Full Form of NRI :
Non-Resident Indian
NRI Full Form is Non-Resident Indian. An NRI is an Indian citizen with a valid Indian Passport and has immigrated to another country for a minimum period of 6 months or more. The reasons could be to live there, for education, employment, or any other reason.
To be clearer, the term NRI is applicable due to reasons like foreign exchange management laws, taxation and investments in India. According to Income Tax Act Section 6 of 1961, there is a difference in tax calculation for an NRI and a normal person. According to this act, a resident of India has to stay for a continuous minimum period of 182 days in a year, consecutively for four years.
NRI Full Form – Additional Information
For the topic of our discussion, we have the Non-Resident Indian as our subject-matter. We shall have an elaborate discussion on the topic and understand what and all are involved in this category of citizenship of India. This commonly used word has many facets, which only a few people understand and therefore, this article will give an attempt to highlight those important facets in a streamlined fashion. Before we begin with deeper aspects of Non-resident Indians, we shall begin with a brief introduction.
Introduction to the NRI
Non-Resident of India, also known by its popularly used abbreviated form NRI, is a citizen of India. It refers to an Indian citizen, who possesses a passport but has emigrated to a foreign country for a temporary basis. The emigration is generally for the period of six months or more and is generally for the purposes of residence, employment commitments, and education, and other purposes. NRI is very much different from a Person of Indian Origin, which is also known as PIO.
In the latter, the person is not a citizen of India though he enjoys ancestral or Indian connection in the country. There could be cases that a PIO was originally a citizen of India but has eventually become the citizen of a foreign country. There are many other terms used to define or refer to this category of persons such as expatriate Indian or sometimes, overseas Indian. These terms are used interchangeably for both NRI and PIO. The United Nation’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs state that India has the biggest population of Diaspora in the world.
As far as the legal definition of our subject matter NRI is concerned, Section 6 of the Income Tax Act 1961 makes a reference to NRI but as the tax status of any person, who does not reside in the country for a stipulated period of time prescribed in the Act. This is because the rates of income tax imposed on an NRI is different from that of a resident of India. Now that we have discussed briefly in the introductory aspect of the subject matter, let us move to the next segment that throws light on the history of the NRI.
History behind NRI
We have come to one of the most important aspects about NRI. History will guide through different facts that have shaped the concept of NRIs and their status in the country. Under this segment, we shall make an adequate discussion on this. In the early periods of emigration, most of it was directed towards Southeast Asia. This is often attributed to King Ashoka of the Mauryan Dynasty who had to send delegations to different parts of the continent to propagate Buddhism.
However, before this, his annexation of Kalinga forced many to emigrate to that region. This resulted in the rise of many “Indian” empires in that region. Even today, the influence of Indian culture is strongly perceived, for example, in Thailand, there are Royal Brahmins, etc. During the period 16th century, many Indian merchants emigrated to Arabia and Central Asia and remained active there for centuries. In Tsardom of Russia, Astrakhan was the first place where a colony of Indian merchants was founded in the early 1610s. The presence of Indian merchants has been reported in many historical texts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In the west, Romani people, also known as the gypsies, are supposedly persons with origins in the Indian subcontinent. They have said to have emigrated in the 11th century and are said to have come from Rajasthan. In the modern age and until the demise of British era, a significant migration was the poor laborer to various other British colonies. Some of the destinations where they were usually send were Suriname, Mauritius, East Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, South Africa, etc. Sindhi and Gujarati merchants are believed to have settled in Oman, Aden, South Africa, Bahrain, etc.
Post-independence, there has been a rise of emigration of the intellectual class. Indians have migrated to the United States for professional purposes, particularly after the emergence of the Information technology boom. The number of Indian students studying abroad is only second to that of China. Thus, Indian presence is strongly felt across the globe. Now we shall move forward with some discussion on some of the popular NRIs the country has:
10 most famous NRI who made India Proud
1. Amartya Sen
Quite a popular name, isn’t it? Amartya Sen is an Indian-born world famous economist, who has been working the United Kingdom and the United States of America ever since the year 1972. He is known to have made immense contributions in economic justice, welfare economics, studies on famines, etc. In the year 1998, he was honored with the Nobel memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and in the following year, he was awarded the prestigious Bharat Ratna.
Apart from this, he has also been honored with Charleston-EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize for his works relating to welfare economics in the year 2015; National Humanities Award in the year 2011; Commander of the French Legion of Honour in the year 2013. At present, Amartya Sen is Professor of Thomas W. Lamont University as well as Professor of Economics and Philosophy at the prestigious Harvard University. He had also served as the Chancellor of Nalanda University in India. His contributions as an NRI have been innumerable and priceless and therefore, he should be the first one to be discussed in this article.
2. Salman Rushdie
Sulman Rushdie, also known as Sir Ahmad Salman Rushdie, is a British Indian personality, who is a notable writer. He is the winner of the Booker Prize award in the year 1981 for the book Midnight’s Children. Most of his work derives its fictional elements from the Indian subcontinent and are known for its impeccable articulation of magic with history. His fourth book, Satanic Versus, pushed him in a serious religious imbroglio when a fatwa was issued by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini because of certain inclusions in the book that were claimed to have hurt the sentiments of Muslims.
Leaving aside the controversies, Salman Rushdie is an elected fellow of the literary organization, the Royal Society of Literature in the year 1983. In the year 2007, Salman Rushdie was knighted for his services and contributions to literature. In the year 2012, he published his book Joseph Anton: A memoir, which explores the events that followed the controversy on Satanic Verses.
3. Venkataraman Ramakrishnan
Born in the year 1952, Venkataraman Ramakrishnan is an Indian-born American as well as British structural biologist. He currently holds the post of the President in Royal Society and has held this position since 2015. In the year 2009, he was honored with the prestigious Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath. He was awarded Nobel Prize for his research on structure and functions of the ribosome. He has been involved with Medical Research Council (abbreviated as MRC) and Laboratory of Molecular Biology (abbreviated as LMB) in Cambridge Biomedical Campus. In that group, he serves as the Deputy Director.
Ramakrishnan has received many recognitions such as membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (abbreviated as EMBO) in the year 2002 as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society (abbreviated as FRS) in the year 2003. In the year 2004, he was chosen as a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In the year 2007, he was honored Medal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (abbreviated as FEBS). In the year 2008, he was awarded the Heatley Medal of the Biochemical Society. He has also been knighted in the year 2012 for his contributions to Molecular Biology.
4. Mira Nair
Mira Nair is one of the distinguished Indian filmmaker, who is based in the United States. She runs a production company by the name Mirabai Films, which produces films made on issues concerning Indian society for international audiences. Some of her best-known films are The Namesake, Mississippi Masala, and Salaam Bombay. Her Monsoon Wedding is the winner of Golden Lion award whereas Salaam Bombay found a place among the nominations for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
She was born in Odisha in the year 1957. She eventually moved to the United States when she received a scholarship in the Harvard University. She is currently married to Mahmood Mamdani, whom she met during the filming of Mississippi Masala.
5. Kalpana Chawla
She was an Indian American astronaut as well as the first Indian lady in space. She was born in Karnal in the year 1962 and eventually moved to the United States in the year 1982. She attained a Master of Science degree in the field of aerospace engineering in the year 1984. She received the degree from the University of Texas at Arlington.
The first Indian woman in space had created history however, her life was short. She died when Space Shutter Columbia disintegrated into pieces during re-entry into the earth atmosphere. The incident happened shortly before to the competition of the mission.
6. Lakshmi Mittal
Under this head, we are referring to one of the richest persons in the world. Born in the year 1950, Lakshmi Mittal is a steel juggernaut, who was born in India. He is currently based in the United Kingdom. His steel business runs under the name ArcelorMittal, which is also the biggest steel-making company in the entire world. Lakshmi Mittal is the CEO of the same company.
Lakshmi Mittal is the richest Asian and even being the richest person in the United Kingdom, he still does not hold British Citizenship. Although there has been a fall in the rankings as far as his richness is concerned, the Forbes magazine claims that the magnate still has personal property worth billions. In the year 2015, the Forbes released a list of Most Powerful People, in which Lakshmi Mittal was listed at 57th out of 72 listings. He has organized the second most expensive wedding for his daughter, Vanisha Mittal.
Ever since the year 2008, Lakshmi Mittal has been on the board of directors of Goldman Sachs. Additionally, he also holds membership to the board of directors of the Airbus Group, which is also referred to as European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (abbreviated as EADS). He holds important positions in various international steel groups such as the World Steel’s Association.
He is also on the board of Global Advisory Council under the aegis of the Prime Minister of India and Kazakhstan’s Foreign Investment Council. He is also a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. In the year 2006, the newspaper daily Sunday Times had named him to be Business Person of the year, along with Time Magazine’s honor of being the International Newsmaker of the year. So, now it is known to everyone how big and powerful this non-resident Indian is for the world.
7. Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi, also known as Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi, was born in the year 1955. She was born in Madras (now Chennai) in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. She has now become a naturalized American and resides in Greenwich, Connecticut. She is regarded one of the most powerful women in the world and has consistently shown up in similar rankings released by Forbes magazine. She currently chairs the second largest food and Beverage Company in the world, Pepsi Co.
Indra Nooyi had joined Pepsi Co in the year 1994 and was appointed as the President and CFO of the company. In the year 2001, she went on to become the CEO of the company. Ever since then, she has contributed a lot in the global restructuring of the company, which includes the spun off of the restaurants’ division into Tricon, which is now known as Yum! Brands. She is the one responsible for the acquisition of Tropicana in the year 1998 as well as the merger with the company Quaker Oats Company that brought in Gatorade in Pepsi Co.
8. Satya Nadella
Satya Narayana Nadella, also known as Satya Nadella, is an Indian American CEO of the computer software giant, Microsoft. In the year 2014, he was appointed as the CEO of the company, as a successor to Steve Ballmer. Before he became the CEO, he held the position of Executive Vice President in Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group. The group was responsible for the maintenance of Cloud Computing, Developer Tools, and other areas.
Satya Nadella received his Bachelor’s degree in the subject Electrical Engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology. He moved to the United States Master of Computer Science at the Wisconsin-Milwaukee University, where he attained the degree in the year 1990. He attained his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School. Before he joined Microsoft, he used to work with Sun Microsystems as a member of the technology staff.
Before becoming the CEO and Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, he had held positions such as the Corporate Vice-President of the Business Solutions and Search & Advertising Platform Group; the President of the Server & Tools Division; and even as the Senior Vice-President of Research and Development for the Online Services Division.
9. Sundar Pichai
He became global news when he became the CEO of the Internet giant Google. What made the news more important to Indians can be effectively gauged from his name, Sundar Pichai. Sundar Pichai, whose full name is Pichai Sundararajan, is the current CEO of Google Inc. Before he became the CEO of the giant, he served as the Product Chief at Google. The new role of Pichai was declared as a part of the company’s plan to restructure Google, which led to Alphabet Inc. becoming the parent company to Google. After the restructuring process was completed, he was named the CEO of Google.
Pichai was born in Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. He attained his bachelor degree from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in the subject Metallurgical Engineering. Then, he went on to become from Stanford University in the field of Material Sciences and Engineering. He attained an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Pichai was once one of the possible contenders for the post of CEO of Microsoft, though eventually Satya Nadella was chosen for the post. He is one of the most popular Indian-Americans in the world.
10. Anshuman Jain
Anshuman Jain is India-born based in the United Kingdom. Formerly Co-CEO of the Deutsche Bank during the period 20120-2015, he is one of the most popular Indian Business executives in the world. He formerly held the position as the head of the Corporate and Investment Bank, making him responsible for corporate finance, sales and trading and other banking business of the Deutsche Bank. He was one of the best earners of the Deutsche Bank, during his tenure as CEO. In the year 2015, he resigned from his post shortly after the fine was levied upon the investment bank. This issue caused a serious damage to the bank’s reputation.