sounds good....they have a unlimited talk & text plan with 2gb of data for $80 a month....that would work very well for me....

NRE / NRO - you would choose the account type depending on how you plan to fund it. NRE can only take remittances and FX deposits. NRO can have any credit including rupee deposits.

the interest on NRO attracts a 30% tax at source. 0% for interest on NRE

finally if it is any consideration, funds from a NRE account can easily be remitted out of India, certain restrcitions apply for NRO

In general is it possible to deposit a cheque in branch where an account was not opened? I remember it not being possible 10 years ago, but with computerization I'm guessing things have improved. I know the private ones allow, but how about the nationalized ones such as SBI, SBT, Federal Bank.

i am not certain but i do not think all old generation banks have enabled anywhere banking -
some banks like Bank of Baroda, Corporation Bank, Federal Bank allow it....
not sure if BoI, SBI do - even if they do allow it may not be across the network but across a few branches

I know Indian Bank and Bank of India allow this. I have done it myself.
SBI is big enough, and so is IOB...they should all allow it.

Yeah mostly all the banks now allow this.

Most banks in India incl public sector banks have core banking nowadays and hence u can drop the cheques for clearning in any branch..
two things to check here..
1.if ur account no is something more than 10-12 digits , then ur bank has core banking system and anywhere banking should be possible.
2.as u will be depositing a chq, i guess its a chq from another bank / city.. check whether its payable in the city u r depositing the same else there will be some cheque collection chrgs involved..

Indian Banks do a image based Cheque processing for MICR cheques, and if you deposit a at-par cheque before the cut off (usually 10 AM), the cheque will be cleared on the same day.

Also you can transfer thru Internet banking by using the A/C number and IFSC code of the branch,

Since most of the Indian banks run on either Finnacle (by Infosys) or FinCube (Not sure of the name, Iflex's solution), the intergration is seemless.

Hmmm..I am not sure that check truncation facility ( as in US) has been started in India.. they take a magnetic disk alongwith check hard copies to clearing houses AFAIK.. High value cheques are cleared the same day if deposited before 9.30-10.00AM and other MICR cheques by next day end..

Finacle ( Infosys) and Flexcube ( Oracle financial services / I Flex) are the better known ones.. But there is another big one from TCS - Bancs xxx ( dont remember the full name) this is being used by SBI presently among the bigger banks.

Yep., My bad. CTS is operational only in NCR, National roll out is planned in late 2011.

aha.. good to know.. was not aware of this and checked this out now ^

sorry to cross you on this but CTS is years away - beginning of 2010 - RBI said about 5 years for a national roll out

Pilot was NCR starting Feb 08, Chennai was supposed to happen late last year followed by Mumbai but no idea if Chennai has started

for those who have not seen the following thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/airli...-petition.html

please sign up....we need all the names we can get....

Completely OT Rant about the Royal Wedding
 

Here is a completely OT rant but I needed a safe place to let this out of my system….. I do hope that the moderator will not ban me from posting…. Feel free to remove this rant or ignore this rant but I do hope I don’t get (too badly) flamed for this….. apologies in advance and this is not in any way meant to offend our former rulers, the Brits in any way)
(What safer place for an Indian to rant about the royal wedding than FT’s AoI forum @:-))
Started off as any other morning – alarm rings and duly ignored, wake up >30 min late – dull dreary rainy day outside…. In my comatose state make my way to pour a cup of coffee. From the corner of my eye I notice my 18 month old has already had 2 cans of red bull and is preparing for his future career in demolition…. Also catch what looked like my better half shooting daggers at me (possibly for my small contribution to the red bull chugging 18 month old demolition man)…. But this is even more OT than the OT rant to follow…..
So I get my coffee and plonk on the sofa – find the remote and switch on CNN for my morning fix of some lame a$$ news read by Kiran and that bald dude…. Notice something is amiss when the cable program guide lists some vague thing as the name of the program, didn’t register yet, caffeine still to take effect…. After a couple of more seconds it hits me – “Royal Wedding”…. Ok as Douglas Adams repeatedly implores us “Don’t Panic”…. I switch to CNN Int – same thing. Now where I stay, I receive less than a dozen news channels – some American channels and the BBC world service…. I run through the channels and they all have the same thing!! even PBS is running this in lieu of Sesame Street :D
Since when did the self-obsessed Americans (not too offend any Americans) become obsessed with the Brits? More importantly what happened to my regular fix of despotic regimes - did Gaddhaffi stop bombing rebels and the Syrian govt stop their crackdown in deference of the wedding, what about Endevour’s last trip scheduled for today (see I knew I could relate this to FT somehow)…. I am a news junkie and I need my morning fix!! Even google news which after years of reading my most personal mails and studying my dark browsing habits dishes up stuff about the royal wedding…..
….. and the last straw, I start driving to work, my stereo pre-set to BBC world service – before I could switch to another frequency…. I hear a female anchor screaming like a teenager “KISS, KISS , KISS…..” I am not kidding – this was what i heard on the BBC world service – I vomitted a bit in my mouth and changed the frequency…
For the record I am not against the happiness and the joy the Brits must feel (and surely they deserve it – their performance in the FIFA world cup, losing the bid to host the world cup, the economy, etc.) and it was great to see the legendary stiff upper lip Brits get excited about something…. But why is the rest of the world obsessed and why did my grey matrix like world suddenly turn into a chick flick today - i was not prepared for this!

Rant over, I feel so much better now :p

Glad you feel better.

Yes, I was sad I could not see the weathermen/women lying about the weather forecasts for the day, week, etc.

I called my mom in India, and she kept describing the wedding as it was happening. I protested "mom, I can see the same thing here on my TV"...but she was too excited to listen to anything I said.

it was funny.