A lakh is 100,000 rupees. At 45.5 rupees to the dollar, the salary range I have indicated is about $88-110 USD.
It is, of course, much high than a corporate application programmer would get, which would be about 10-15 lakh. A top graduate of IIT, with several years of experience, might end up working for Oracle or Microsoft for 20-30 lakh, but he would be developing system software.
Many people are surprised at the high salaries that skilled workers get in India. It's just a matter of supply and demand. Good, experienced people are valuable everywhere, and the software boom has left shortages. If you don't want to pay the freight, you can always hire 'programmers' from six-week storefront training schools.
I can still still get call center operators with a BA from a good school, and nice spoken and written English skills, for 1.5-2.5 lakh. That's only about 30% more than the schlock places pay for dummies with a thick accent.
Sorry, that should be $88-110K USD...my error.