categories of services as published by the I-T Department. The numbers speak volumes about the coverage and the nature of underlying collections.

The whole country there are apparently only 10,539 utensil and 5477 furniture shops in the taxable category. Pinch yourself.

Immediately the argument will be to strengthen, enhance, improve and network the I-T Department. The issue is not that. It is much more serious and cancerous. If you visit the Postal Department officers’ quarters in, say, Mumbai you will find mostly cycles and scooters.

But if you visit the residential quarters of the staff of Direct or Indirect Tax Department, you may find expensive cars parked there. That should provide clues to the issues facing us.

At the same time we find that the income of government employees rising faster than the inflation rate in the last thirty years.

Table 5 provides the increase in salaries of public sector employees in relation to inflation. The emoluments have risen 3610 per cent from 1971-72 to 2000-01 when the Consumer Price Index climbed 1440 per cent. This implies the public sector employees are net gainers with their real income well protected.

Hence decline in the real income cannot be a reason, if at all it is justifiable, for rent seeking from ordinary citizens.

An international seminar will be held here on 16 September a platform management practitioners, policy makers and scientists to pursue their views and experiences on the theme “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Kerala: Current Issues and Future Trends “.

The opening of borders for the strengthening of economic activity showed mixed results and reactions in different parts of the world, Prof. D Rajasenan, Department of Applied Economics and Director of the ICEPA, Cochin University of Science and Technology, told a press conference can be found here.

Although sporadic, there were cases in which different interest groups have reacted with the strength of corporate responsibility, he said.

The call to boycott products of Coca-Cola and Nike for its so-called issue, environmental standards and labour practices in developing countries shows that companies be constantly monitored, he added.

Representatives of Kochi Refinery Ltd (KRL), Cochin Port Trust (CPT) and Management Institute in India, Delhi, among the participating companies. Researchers from the Netherlands, Italy, Bangladesh is also present their views on corporate social responsibility in their respective countries.

Netherlands Embassy funded the seminar, organized by the International Centre for Economic and Policy Analysis, CUSAT in collaboration with the University of Tilburg Netherlands, restructuring the public sector and internal audit and management committee Kerala Association.

India, the largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (BSE: TCS), with acquisitions in Europe and plans to increase the number of employees in their operations in China and Latin America in 1000

“We see perhaps also, TCS, Executive Vice-President Pheroz Vandrewala told PTI on whether the undertaking research on acquisitions in Europe.

Past at a seminar at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade he said there were limits to organic growth in Europe due to environmental requirements.

So go ahead in Europe is relatively large acquisitions must be made, “said Vandrevala.

“The big European companies have significant internal IT organizations, including some outside work. But very few of them are profitable. Given that Europe wakes up, it is of great opportunities and many companies are to divest their organizations’, “he said.

Vandrevala said TCS was also planning to increase the participation of China in Latin America and operations from 1000 to March 2005, to 700 today.

In Latin America, TCS has offices in Brazil and Uruguay, while China activity of two sites.

He said TCS in China in its global customer service, but also a chance to see, in the rapidly growing Chinese market for computers. The company also plans to base its China move to Korea and Japan, the second IT market in the world.

A concentrated on policy towards the marine engineering training in India is the need of the hour to strengthen the country’s position in the global maritime industry, after consulting experts.

The presence of people of Eastern Europe on the world market for seafarers and the increased availability of skilled labour from China and the Philippines are a threat to Inde’s dominant position in World Trade Maritime, Mr K. Saxena Brijendra of Tolani Maritime Institute, New Delhi, said in a document submitted to a recent seminar.

In addition, Myanmar has been a considerable number of young officers, and many companies in the Far region are very satisfied with their level of performance, “he said.

All of the increase in Chinese sailors in the last hour is 7.24 percent, while India is a modest increase of 3.21 percent. The number of the Russian crew in the category of officers has also shown an upward trend in the recent past.

Given all these things, Mr. Saxena pointed out that there should be a proper assessment of the activity of all our competitors in neighbouring countries likely to make changes to the current system.

A look closer on the vessels of technology education and training with the clear understanding of what’s happening in other countries, will certainly benefit from the maritime training in the country over the long term, he added .

According to him, the contribution of the Indian Navy engineers in the development of maritime industry in the world is commendable.

However, it is essential that this situation will probably continue and improve. A study by Wu Bin Seafarers International Research Centre, Cardiff University, says that 55 percent of Chinese sailors to work on foreign ships, he said.

Mr. Saxena also proposed a number of proposals to strengthen maritime training, given the excellent career prospects in the sector.

Sailors Engineering Institute should be compatible with the network of educational institutions in other disciplines, for necessary inputs.

Improved information should be considered in the market regarding the maritime industry and the real offer on board.

A selection method to ensure that students are selected. More industry of the Institute of interaction is necessary to understand the needs of each other.

Marine Engineering Training is an integral part of the maritime industry in India. Indian sailors, including engineers from the sea, is welcome to have the ship and ship management companies in the world and are regarded as efficient, reliable and ably and effectively.

Government policy allows private sector participation has resulted in the development of the supply of many institutes dedicated to 4 years of the Vessel fields of study.

India has a place among countries to provide labour, especially in the category of officers exhibitions. In order to maintain market share, said he should have a closer look on the training of seafarers.