Weekend Bites: A tale of two TCSes, and the life of Byju Raveendran

In which we munch over the week's platter of news and views

Rare is the abbreviation that applies to two distinct newsworthy topics. Rarer still is the week in which both the topics trend.
 
Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in the times of TCS and TCS.
 
Story of the week
 

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest software services firm, has been having a tumultuous time. It had an unexpected change at the top whose inside story might one day become a Netflix series, assuming there is an inside story there. Its deal situation has been dynamic. Its hiring scenario has been chaotic.  
 
N Chandrasekaran was emphatic on Thursday. The TCS Chairman, addressing shareholders, said there will be strong action against employees who violated the ethical code of conduct. 

 
The other TCS — tax collected at source — delivered its own edge-of-the-seat fare. In the end, it got so exciting we asked A K Bhattacharya (@AshokAkaybee on Twitter), who munches macroeconomic numbers for breakfast, what on earth was going on.
 
This, it emerged, is what the government said on Wednesday:
 
·         Overseas spends on international credit cards by an Indian individual will be outside the ambit of the Liberalised Remittance Scheme. Such transactions will not attract TCS provisions.
·         Credit card spends within the country entailing expenditure in foreign exchange below Rs 7 lakh a year for an individual will be exempt from TCS.

·         Foreign exchange remittance abroad below Rs 7 lakh in a year by an individual will be exempt from TCS.
·         Foreign exchange remittance above Rs 7 lakh in a year to meet educational expenditure financed through an educational loan will attract TCS at 0.5%.
·         All other remittances above Rs 7 lakh will attract 20% TCS from October 1.
·         All credit card spends in foreign exchange above Rs 7 lakh after October 1 will attract 20% TCS.
 
Moral of the story: If you need clarity, come to Weekend Bites. We might be without a clue, but we know where to find the clues. In other words, mere paas Akaybee hai.

 
In other news…
 
Housing Finance Development Corporation Ltd, popularly known as HDFC, which pioneered retail home loans in India almost half a century ago, has found a new home. In a merger that is coming into effect today, it has merged with HDFC Bank, in which it had a 19 per cent stake as promoter. Following the amalgamation, HDFC Bank will be the fourth-largest bank in the world with a market capitalisation of Rs 14.73 trillion, or nearly $180 billion.
 
The output of eight key infrastructure industries — also known as the core sector — expanded at 4.3% in May, amid high base effect and positive growth in five out of the eight sectors. In May last year, the core sector had grown 19.3 per cent.

 
Sebi, the stock markets regulator, on Wednesday tightened the disclosure requirements for foreign portfolio investors in an effort to get a better handle on them and prevent circumvention of minimum public shareholding and takeover norms.
 
Sebi is also scrutinising certain dealings in the shares of at least three Gautam Adani-led companies — Adani Power, Adani Green Energy and Ambuja Cements — for suspected insider trading.
 
Influencers are in the limelight during this poll season. Governments as well as political parties are wooing them.
 
Watch it: From The Morning Show
 
Can electric two-wheelers thrive without government support? This episode of the The Morning Show came last week. But, given the crash in e2W sales this month, the question is staring us harder in the face. Dive into it here.

 
What is Suveen obsessing over?
 
It has been at least a headline a day for a while, at times more, from Byju’s. This week was no different. On Thursday, Byju Raveendran addressed a town hall in which he told the employees that the past few months had been a struggle, but that the company would soon be out of the woods.
 
Earlier in the week, he addressed shareholders on the sudden resignation of the company’s auditors and some board members. He sought to reassure his investors by saying: “Byju’s is not my work; it is my life.”

 
How cool that sounds! But is that the right way to run a business?
 
Your newsletter writer sought to delve deeper into the issue. And it ended up being a letter addressed to Byju’s eponymous founder.
 
If you are not awfully particular about finding evolved intellect in a newspaper column — self-promotion alert — you could consider reading this: No, Byju, it is about more than your life.
 
This is Suveen signing off. Please send comments, news, or views about anything — about TCS or about TCS or about self-promoting newsletter writers — to suveen.sinha@bsmail.in.
 

(Suveen Sinha is Chief Content Editor at Business Standard)