CONTENTS
LETTER
ISSUE CONTENTS
20 September 2012
FROM THE
EDITOR
54 Mushrooming Growth Playschools, no better than glorified crèches, are thriving in Bengaluru finds Valliyur Satyavageeswaran LEGALLY SPEAKING
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MONEYLIFE | 20 September 2012 | 10
CONSUMER INTEREST
Vedanta’s Millions: Which Political Party Benefited from It? No Frills Demat: Will New Investors Bite? Foreign Retail Chains: Will They Be Able To Deal with the Indian Reality?
Speed Trap ave you ever been hit by a speeding car or been injured in a freak road accident? The probabilities of an accident are small but, when it occurs, it can be devastating, both physically and emotionally. One of the ways to overcome the ordeal would be to get adequate financial compensation. As usual, our columnist Raj Pradhan explains at length, the nitty-gritty of what happens in these situations and reveals many unknown details, especially those that involve drunk drivers. On the other side of the spectrum, Veeresh Malik, in his Auto column, gives his take on the new and upcoming cars that are slated to hit the market soon, namely, Renault Duster, Maruti Swift D’Zire, Hyundai Elantra or the Tata-Jaguar Land Rover. Which of these does he think is worthy? Turn to page 50 to find out. Make sure you drive safe. While getting disabled can be traumatic, it is not the end of the world. Check out our Beyond Money section where we discover a blind entrepreneur Bhavesh Bhatia. He manufactures candles. It’s a touching story of bringing light to the lives of other people. We live in the world where advertisements are pervasive, yet little is done to regulate them. In her Different Strokes section, Sucheta Dalal points out that there are many laws to protect the consumer but they all seem compromised in their implementation. Education has become a hotspot for a lot of wrongs. Our legal columnist SD Israni points out how educational institutes misrepresent to loot parents and children. Likewise, Valliyur Satyavageeswaran talks about the mushrooming of playschools in Bengaluru and how teachers are mistreated. Moneylife Foundation will be coming to Pune once again to host an Investor Empowerment seminar on 8th September. Be sure to attend it! For those who have missed recent events, we have written about them in this issue. We also have uploaded new videos to our MoneylifeTV YouTube channel. Do check them out at http://www.youtube.com/user/ MoneylifeTV.
18
DIFFERENT STROKES
20 24 Cover Story Road Accident: Know Your Financial Rights Road accident victims may lose their lives or end up disabled. While physical abilities are irreplaceable, financial compensation would alleviate the victims’ problems. Raj Pradhan reveals how such financial compensation can be obtained and also the bestkept secret of accidents involving drunk drivers
13 Your Interest Surrender extra LPG connections to prevent disconnection; Overcharging for mineral water; New India asked to pay Rs49 lakh as compensation; Mobile towers: New emission norms; Airtel to pay Rs6,000 for not activating SIM; DLF Home Developers to pay Rs7.12 lakh for unfair trade practice
14 Your Money Post Office: Rs752 cr Lying in Inactive Post Office Saving Accounts; Banks: Penalty for Failing to Pass Education Loans, Floating Rate Deposit Scheme Launched; Real Estate: Housing Price Cut Not Possible; Home Loan: HUDCO’s rate lower than SBI’s; Fixed Deposits: Interest Rates Variation on FDs; Demat: No-frills Accounts; Online Products: Online personal loans, Mobile car insurance; SIP through SMS
16 Current Account Survey: Less Email, Less Stress
17
Loose Change
Moneylife Quiz; Sound Bites: Ratan Tata, chairman Tata Chemicals; KC Chakrabarty, deputy governor RBI; Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP group PLC; David Weidner, columnist Disclaimer: Moneylife has a policy of not allowing its editorial staff to buy and sell stocks that are written about in the magazine. All personal transactions in individual stocks are subjected to internal disclosure rules.
Loopholes Galore
Instead of a regulator to monitor ads, why not tighten the many statutes that already provide for consumer protection?
SMART MONEY
for 22 Not Mutual Benefit SEBI’s short shrift to investors and distributors
STOCKS
36 Value Picks Post-Earning Analysis
38
Street Beat
– VST Tillers Tractors – Lumax Auto Technologies STOCK PERFORMANCE: Good Going
STOCKGRADER 46 Medium Term
Atul Auto and Ajanta Pharma jumped 8% each, while Kajaria Ceramics crashed 8%
Long Term
NMDC went up 7%, Tata Consultancy Services jumped 7%, while Jindal Steel & Power crashed 12%
INSURANCE
48 Insurance Trends – Money-Back Plan: Aviva Family Income Builder – Bank Life Insurance: Canara Freedom Suraksha – Term Plan: Tata AIA Maha Raksha Supreme – Term Plan: Bajaj Allianz iSecure AUTO
of 50 Pick the Lot A quick review of some of the best ‘value-for-money’ roadsters
56 Wrong Lessons Thanks to huge demand, education has become a tool for looting gullible parents and students EVENTS
60 Moneylife Foundation Events – When it comes to money, humans tend to be naturally irrational, explained Debashis Basu at the 126th seminar of Moneylife Foundation
– Moneylife Foundation’s 124th seminar gave members a detailed analysis of the Maharashtra Housing Bill and the present condition of the real estate sector
BEYOND MONEY
66 Lighting Up Lives
HEALTH
42
Which Way
The linkages between resources, economic growth and interest rates have broken down
43 Popular Picks Cyclical Wonders
52 Germs R Us – Germs are our friends and not enemies as made out by modern medicine – Pulse Beat: Medical developments from around the world
Blindness has not prevented Bhavesh Bhatia from setting up Sunrise Candles which allows him to light up lives of handicapped people employed by him
DEPARTMENTS Letters............................. 4 Book Review.....................58 Money Facts.....................63