Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has dismissed reports of any plan to charge 12.36 percent on all foreign remittances by NRIs, and has also sought details from the Finance Ministry on the issue.

Minister Chandy who raised the matter with the PM because annual remittances from NRKs is nearly Rs.50,000 crore, also said the PM said no decision has been taken to levy the tax on remittances and assured a status quo on the service tax issue.

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The Indian Pilot's Guild that spearheaded the protest stated that the 434 pilots will begin the process of restoring normalcy within 48 hours.

The Counsel for the airlines management confirmed that due to the intervention of High Court Justice Reva Khetrapal, the strike has been unconditionally called off, as he asked the management to sympathetically consider the pilots grievances.

The pilots went on strike on May 7 over demands for better career progression. .

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The new service tax of 12.36 percent on the fee paid by NRIs to send money back home, was not enforced on July 1, the date India's Ministry of Finance and Department of Revenue had announced as the kickoff date.

The Ministry of Finance did not make any announcement about the missed date, but it is suggested that the Government may have put the move on hold because of widespread protests from politicians and NRI organisations across the world. Vayalar Ravi, Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs has asked PM Manmohan Singh for clarification.

Money exchange centres and prominent Indian banks said they had not yet received any official communication about the proposed tax.

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A R Rahman is collaborating with Danny and has composed a special Punjab piece of music that will be showcased at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. The music celebrates Indian influence in the UK and is part of a medley for the Olympics opening ceremony.

Boyle who worked with Rahman on '127 hours' as well is said to have planned a three hour musical extravaganza for the occasion.

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London based Waytha Moorthy 46, an exiled Indian Malaysian human rights lawyer, claims that the then British Harold Macmillan government did not provide protection to Indian Malaysians when independence was granted to the former colony in 1957.

The lawyer is expected to re-issue a class action suit that was originally launched in 2007 but was never heard, on behalf of Indian Malaysians who he says face human rights abuses and live unprotected and in continuous colonisation. He says Britain at the time gave the Muslim population special rights and privileges, effectively establishing a system of apartheid ever since, in which 45 percent of the population is marginalised, humiliated and discriminated against.

Moorthy who is banned in Malaysia and been jailed on numerous occasions in that country, is claiming a sum of $1 million from Britain in compensation for each of Malaysia's 1.8 million Indians.

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