Sandesh Goel

Till sometime back, I had this strong feeling for the need to donate regularly to institutions involved in charity work. But, looking at the corruption all around, I am increasingly starting to feel that it is the wrong problem to focus on for well-intentioned folks. India has seen phenomenal growth over the past few years, and is expected to continue doing so for many more years. The growth brings huge amounts of money into govt coffers through various taxes. But, where is all that going? I'm pretty convinced that if this is properly routed into public welfare, we would have enough resources to provide basic education, health and nutrition to all, something which most of the charitable organizations are busy doing and raising money for. But, this does not happen due to the rampant corruption. Starting from the ministers who approve these projects, all the way to the petty contractor/vendor who is supposed to seal the deal, everyone takes a cut, and hardly 10-15% of it goes into th...

I recently came across this facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/IndiACor), and decided to support the cause. The single biggest factor which led me to get involved is this guy named Arvind Kejrival. He is an activist and was one of the main champions of the RTI movement. He is now championing the JLP (Jan Lokpal) movement, which asks for a citizen body to be formed which is powerful enough to punish corrupt politicians. I did some reading on their approach and what they are trying to do and how. I felt that what they are trying to do makes sense. Basically, corruption goes all the way to the top. Think about what happens if the boss is corrupt. Everybody in the organization gets a license to be corrupt, since any complaints against corruption are not entertained. I heard this anecdote about corruption in a UP city called Aligarh. Bribes were rampant in the transport department and you typically had to pay about INR 10K to get your shipment across. An honest senior bureaucrat came to...

Tax evasion is pretty widespread in India, and a lot of chartered accountants make a living out of suggesting creative ways to evade tax for their clients and channeling their "black money". I really don't understand why can't the government come up with ways to tackle it, when all of us see it and know how it is being done. I seriously believe the problem with this is "political will", since a lot of politicians will probably be at the receiving end. Instead of being too negative about this, I was trying to think if there is some way to incentivize paying taxes. Can we offer something to tax payers, so that they feel good about paying taxes? I think one way to do that is to offer perks, for which the sole eligibility is being in a certain tax bracket. I feel we as Indians do crave for prestige and social stature and our tax department could exploit that to lure a few more eligible tax payers to pay up. For example, we could have some convenient reserved par...

Here's a quick summary of all that I have assimilated about personal financial planning over the years Insurance : Don't go for ULIPS or complex insurance plans, stick to simple term insurance, it is the cheapest method. Insurance cover should be about 10 times your annual expenses (not income). Online only insurance policies will give you the best deal since they cut out the agent's commissions, consider icici pru's iprotect or aegon religare's iterm. Btw, you need insurance only if you have dependents, so no child insurance policies please. also, never lie on the insurance application, it's a sure shot way of claim rejection Investment : Consider asset allocation to all the following asset classes - liquid, gold, equity, debt, fixed income, real estate Liquid : Keep aside some amount as liquid investment for contingency requirements - either in a savings bank account or some good liquid fund, expect returns of 4-6% p.a. on this. 6 months expenses is a good ...

We figured monsoons would be over by sep-end, so planned a trip to kasali in the last weekend of september. Kasauli is a small, quiet hill station about 350 kms from Delhi. Shimla is another 60-70 kms further on the same route. We figured shimla is too commercialized and Kasauli would be more relaxing, and the shorter drive is preferred with kids. It took us about 7 hours to get there, with a couple of stops in between. For food stops, Haveli is highly recommended (there's one is murthal, and another in karnal - the one in karnal is quite happening with shops and all). In kasauli, we stayed at the Kasauli Resort, and had a good overall experience there. The view from the rooms was great, which is very important in such a stay. Also, they had a nice campus with swings for kids. Pretty decent restaurant, but we didn't like the food too much. There are three floors, but no lift which can be a problem for some. Also, it would be nice to have heating in rooms, which was not there. ...

After trying to plan a trip to Agra for a long time, we finally managed to make the trip last weekend (july-end). We had apprehensions about the weather, with monsoon right here, but we decided to go for it anyway. It was a pretty satisfactory trip overall, I'll try to share some of my experiences which might help others planning the same trip. The distance from NOIDA is about 200 kms. We planned to leave early morning, but it was 9 am by the time we left. We took a short break for tea near the UP border, in a place called "Apni Haveli". It looked decent from outside, but was pretty shabby inside, would definitely not suggest to anyone. In fact, there is a cafe coffee day right around there, which would have been a much better choice. We were in agra by about 2 PM, we got a lot of traffic inside Agra. Our hotel was Clarke Shiraz, which is supposed to be a five star. It is nice, but the rooms look old, I would have expected more from a five star. But at INR 5K per night, i...

Floating rate home loan (at least in india, since that's where my experience lies) is a grossly misused concept. I have taken 4 different home loans in the last 5 years, and have learnt a few useful lessons. All banks have a benchmark lending rate (BLR), this has slightly different names in different banks, but the concept is the same. When you apply for a floating rate home loan, they give you a discount over the BLR, and will try to woo you by giving the lowest possible effective rate (BLR - discount) in the market. But, this is just a ploy to lock you in and exploit you for the rest of the loan tenure. The BLR is a complete sham and the banks have complete independence in how to manipulate it. You will realize this when the interest rates in the market start to fall below the level that you got your initial loan at. The reasonable expectation is that your effective rate should fall as well (after all that's what you thought "floating" meant). But, lo and behold, no...