Readjusting to the Indian Culture After Living Away

In today’s global world, people move and live in many places in their lifetimes. Sometimes, people move away, become an expat, and then move back, or repatriate, to their hometown or home country. In the case of India, Indians who have left India and return are classified as NRIs (Non-resident Indians).

For some NRIs moving back to India can become more of a challenge than moving away to a foreign country. This article focuses on tips on readjusting to Indian culture after living abroad. These tips are especially useful for NRIs in America.

Be aware that these differences can and do cause culture shock and cultural adjustment issues for some NRIs.  Though NRIs may have at one point may have found America “a land of opposites” as compared to India, moving back to the once familiar is not so easy as it seems. Culture shock can set in quickly and deeply and affect your success in readjusting to your own country that you once called your home.

Read the tips at  NRIMatters

In Search of the Unknown- Redefining Indian Spirituality in 21st Century (Part II)

Part II: In Search of the Unknown: Re-defining Indian Spirituality in the 21st Century. Written by Pawan Kumar Sharma of NRImatters.com

There are millions of people all over India and the world who define their spiritual space in their own style! 



 Someone like Lotan Baba or the‘rolling baba’, a spiritual Hindu holy man, rolls thousands of kilometres in search of God.  

Lotan Baba promotes peace by rolling his body along the ground when he travels and has covered 30,000 kilometers (18,750 miles) to various cities in India. 

Then you have this really interesting Sadhu, Baba Hath Khada — last seen at the ArdhKumbhmela (the largest human gathering on earth)in Allahabad, India — who has kept one arm raised over his head for nearly two decades in his search of salvation and spiritual quest. 



 People all over the world go to temples, mosques, churches and offer prayers to God. They wear beads, burn incense sticks and go on a pilgrimage to be one with their beliefs and faith.


 Human emotions and actions play a great role in making a man aware of his spiritual needs. If you be at peace with yourself, the world appears calm, serene and peaceful to you. 



 Even the Italian scholar, poet and humanist, Francesco Petrarch had said that five great enemies to peace inhabit with us:  avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride.  If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.


 
Again, everyone has their own ways and means to attain peace and reach Him. Some simply fold both their hands in His remembrance while others roll on the ground to their way to Him. Still the rare ones like Hath Khada Baba hold out their hand in air all their lives. Maybe, they hope, someday God would eventually come down on earth and catch them by the same held out hand eventually ending their exhaustive, tiresome journey on earth!




 
Balance in everything is important. Balance in mind, balance in your heart. A successful man is someone who maintains his spiritual balance well, no matter where he goes, in India or America. He carries with him a soul that guides him to his journeys and milestones in his life- to witness the good and the bad, to see the beautiful and the ugly.




 Happiness cannot be travelled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

Being happy is being at peace with yourself and with every object that surrounds the existence of ‘YOU’.



NRI VISA woes or lack of communication?

Written by Pallavi Chibber, investment expert from NRImatters.com. Each week Pallavi will be posting premium content exclusively for NetIP.

The Visa always has been a distant ghost that scares most of us, especially those who are now the residents of other countries.

One such example came to light to me personally while I was organizing the trip to India for the winners of NRI Power Podium to attend Pravasi Bharaiya Divas, 2011.

Ironically, one of the winners, Mr. Karl Jacob, a learned man, and exemplary professor and an ardent Indian, who wanted to highlight the complications around the visa could not make it to the event because he could not get a visa in time.

Ironical it may sound but it is the truth. Karl’s visa had expired and to get a renewal on the same, he was asked to renounce the citizenship of India, which has already been announced. Now, logically, how can you renounce something that you don’t have any more?

This is what the U.S. State Department had to say about Indian visa policies: ‘ Please note that Indian visa regulations have gone through frequent, poorly advertised, and inconsistently enforced changes during the past year’.

This is not the case for Canada or New Zealand, or many other countries, they are specific to the U.S. it seems. For one thing, they now distinguish Indian born U.S. citizens from other U.S. citizens. If you are Indian born U.S. Citizens, you don’t get a 10 year visiting visa (while other U.S. citizens can get it as agreed by both countries on a bilateral agreement) – they get a five year entry visa paying almost double the cost for a 10 year visiting visa and waiting for a longer period of time.

For countries like China, an ex-Chinese will get a two year visiting visa while ex-Indians can get only a one year visa. Russians encourages ex-Russians to keep and renew their Russian passports even after they become U.S. citizens, and encourage them to use the Russian passport to enter Russia. In other words, most countries will make it easier for their x-countrymen and women to get back to visit.

I am sure there must be some reasoning for such restrictions by the Indian Government, but I doubt if they have been communicated to the aam aadmi of India. And if not so, why? Isn’t that the basis of a democracy?

Visit: http://www.nrimatters.com

Tax exemptions available to NRIs/PIOs under Wealth and Gift Tax

Written by Pallavi Chibber, investment expert from NRImatters.com. Each week Pallavi will be posting premium content exclusively for NetIP.

Everybody’s horror is this time, when we go frantic trying to figure out what to do and how to align our investments in such a manner that we avail maximum tax benefits. To make your life a bit easier, we have enumerated the tax exemptions that you can avail from Wealth Tax and Gift Tax.

TAX EXEMPTIONS FROM WEALTH TAX

Where an NRI/PIO returns to India for permanent residence, the money and the value of assets brought by him into India and the value of assets acquired by him out of such money within one year immediately preceding the date of his return and at any time thereafter are totally exempt from wealth tax for a period of years after return to India.

The above exemption may not have much relevance now since the Finance Act 1992 has considerably reduced the scope of wealth tax. With effect from 1st April, 1993, wealth tax is being levied only on nonproductive assets like urban land, buildings (except one house property), jewellery, bullion, vehicles, cash over Rs.50,000/- etc. The current rate of wealth-tax is 1% on the aggregate market value of chargeable assets as on 31st March every year in excess of Rs.1.5 million.

However, it may be noted that NRls are also liable to pay wealth tax if the market value of taxable assets as on 31st March exceeds Rs l.5 million.

TAX EXEMPTIONS FROM GIFT TAX

Gift Tax Act, 1958 has been repealed with effect from 1st October, 1998 and as such, Gift Tax is not chargeable on any gifts made on or after that date.

With regard to gifts of foreign exchange or specified assets made by NRls to their relatives in India, it should be noted that

1. Gifts made by an NRI/PIO to his or her spouse, minor children or son’s wife will involve clubbing of income and wealth in the hands of the donor-NRI/ PIO.

2. In the case of gifts to minor children the clubbing of income, as above, will cease upon such children attaining the age of 18 years.

3. The clubbing provisions will apply, in case of gift to spouse or son’s wife in India, only to the first-stage of income from the original gift. Second-stage income arising from investment of the income from the original gift is not clubbed and this will constitute the separate wealth/income of the donee- spouse.

Generally, the income of minor children, from any source (including income from gifts from parents) is clubbed with the income of the parent whose total chargeable income is greater.

We hope you consider these before working out your tax sheets for the year. All the best.

Visit: http://www.nrimatters.com/

Whether to repatriate or not is the question!

Visit: http://www.nrimatters.com/