Interesting stuff in the loo...

When I was young (okay, that makes me sound like a 60 year old, but I'm pretty young even now :-) I always used to look at these strange looking pink coloured newspapers with curiousity. Whenever I picked then up all I could fathom was acronyms - FDI, RBI, FII, SEBI, etc. Greek...abso-fucking-lutely greek!

Now I actually read one of them pretty regulary - The Economic Times - what can I say, evolution at work! So, I was reading the Sunday edition in the loo - like I always do - and I found two really interesting pieces...

Tuxedo Tuxman
On P3 (yeah - ET has a P3 too!), right above two cute looking (Indian) models ostensibly showing off Nokia mobile phones, was an article about cartoon channels majorly getting into merchandising kid stuff. Now, I didn't read that article, but what caught my eye, was the graphic besides it. Along with Scooby Doo and the Power Puff girls was (surpise) Tux!

Yes, the cute Linux penguin. The brave superhero, who has time-and-again saved the world by foiling the evil plans of Bill Gates and his WMD called Windoze . And guess what, besides it was the Debian logo! And our superhero was holding a flag which read "Nickelodeon 2.9". I have no frikkin' idea what that means... but I was wondering whether a braindead cartoon which shows Tuxedo Tuxman (that's the name of our beloved superhero in my hypothetical cartoon, btw) saving the world from the evil genius (?!) of Bill Gates by installing Linux on all the computers in the world would actually have any viewers. Well, why not? If a stupid cartoon with an irritating dog who keeps getting lost in a castle/old-house/cave with a monster/ghost/oversized-animal which is actually a man/robot-controlled-by-a-man who wants to keep the public at bay for vested interests can work - why not this!

Intelligent Tax Question
Just to make sure I sound intelligent I'll add this one...

On Page 12 there's this Agony Uncle by the name of Dr. B. S. Jindal who relieves your tax agonies. The question was:

Mrs X inherited a painting by M.F. Husain in 1969, which was bought by her husband for Rs 4,000. Over the years, the value of the painting has appreciated substantially. She now wants to sell the painting at current market price. Is there any tax liability (capital gains, etc.) on the sale proceed?

Interesting point #1, How much is she selling the painting for? What were the returns like? Is investing in art a viable investment option?
Interesting point #2, Is the money really taxable?
Interesting point #3, The answer to #2 is:

It should be possibel to establish that the painting in question was a personal effect not falling within the definition of capital asset as per section 2(14) of the Act and the receipt was out of the purview of any liablility even for capital gains.

How the fuck can one do that??