I S S U E C O N T E N T S

20 September 2012

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?

18

CONTENTS

56 Wrong Lessons

Thanks to huge demand, education has become a tool for looting gullible parents and students

LEGALLY SPEAKING

54 Mushrooming Growth

Playschools, no better than glorified crèches, are thriving in Bengaluru finds Valliyur Satyavageeswaran

CONSUMER INTEREST

LETTERFROM THE

EDITOR

Speed Trap

Have 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.

LoopholesGalore20

Instead of a regulator to monitor ads, why not tighten the many statutes that already provide for consumer protection?

DIFFERENT STROKES

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

INSURANCE

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.

Your Money14

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

Current Account16

Survey: Less Email, Less Stress

Loose Change17

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

MONEYLIFE | 20 September 2012 | 10

Cover Story24Road Accident: Know Your Financial RightsRoad 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 best-kept secret of accidents involving drunk drivers

Not for Mutual Benefit22

SEBI’s short shrift to investors and distributors

SMART MONEY

13Surrender 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

Your Interest

Letters ............................ 4

Book Review ....................58

Money Facts ....................63

DEPARTMENTS

STOCKS

Cyclical Wonders

PopularPicks43

36 ValuePicks

Post-Earning Analysis

The linkages between resources, economic growth and interest rates have broken down

WhichWay42

– VST Tillers Tractors– Lumax Auto Technologies

38 Street Beat

STOCK PERFORMANCE: Good Going

Medium TermAtul Auto and Ajanta Pharma jumped 8% each, while Kajaria Ceramics crashed 8%

Long TermNMDC went up 7%, Tata Consultancy Services jumped 7%, while Jindal Steel & Power crashed 12%

STOCKGRADER 46

Blindness has not prevented Bhavesh Bhatia from setting up Sunrise Candles which allows him to light up lives of handicapped people employed by him

66 Lighting Up Lives

BEYOND MONEY

HEALTH

Germs R Us52

– Germs are our friends and not enemies as made out by modern medicine

– Pulse Beat: Medical developments from around the world

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

EVENTS

Pick of the Lot50

AUTO

A quick review of some of the best ‘value-for-money’ roadsters