India's Dipika Pallikal squandered a one-game lead and went down to Egypt's Raneem El Weleily in the pre-quarter-finals of the women's World Open Squash Championship in the Grand Cayman Islands, in the Caribbean. Pallikal, ranked world No 10 and seeded 13th in the tournament, lost to second seed Weleily 11-7, 9-11, 6-11, 5-11 in 38 minutes at the South Sound squash club on Wednesday.

Bank has apologised and vowed it has recently overhauled its anti-money-laundering efforts.

The potential settlement, which has been in the works for months, is emerging as a test case for just how big a signal US prosecutors want to send to try to halt illicit flows of money moving through US banks.

In a recommendation that could provide relief to firms like Vodafone, a Government-appointed committee today favoured companies facing tax liability following retrospective amendment to the Income Tax Act should be exempted from payment of interest and penalty.

Usain Bolt of Jamaica won his second straight Olympic gold medal in the men's 100 metres on Sunday, crossing the line in an Olympic record 9.63 seconds. Bolt joined Carl Lewis as only the second man to go back-to-back in track's biggest race.

A US Senate panel has accused global banking giant HSBC of exposing the country's financial system to various terror financing, money laundering and drug trafficking activities with transactions worth billions of dollars, due to poor risk control systems at the bank.

Last week, as I was driving to work past Gowalia Tank Maidan in Mumbai, I could not help but wonder what the gentlemen assembled there on August 8, 1942 would have made of some recent events. The call they had issued that day to the British Raj government to "Quit India" resulted five years later in the Indian nation-state, one whose edicts within its geographic borders would be absolute and unchallenged.

Official sources said the notice under section 201 and 220 (2) of the I-T Act, which talks about simple interest at one and a half per cent for every month the tax demand was raised, will also explain the retrospective amendment made by the government for taxing business deals that avoids tax in the country by showing them in a tax haven.

Jamaican world champion Yohan Blake missed the fastest 100 metres of the year by the blink of an eye on Wednesday, his 9.84 seconds a mere 0.02 behind world record holder and training partner Usain Bolt's mark.

Lok Sabha passes Finance Bill; Will introduce a white paper on black money in current session: FM

Moving the Finance Bill, 2012 for consideration and passage in the Lok Sabha, Mukherjee halved the capital gains tax for private equity investors to 10 per cent and relaxed the norms for arrest of persons involved in violation of Customs Act.

Innovations are happening first in the poor countries and then they are migrating to advanced nations, says Vijay Govindarajan.

A finance ministry official said Vodafone had threatened arbitration against something that had not happened. He said the UK-based telecom company was presuming it might happen.

On January 20, the court allowed Vodafone's appeal and had quashed the Bombay High Court verdict which had upheld the decision to levy tax on the overseas deal.

Vodafone judgement has set the cat amongst the pigeons.

The investment to the country from India, which has been at the top of the 2009-10 list of the destinations to which Indian investment is flowing, was $3798.5 million.

A former employee of Swiss bank Julius Baer, Rudolf Elmer shot into limelight as a whistleblower in 2008.

The Miss Universe 2011 pageant is fast approaching on September 12. In a countdown to D-Day, we'll be introducing you to all 89 contestants from around the world.

Planning on taking a trip soon or just making a list of places to visit in the near future? You might want to consider these.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia asked the company to file its representation before the IT department.

I-T department has fixed Rs 12,000-crore tax claim on the 2007 deal in which Vodafone bought Hutch's 67 per cent stake in Hutchison Essar for $11.2 billion.

The government may have to wait a little longer to get a trail of illegal money stashed by Indians in Liechtenstein.

As the debate on revealing names of those who had stashed money abroad was hotting up, a Parliamentary panel grilled finance ministry officials on why the confidentiality clause was put in tax treaties in the first place.

"Kraft's acquisition of Cadbury is a global acquisition, where some value is attributable to India. This is different from Vodafone, where the transfer of a single share of the offshore company by Hutch resulted in the Indian business getting transferred to Vodafone," said Pranay Bhatia, associate partner at legal firm Economic Laws Practice.

According to the Demographic Yearbook -- a statistics collection put out by the United Nations -- there are five divorces per every 1,000 marriages in the country, reports the New York Daily News.

Hutchison Essar is an Indian Company, the controlling interest of Hutchison Essar is held by an SPV of Cayman Island (CGP Investments Holding Ltd). CGP is owned by Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL), Hong Kong.

Egged on by a capacity crowd at the Siri Fort Sports Complex, the fourth seed mixed doubles pair of Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa came out with a heartening performance to lead the Indian charge in the squash team events of the Commonwealth Games.

India signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement with Bermuda on Thursday, the first in a series of such pacts.

The landmark Vodafone ruling was delivered last fortnight amid fiercely debated proceedings lasting nine days and putting to test skills of a battery of lawyers assisting Vodafone and the Indian government.

Vodafone on said it is seeking legal advice to challenge the Bombay High Court order that dismissed its plea against the I-T department's Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion) demand in tax and penalty on the company's acquisition of Hutchison Telecom in a deal of about Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion).

The Bombay High Court has dismissed Vodafone petition challenging the show cause notice issued by income tax department asking them to pay over $2 billion tax on the multi-crore Hutchinson takeover deal.

Soon, the greatest global show will be over. Life will not be the same, probably a bit boring with no octopus, no blundering referees, no Paraguayan starlet or horrible cacophony (though by the end of the competition we will be missing it!).

The government plans to provide comfort to Indian companies with foreign subsidiaries that would be covered by the provisions on Controlled Foreign Corporations.

This could come as a huge relief as majority of the FIIs operating in India are registered in tax havens. The discussion paper also removed the ambiguity on income classification for tax computation.

Nothing could trivialise the sanctity of Parliament than a JPC on the IPL. We need a JPC to cover the tax havens and its impact on the Indian economy, says M R Venkatesh.

Former India captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi feels the Indian Premier League's governing council must accept responsibility for the ongoing controversy surrounding the Twenty20 league. He is also of the view that if Lalit Modi stays away from the April 26 governing council meeting, he will be ousted as IPL commissioner.

Reinterpreting long-established tax treaty provisions by the tax authorities creates confusion and has to be avoided as it affects investment into India.

The writer may be dead, but his impeccable creations will remain immortalised forever in the hearts of millions of his fans. Here we ask our readers to speak about, share their memories of Dick Francis's favourite books. Please contribute your valuable thoughts in the message board below.

He breathed his last on Sunday in his home in the Cayman Islands.

Offshore Investing involves investing money in investment avenues in a foreign country rather than your home country. This is done through targeting benefits offered to investors by firms and governments across the globe.