Expense Account, Mint The government has made the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) the sole regulator of unit-linked insurance plans (Ulip) and amended the Acts governing other regulators to make its intentions clear. I have two views on this handing over of a hybrid product to one regulator instead of a joint-regulation mechanism with...
Expense Account, Mint Calvin and Hobbes play this wonderful game called Calvinball. The key feature of the game is that it operates under rules, but these are “subject to be changed, amended, or deleted by any player(s) involved. These rules are not required, nor necessary to play Calvinball”. This game looks suspiciously like the Indian...
Expense Account, Mint This week, fresh guidelines from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) attempted to deal with some of the issues that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has raised in its notice to 14 insurance companies earlier this year ordering them to stop selling mutual funds that masquerade as insurance...
Expense Account, Mint The spat between the insurance and the capital market regulators is now at a critical stage of a game theory experiment. While the regulators are debating the location of the court where the dispute will be heard (the insurance regulator does not want Mumbai where the judge may actually understand finance), insurers...
Expense Account, Mint So it comes to pass. The ministry of finance, which could have laid to rest the uncertainty that faces millions of retail investors, in the best tradition of bureaucratic ennui, has passed the buck to the courts to sort out the differences between the capital market and insurance regulators. While the post-retirement...
Expense Account, Mint Ancestral homes tell a story. Of families and fortunes as they swell and ebb. That room was added when the elder son got married. That backyard was converted into two rooms for the nephew who moved in with his wife. That portion, beyond the wall, was the one that was sold off...