Foreword

#Economy@5trillion #India@SoftPower #BCAS@70

The new government has been inducted with an overwhelming mandate fuelled by aspirations of our citizens, particularly the young generation. India stands at the cusp where growth is a necessity, a new normal, and high-growth a national imperative.

During the last few years, India’s economy has performed well. By opening up several pathways for trickle-down, the government has ensured that the benefits of growth and macroeconomic stability reach the bottom of the pyramid. In the words of our Prime Minister, “If every one of the 130 crore Indians takes one step forward, the country too will go that many steps ahead.”

With this backdrop, the Economic Survey 2018-19 laid down the vision of India becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2025 (#Economy@5trillion). To achieve this landmark, India needs to sustain a real GDP growth rate of 8% from now onwards. The Economic Survey 2018-19 claims to be guided by an interesting concept of ‘blue-sky thinking’ which means adopting an unfettered approach in thinking about the appropriate economic model for India. Blue-sky thinking is a concept that most of us can adopt in our daily professional lives to improvise and enable us to realise our full potential.

An extremely thought-provoking concept laid down in the Economic Survey is that of leveraging the behavioural economics of “Nudge”. The concept draws on the psychology of human behaviour, behavioural economics and provides insights to ‘nudge’ people towards desirable behaviour. India’s blend of behavioural and soft abilities can act as a real catalyst to the overall all-inclusive growth that it desires. (#India@SoftPower)

BCAS was formed in 1949 and with the hard work put in by ALL, it is in its 70th year of meaningful existence. BCAS has always aimed to harness talent and disseminate knowledge to its 9000 plus members spread all across India and acts as a catalyst for promoting professional excellence, leadership skills and networking opportunities. (#BCAS@70)

The Annual Plan of the BCAS for the year 2019-20 revolves around growth for our members which includes upgrading their technical skills, providing equal opportunities, use of emerging technology at reasonable cost and value creation through personal growth. Keeping in mind the growing challenges and complexities, and with the aim of assisting professionals and practitioners, the BCAS Referencer 2019-20 has been developed to make available knowledge at one location. BCAS Referencer 2019-20 comprises of 6 separate booklets covering subject domains namely: Accounting and Auditing, FEMA and International Taxation, Direct Taxes, Indirect Taxes, Company Law and Allied Laws. This year the bar is set very high, with the theme revolving around India’s Classical Dance Forms. We believe that this edition will be extremely useful not only to the professionals and practitioners, but also to various other stakeholders.

This year is BCAS’s 57th continuous year of publication and the 22nd year in terms of theme-based publication of the Referencer. India has rich traditions going back thousands of years with respect to fine arts and classical and folk music and dances. Some of the world-famous dance forms that originated and evolved in India are Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam and Odissi. All these dance forms use basically the same ‘mudras’ or signs of hand as a common language of expression and were originally performed in the temples to worship various Gods and Goddesses.

The hard work and expertise of all the compilers motivated by seniors to keep this referencer updated needs to be commended. We thank our Editorial team of CA Rajeev Shah, CA Yatin Desai, CA Sangeeta Pandit and CA Kinjal Bhuta for their dedicated services. Their precise editing in such a short deadline is praiseworthy. The designing and printing by our printer Finesse Graphics continues to outshine year after year. The BCAS staff too has put in a good amount of effort in providing administrative support to this referencer.

We would be very remiss of us if we do not acknowledge the ever-green guidance and leadership to the team by our visionary Past President CA Pranay Marfatia and we sincerely thank him for the same.