‘$600 mobile bills in New York’: NRI visits home after 8 years; viralpost praises India’s growth and affordability

NEW DELHI: An NRI’s praise for India after returning home following an eight-year gap has become viral.Investor Alok Jain wrote on X that a friend from New York had recently visited him. According to Jain, the visitor was struck by the energy in the country and how fast India appeared to be growing.“An outsider’s perspective can be so different from our own,” Jain wrote, comparing it to how people living here may see the country.In his post, Jain said his friend was particularly surprised by how affordable many things in India were. He mentioned medical care, transport, internet and mobile services.The visitor compared these with costs in the US. According to Jain, his friend "pays $600 for mobile and data at his house Pays $30k for health insurance for 4!! Per annum Pays 2 percent as property taxes per year..!!"Jain added that while air quality was better in the US, many good things were happening in India.The post drew a range of responses from social media users. One person wrote that many of their friends living in Bengaluru preferred it to New York City. Another user commented that from an outsider’s point of view, India’s main problems came down to a lack of civic sense. "I am an outsider and I can say that everything wrong with the country has to do only with lack of civic sense among the people," he wrote.Someone who said they had lived in the Bay Area and were currently based in New York, agreed that phone bills and insurance costs in the US was high, but said salaries were also much higher, making direct comparisons difficult. The user added that property taxes varied by state and often fund services like public schools and clean roads. They said India stood out in areas such as access to medical care for those who can afford it, digital public services, and the availability of affordable physical labour.