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How much foreign currency can be carried for trips abroad?It depends on the purpose of the visit. For leisure trips, one is allowed to carry up to $10,000 (Rs 550,000) per financial year. Those travelling for a business purpose can carry $25,000 (Rs 13,75,000) on each visit, irrespective of the number of times or days one travels for. Patients and students are allowed to carry $100,000 (Rs 55,00,000).Are there any further restrictions?These norms might not hold true for all nations. Currency limit is lower for leisure and business trips to Nepal and Bhutan. Travellers are allowed to carry more in cash while visiting Iraq and Libya ($5,000 or Rs 275,000). Those going to Iran and Russia can take the entire amount in cash.

Tipping point

Sebi's action on Sahara is showing results, but problems remain

After the fact

RBI and banks must restore public trust after sting

Remember Caesar's wife

Apropos Bhupesh Bhandari's column "Railways, theirs and ours" (White Knight, March 15), drawing comparisons between the Chinese and Indian railways defies logic. On the one hand, it laments the overstaffing in Indian Railways, and on the other hand, it goes on to enlist the myriad activities performed by it - from hospital services to managing stadiums and colonies, apart from running trains. In fact, it is rarely reported that Indian Railways' safety statistics compare with the best in the world. It also never fails to surprise us how much bashing Indian Railways survives because the published statistics about this overstretched railway system is freely available to an average Indian. Just to balance out the number crunching done by the writer, some 3,500 additional passenger trains have been added over the last 10 years, notwithstanding the fact that routes of only 13,000 km have been added in the last six decades. Indian Railways asks for less Budgetary support from the government,

Letters: Tracking Indian Railways

The home minister is being hauled over the coals for reading the same statement on terrorism in Kashmir a second time in Parliament soon after the first. The blame for the faux pas should be laid at the door of the official who prepared it. Why did he attach a copy of the first page to the original given to the minister? In any case, Sushilkumar Shinde's slip is not as bad as that of former External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, reading the statement of the delegate of some other country at a UN meeting. A pack of cards has only one joker. Our Council of Ministers at the Centre has only jokers. Remember Rajiv Gandhi's perceptive and far-sighted remark  that the Planning Commission, then headed by Manmohan Singh, was a bunch of jokers?A Seshan  MumbaiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to: The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg New Delhi 110 002 Fax: (011) 23720201  Â·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Shinde's slip

This refers to the debate "Was Wharton right to disinvite Modi?" (March 11). Wharton is a reputed business school and it enjoys the freedom to decide whom to invite to speak at its events. But by cancelling the invitation extended to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, his stature is in no way diminished. Everybody makes mistakes, as American humorist Woody Allen said. On Harvard, an Ivy League University like Wharton, Allen said, "Harvard makes mistakes too, you know. Kissinger taught there."H N Ramakrishna  BangaloreLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to: The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg New Delhi 110 002 Fax: (011) 23720201  Â·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Making mistakes

Ever wondered why Ranbir Kapoor's Barfi was made under the banner of UTV and not Walt Disney, which owns UTV? That's because the movie had scenes of Kapoor smoking. Disney officials say by the time the US entertainment giant took over the company, Barfi was almost made and Kapoor smoking did not gel with its target audience of kids and young adults. That is also why Disney, which was promoting various other movies from Hollywood for the Oscars this year, did not promote the movie with Academy award voters. Disney officials say in terms of story and characters, Barfi was a perfect movie to be made under the Disney banner but next time, they will not let their actors smoke on screen in India.

Smoke signals

This year, the customary pre-Budget iron curtain between the finance ministry and the media was lifted immediately after the Budget was presented in Parliament on February 28 - but with one exception. This is the disinvestment department, which remains off-limits and its officials in strict maun vrat mode. That's because a number of offers for sale of government-owned company shares is lined up for this month, so given market sensitivities, officials have been advised not to talk to the media before the offers are completed.

No talking

The income tax department has sent letters to 105,000 people asking them to file their returns. If somebody refers to these letters as "notices", finance ministry officials are quick to point out these are not tax notices. They call them "gentle reminders" or "polite reminders". The advertisements which appeared in some Hindi language newspapers informing non-filers about such letters, however, used the word "notice". Either Finance Minister P Chidambaramdid not see the advertisement or did not entirely follow the Devanagari script.

Taxing reminders

Gold purchases from China and other Asian countries slowed this week, after a second week of gains for the metal, as prices approached a key resistance level

India's gold buying slows

The Adobe Digital Index has found that in 2012, websites got more traffic from tablets than from smartphones. This indicates that tablets have become the device of choice among users to browse websites while on the go. (Click on graphic)

Tabs trump phones in web traffic

If there is one thing that you cannot fault Finance Minister P Chidambaram on, it's the accuracy of his numbers. So, expectedly, the Harvard-educated MBA, who is a corporate lawyer to boot, is not too pleased when anyone tries to find faults on that count. Responding to the Budget in the Lok Sabha a few days back, when he was reeling off subsidies numbers-Budget Estimates of Rs 1,90,015 crore and Revised Estimates of Rs 2,57,654 crore-and was interrupted mid-speech by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s Basudeb Acharia claiming that he (Chidambaram) had in fact "cut down" on subsidies,  an exasperated finance minister said, "Mr Acharia, I do not know whether you have looked at the numbers. Take the numbers from me, please. We have not cut on social services."Few minutes later, he again questioned his "critics", which this time around was the "media" raising questions on his "revenue projections". Chidambaram said, "The media... they must be very amazing people... in two hours, the

Get your maths right!

Few artists follow in his frugal footsteps

Pyne's troubled legacy

Govt shouldn't read farm credit growth as an achievement

Round-trip accounts

A car buyer's market

This refers to the article "Necessary virtues" (Swot, March 14). Beyond the comfort that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining recognition as a necessary feature of "being rich", it is soothing to find that entrepreneurs like P N C Menon are leading by example by stating that at least half of his wealth belongs to the society, and individuals who own such wealth have a "trusteeship right" to canalise resources. Such gestures, hopefully, will open a debate that will ultimately redefine CSR.

Letters: Responsible charity

Apropos the article "A carbon-less world by 2050?" (March 13), it is clear that a global warming catastrophe is inevitable in the absence of a technological revolution. And India and China are among countries with maximum carbon-emission growth. In this light, one immediate step that India can take is to reduce the dependence on crude oil, particularly for the automobile sector. Efforts to increase diesel prices are, therefore, welcome. This will reduce growth of diesel consumption by the automobile sector, reduce inputs of crude oil and the trade deficit, and control the widening current account deficit.

Letters: Global warming

Women and woman power may be the flavour of the times but even by those standards, External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Syed Akbaruddin's comment surely flattered to deceive. Greeting women journalists attending Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai's annual do for the media, he humorously described them as "apsaras descending from Rashtrapati Bhavan". The reference was to the President's tea party for members of Indian Women's Press Corp the day before.

Apsaras down to earth

Guess who is waiting with bated breath for Parliament to pass the Forward Contract (Regulations) Amendment Bill? No, it's not the Forward Markets Commission but three media houses that have drawn up business plans to start separate commodity channels. What's the trigger? They reckon that after the Bill is passed, foreign institutional investors and banks will be allowed to hedge and trade in the derivatives segment, so many new commodity products will be launched to attract the investor.

Forward planning

The new health minister of Gujarat, Nitin Patel, appears to be taking his time to get acquainted with his new role. Or perhaps juggling between multiple heavyweight ministries (finance, health and transport) is taking its toll. A company from his home state, Cadila Healthcare (Zydus Cadila), enjoys the credit for being the country's first company to get the Drug Controller General of India's approval to market its swine flu vaccines under the brand name Vaxiflu-S in the country in May 2010. But the minister was oblivious to the existence of any vaccine that could combat the recent outbreak of swine flu in the state. Swine flu has claimed over a 100 lives in Gujarat in the last couple of months. Asked if the government is planning to procure more vaccines to curb the outbreak, Patel confidently replied, "What vaccine are you talking about? There is no such vaccine. The only way to combat swine flu is through medication which is Tamiflu."

Business Standard

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