News - Issue -7 September 1, 2007

• State Bank of India branches are now offering products of Fidelity Mutual Fund. Fidelity Mutual Fund, one of world’s largest Mutual Funds has launched “Fidelity India Growth Fund” a new fund offer. Minimum investment is Rupee 5,000/-. Entry Load 2.25%. Fund can invest in India/international shares upto 95% of its corpus. Timeframe – 3 to 28th Sept. For more details & investment contact – your SBI branch or nri.lhotri@sbi.co.in .
  
• PAN card can be applied online thru Internet and it can be received at your foreign address also. Details of one such facility offered by NSDL is enclosed in NRI Helpdesk section.
  
• Central government has started a 24x7 helpline in foreign countries for Indian workers, especially women. Other measures include shelters for distressed emigrants, diplomatic pressure on host countries to protect workers.
  
• Government confirmed there were estimated 150,000 women household workers in the Gulf region alone.
  
• Most of the foreign national of Indian Origin are eligible to apply for an Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card, provided the foreign country of which the applicant is a citizen permits dual citizenship.
  
• Eighty-one-year-old Kumar Bahuleyan, a Dalit neurosurgeon based in Buffalo, New York, has given 20 million dollars to his village in Kerala. He has used the money to build a hospital specializing in neurosurgery, a health clinic and a spa in Chemmanakary in Kottayam District.
  
• Big daddy of Indian Real Estate – DLF group is entering Kerala with a Super Luxury water front apartment project at Vyttila, worth Rs. 250 Crores and a mini township in Kakkanad with an investment of Rs. 750 Crores. (contact homeloans.ernakulam@sbi.co.in Mr Sreekumar, SBI for details).
  
• The Kerala government is going to acquire 2,000 acre for developing an airport at Kannur in North Kerala. This project is planned as a public-private participation project on the model of Cochin International Airport.