The reason this did not apply to religious trusts is because there is no way of monitoring what goes into the donation box at a temple or other place of worship.

The main reason is diversification. If someone wants to diversify his portfolio among different currencies and regions, this is one way of doing it. Also, you can invest in highly sophisticated insurance or investment products, which are currently not available in India. If you are planning to migrate to a country, you can use this route to build a corpus. Also, people, whose children are likely to study abroad, may find it very useful. Over a period of time, you can build a sizeable fund in this way.

People who are extremely wealthy can approach global banks for help. Those in the middle income category can directly approach agents abroad or local financial planners.

The only reason we can come up with is that they are being targeted because it is a religious club.

If a religious community is not registered with the authorities, that is no reason to restrict it. We cannot allow the mistakes of the Soviet period to be repeated. We must respect religious freedom.

I know it's difficult for my American friends to acknowledge it, but part of the reason that religious conservatives, Christian conservatives and others, have been so successful is that they tap into the commonsense instincts of so many Americans.