The document provides a weekly economic slideshow summary for the period of August 23rd to August 29th. It covers topics such as the approval of the New Direct Tax Code in Parliament, Mahindra & Mahindra being named the preferred bidder to acquire SsangYong Motors, Vedanta Resources aiming to acquire a majority stake in Cairn India, the August 31st deadline for Blackberry to provide access to secure services in India or face a service ban, and an agreement between four public sector insurers in India to not undercut each other on group mediclaim premiums.

1. Weekly slideshow of economic times 23rd August to 29th August Presented by- Shruti Sharma MBA 2 ©

2. New Direct Tax Code Parliament has approved the New Direct Code in this Monsoon Session. The new provisions under the Direct Tax Code are as follows:Tax slabs: Rs 2 Lakh-Rs 5 Lakh : 10% Rs 5 Lakh-Rs 10 Lakh :20% Over Rs 10 Lakh : 30% Corporate tax has been kept at 30%. The new Code comes into effect from April, 2011.

3. Mahindra –Ssang Young Deal Mahindra & Mahindra has been named as the preferred bidder to buy SsangYong, the bankrupt South Korean automaker, and will emerge as one of the world’s largest SUV makers with a combined turnover of over $4 billion. Ssangyong will be retained as a separate unit by M&M and will have a South Korean chief executive. The company expects to complete the acquisition within the next four months.

4. Vedanta-Cairn Buyout Anil Aggarwal-led Vedanta Resources aims to buy a controlling stake in oil explorer Cairn India in the biggest domestic takeover this year, positioning itself as an Indian equivalent of the world's biggest resource firm, BHP Billiton. The Vedanta-Cairn transaction, which was announced last Monday, had, besides upsetting ONGC, also miffed the petroleum ministry as its consent was not taken. Cairn Energy has now written to the ministry saying it will comply with all contractual obligations in the sale of its stake in Cairn India to the world’s fifth-largest miner.

5. Blackberry ban Research in Motion faces an August 31 deadline to give India access to its secure email and instant messaging services. Otherwise the Indian government has said it will ban those services, hurting much of corporate India. Earlier this month, RIM successfully managed to get a reprieve from a ban threatened by Saudi Arabia, with the country saying progress was being made on addressing its concerns.

6. Contd… Kuwait does not plan to ban BlackBerry services, but has been holding talks with the manufacturer about moral and security concerns. RIM had been asked to block pornographic sites and the company has requested four months to deal with the request. A shutdown would affect about 1 million users in India out of a total 41 million BlackBerry users worldwide, allowing them to use the devices only for calls and Internet browsing. BlackBerry security is based on a system where customers create their own key and the company neither has a master key nor any "back door" to allow it or any third party to gain access to user data.

7. Cashless mediclaimwithdrawl In a bid to clean up their loss-making health portfolios, the four public sector general insurers — New India Assurance National Insurance Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance have agreed not to undercut each other in group mediclaim. The four insurers together control close to 70% of the market.

8. CONTD… Undercutting is a term used by insurers for quoting rates lower than those prevailing in the market. Such an agreement can, therefore, prevent the competition-fuelled free fall of premiums, given the size of their combined market share.

9. Thank You