Speaking at a forum in Dubai, Union Cabinet Minister of Human Resource Development, Communications and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal reassured NRIs that they will not have to pay taxes on their global income if they stay in their home country for over 60 days a year.

Addressing the Indian Business and Professional Council members, Sibal said the tax code for NRIs is not in the minds of the government, has not come to the cabinet, and may never do so. Any fears over the issue are not real and the government will not implement any such tax code.

According to the existing law, NRIs are liable to pay taxes on their global income if they stay in India for over 182 days in a financial year.

Sibal hailed Dubai NRIs for their contribution to the development of the country and said the Indian government is never unfair to its own people.

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On the occasion of 'Hindi Diwas' organised by the International Hindi Society, five NRIs were honoured for promoting Hindi in the UK.

The five are Deepak Dogra, managing editor of Mayanewspaper; C B Patel, Editor/Publisher of the bi-lingual English and Gujarati weekly Asian Voice; Dhruv Gadvi of Zee TV; Editor/Publisher of Pardes Weekly Jaskaran Singh; and Patron of the International Hindi Society Rajendra Joshi.

Lord Gulam Noon was chief guest and spoke on the occasion describing the UK as a fair country, and welcomed its decision to resume contacts with Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

Other speakers were Dr Onkar Sahota, Member of the Greater London Assembly; Dr Jagdish Kaushal, Chairman of the International Hindi Society; Councillor Ashok Kapoor, vice Chairman of the Hindi Society; First Secretary -Cordination in the Indian High Commission; and Jagdish Sharma, Leader of the Hounslow Council.

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British diplomats in India say not knowing the Hindi language makes it hard for them to follow developments in the country, and are now learning Hindi to deepen their understanding of the country and identify business opportunities for British firms. According to one British High Commission spokesperson, just one of the 150 diplomats in India knows Hindi.

Officials say the UK wants to increase the number of Hindi speakers among frontline diplomats such as staff in political and communications departments.

The practice of learning Indian languages was instituted in the 17th and 18th centuries when British officials routinely had to learn languages such as Hindi, Persian and Urdu.

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Aspiring filmmakers and Bollywood cinephiles in the Big Apple got some "insider" tips about directing, producing, writing, and financing Bollywood films at an event.

The two-day Ticket2Bollywood event on the theme of Bollywood: Beyond the Song and Dance conducted by Indian filmmakers Imtiaz Ali, Zoya Akhtar, and Anuraadha Tewari, the event provided a platform for aspiring and established actors, directors, and producers to determine how they could potentially break into Bollywood.

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Search giant Google has started rolling out free SMS for its free email service Gmail and paid email service Google Apps customers in India. The service allows users to send SMSes to mobile phones from chat windows. Users have to add mobile numbers of their contacts in the email address book and they are set.

The service starts with 50 SMS credits for each user, every sent SMS costing one credit. Every reply received adds on 5 credits subject to the maximum level being 50 SMS at any given time. There is no official statement from Google on the launch of this service, however the service has gone live in the chat windows of many users.

Google is rolling out the service in partnership with cellular operators, which means they would share revenue with Google out of SMSes users on their network send. It specifies a way to buy more SMS credits.

"You can always send an SMS to your own phone, and then reply to that message multiple times. Every time you send a reply message, your SMS credit is increased by five. Effectively, you're buying more messages by paying your phone company for these outgoing messages," it writes on its chat help portal.

The service currently supports eight cellular operators including Aircel, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTS, Reliance, Tata DoCoMo, Tata Indicom and some circles of Vodafone. BSNL, MTNL and Airtel are not supported yet.

The SMSes sent from Gmail chat are delivered to mobile phones while replies from the mobile phone come into the chat window. For the mobile phone user, the reply is charged at local SMS rate as per her/his normal billing plan.

If no replies are received to any of the 50 SMSs sent and the credit balance come down to zero, Google says, "...it will increase back up to one 24 hours later. So, you won't ever be locked out of the system."

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