Real estate - trends

Found a nice article in WSJ on the current real estate scenario in India. Especially in 2-tier city like Pune. When everyone is saying the market has tanked, bottemed etc the reality is the price is still too high for a flat in most of the cities. Yes the orice has come down maybe 20-30 percent but still way too high in some places. Unless you are plannning to stay in one no point
read the full story here

NRI\PIO universities may come up in SEZs

Government may allow the new NRI\PIO universities, the bids for which were invited recently, to come up in Special Economic Zones.

Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs which has invited Expression Of Interest (EOI) from academic institutions for setting up four universities for children of Non Resident Indians and Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) has indicated in the guidelines issued as part of EOI that these universities may be set up in the Special Economic Zones.

"If the NRI\PIO universities are to be set up in the Special Economic Zone, the provisions under the SEZ Act would be adhered to", the guidelines said.

The EOI have been invited for setting up four universities in cities other than Bangalore as one NRI university for that city has already been sanctioned.

The EOI has said preference would given for those institutions which are already in possession of at leat 100 acres of land.

As per the guidelines, 50 per cent of the seats in these universities would be reserved for children of NRIs and PIOs and they will need to pay their fees in foreign currency while remaining 50 per cent would be given to resident Indians.

(source: The Hindu)

NRI deposits in banks shoot up

Parking money with banks in India continues to be an attractive proposition for non-resident Indians (NRIs). Overseas Indians have cumulatively placed $1.167 billion as deposits with banks in the first two months of the current financial year as against $452 million in the corresponding period last year.

Bankers pointed out that with the benchmark 6-month London Inter Bank Offered Rate coming down sharply from over 3 per cent a year ago, to around 1 per cent now, deposits placed by NRIs with local banks overseas are hardly fetching them any returns.

Hence, NRIs are finding it remunerative to park their money with Indian banks, which are offering higher interest rates.
Read the full story here

Know your taxes

Rediff has started a very informative column on taxation. Investment guru A N Shanbhag answers your questions on NRI investment.

Some very complicated queries were tackled in this feature. Not many sites offer taxation answers for NRIs...

I am just copying one of the queries and the answer to it. check out the link for more queries and answers

I am an NRI (US residence) holding an NRE account in Mumbai [ Images ]. I am planning to transfer money from this NRE account into my mother's (who is an Indian resident) regular savings account, also in the same branch. I have the following questions:

1. I believe that this amount is tax-free without any limits. But can you please confirm this for me?

2. Since I will lose repatriability on this amount, is there any other legitimate way of sending money out of India to relatives abroad. For example, I have heard that one is legally allowed to send up to $25,000 per year abroad. Is this true? If so, how would that be reflected on my mother's IT return? Also, what are the tax implications for me?
-- Mohnish

1. Yes, the amount that you transfer to your parents is tax-free without any limit.

2. As per Master Circular, dated July 1, 2006, Indian residents are allowed to remit abroad up to $100,000 per annum for maintenance of close relatives. You will be a close relative of your parents as per the law and hence this should take care of your requirements.

Also, as per latest AP Dir Circular, the $25,000 limit that you refer to has been increased to US$200,000 per financial year and this includes gifts. Therefore, an Indian resident may send as much as $300,000 per annum abroad out of which $100,000 is necessarily to close relatives.

You gifting a sum of money to your mother or vice versa is tax neutral as per current Indian tax laws.

Cheap calls

If you are looking for cheap VOIP (internet) call provider to call India then check out actionvoip. It’s very cheap and the clarity is excellent.

Most of these internet phone sites look and feel the same. I think they all belong to the same group.

I was using freecall till recently and was pretty happy with it. But then if someone is offering a cheaper option then why complain.

Previously the problem with these sites was payment. You needed to buy credits from a reseller or send money by western union etc. Now most of them accept credit cards. Free call even has auto renewal option like yahoo. When the credit goes below a certain amount then it will automatically recharge.

I used yahoo for sometime but was not happy with the quality and it was expensive compared to others. With skype, quality was good but rates were very high.

So for now its actionvoip all the way. There are some free destination also with it… will have to make some friends in those countries…

There is another site called smartvoip, which is more or less same rate and equally good.

So happy talking


Comparison of rates between a few sites for calls to India- there are hundreds of sites offering these services... more on their services in another post


Actionvoip -- $0.016 (Landline) *
$0.017 (Mobile)

Smartvoip -- $0.017 (for both)

Freecall -- $0.028 (Landline)
$0.033 (Mobile)

Yahoo -- $0.079 (for both)

Skype -- $0.106 (for both) **

* cheapest
** costliest

Buying a house?

Read this article in rediff... Not specifically for NRI still makes interesting reading. I had gone thru this a year back. The price you hear in the first meeting and what you end up paying is very different ... be prepared...
read the full article here

Higher returns for NRIs

Non-resident Indians, who keep their surplus cash in rupee-denominated non-resident external (NRE) and non-resident ordinary (NRO) savings accounts with Indian banks, will receive higher returns.

This follows a decision by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to calculate the interest on a daily basis from April 2010. Interest is currently calculated on a monthly basis. full story