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I am a senior citizen aged 72 years, based in Calcutta ,Engineer by profession, retired voluntarily about 17 years back from a very well known MNC. I had started buying shares about 30 years back, applying for new shares, also from the market and availed of the bonus shares or special offers from my holdings.My holding includes from my erstwhile company which had offered their shares to their employees too. I have small /medium holdings in about 50 active companies,mostly big corporates and apart from a very few, are actively traded. The problem has arisen now that I have decided to offload my shares due to advancing age and indifferent health. I seem to have misplaced my dates of purchases of most of the holdings. For capital gains calculations one requires the dates of purchases. I believe there is a cutoff date 31.01.2018 which is taken as the date of purchase for very old share purchases. My query ,what does very old share purchases mean, 10/15/20 years or more? Are there any other method for this purpose? If there be any pl elucidate. Will communicating with the share depts or the share managing associates of these 50 companies help,although it will be tedious and time consuming. Awaiting your advice eagerly.

I am a 72years young, spent a good life enjoying the returns from exports of leather goods while it shone. With the gilt and glamour gone from the now moribund enterprise, seeking a way about to earn some in Kolkata. No money to invest, only can impart whatever experience one has garnered over the years. Thought of Soft skill development like verbal/written business communication, but wonder if many give a damp about these when two, three or four letter words in emails suffice as nobody appreciates long letters anymore. Giffy is the hot word of the day. Personally I still feel there is still a need to be an effective communicator in all spheres of life What would be your advice on this? Thinking of content writing may be another avenue but how does go about it? Don't have too many years in hand to develop any complex data based subjective writing prowess. Await your wise suggestions.