Professor Chelva Kanaganayakam passes away

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 November 2014, 10:24 GMT]
Professor Chelva Kanaganayakam, an Eezham Tamil academic who held the rare distinction of being the professor of English in a reputed university of a native English-speaking country, Canada, passed away in Montreal on Sunday. He was Professor of English at the University of Toronto. Recently he has been awarded the highest literary recognition of the country, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. A function was held at Montreal related to the award. After attending the function, and while on his way to dinner that followed the function, he suffered a massive heart attack. He was 62. Professor Kanaganayakam’s father, Professor Chelvanayagam was a distinguished Tamil scholar at the University of Peradeniya in the 1960s. Kanaganayakam was Lecturer in English at the University of Jaffna in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Full story >>

Kodduk-ki'na'ru, Kodduk-kal, Uppuk-koddu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 November 2014, 15:02 GMT]
The well walled by hollow wood

The block rocks or the barn/ hut-like rock

The salt storing barn or hut
Full story >>

Landslide exposes land-related deprivation of Up-Country Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 November 2014, 14:35 GMT]
The SL military is interfering in the assistance and resettlement of the Up-Country Tamil landslide victims in Meeriya-bedda in the same manner it interferes in the resettlement of Tamils in the North and East. The military is everywhere monitoring everyone visiting the affected. The victims have been demanding proper responses to their questions on where and how the resettlement housing and livelihood plans would be implemented, before moving into a longer-term temporary settlement inside an abandoned station factory. SL military, doctors and nurses, claiming to assist the the Tamil victims are all Sinhala-speakers. The military and language are used as means of oppression. A Sinhala-Buddhist supremacist approach is oppressing minorities in the Up-Country, said Rev Fr Fontgallan of the Leo Marga Ashram in Bandarawela.
Full story >>

Recent books on regions of Tamil Eelam

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 November 2014, 10:40 GMT]
Four voluminous books have recently been published on the Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Vanni and Jaffna regions of the country of Eezham Tamils. The publications, resulting from the efforts and contributions of Eezham Tamils in the island and in the diaspora, show the rise of a new generation as well as the conviction of the old generation in documenting the history and culture of the regions and people of Tamil Eelam with a geographical sense of attachment. The political geographic nuance of the publications subtly responds to the New Delhi–Washington–Colombo genocide partners’ denial of territorial and historical sovereignty claim of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island. On the other hand, the publications implicitly impel the Eezham Tamils of the various regions in the island to understand the milieu and needs of one another in strengthening the nation with new equations.
Full story >>

Colombo constructed 463 Buddhist viharas in 2013 in North-East: TNA MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 November 2014, 08:09 GMT]
At the end of the year in 2012 there were 10,349 Buddhist temples in the Northern and Eastern provinces. But, at the end of the year 2013 the figure has increased to 10,812, according to Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Batticaloa Seenithamby Yogeswaran. The genocidal Sri Lankan State has constructed 463 new Buddhist temples in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils in one year alone. The structural genocide on Eezham Tamils is continuing unabated with the deployment of Sinhala ‘Army and Archaeology’ by Colombo, the ‘Time and Space’ provided through the Geneva discourse by the West and is encouraged by the nexus between the ‘Hindutva’ New Delhi and the ‘Sinhala Buddhist’ Colombo, commented Eezham Tamil political observers in the East.
Full story >>

Former LTTE member reported missing in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 November 2014, 11:05 GMT]
31-year-old Anthonimuthu Anton Jeyaron has been reported missing since Monday, according to a complaint by his wife in Jaffna on Tuesday. The incident comes amidst Sri Lanka Army stepping up harassment of former LTTE members before Tamil Eelam Heroes Day on 27 November. The Sri Lanka Army had earlier released Mr Jeyaron after so-called rehabilitation, his wife further said. He had been in Vanni till May 2009 and surrendered to the SL military at the end of the war.
Full story >>

Norwegian doctor vows to challenge Israeli travel ban to Gaza

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 November 2014, 21:45 GMT]
Israel has recently blocked Mads Gilbert, professor and head of Emergency Medicine from the University Hospital of North Norway, from entering Gaza. After facing criticism from several holds, including the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government of Israel changed its explanation that the Norwegian physician was no longer allowed to enter Israel. The outspoken trauma surgeon, who witnessed 51 days of Israeli onslaught on civilians during its 100-day war with Hamas in Gaza earlier this summer, internationally exposed the slaughter of the innocent civilians, stating that Israel was committing “state terrorism at highest levels.” Gilbert has vowed to fight against any restriction on his movement into Gaza.
Full story >>

Mahadevan traces language of Indus Civilisation to early Dravidian

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 November 2014, 10:35 GMT]
Releasing his latest research findings at the Indus Research Centre of the Roja Muthaih Research Library in Chennai this month, veteran epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan concluded that the language of the Indus Civilisation was an early form of Dravidian. Due to the migration of a section of the Indus population southwards, forming some settlements in South India, the Indus Dravidian influenced the South Dravidian languages. The earliest attestations of such influence are found in Old Tamil. As the Vedic Age succeeded the Indus Civilisation, the Rig Veda itself is a product of the composite culture, he said in the paper, “Dravidian Proof of the Indus Script via the Rig Veda: A Case Study,” published as November 2014 bulletin of the Research Centre.
Full story >>

TID abducts Tamil man for ‘rehabilitation’

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 November 2014, 23:57 GMT]
Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist’ Investigation Division (TID) on Friday arrested a 38-year-old man who was in the LTTE for two years two decades ago. The father of five from Panagkaddik-koddu in Mannaar was abducted and taken way in a white-van on Friday by an unknown squad. Later, his wife received a note in Sinhala from the TID in Vavuniyaa that Mr Jainth Thangkathurai had been taken to Vavuniyaa to be sent for the so-called rehabilitation by the SL military.
Full story >>

Interest in resettlement cost life to Nakuleswaran

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 November 2014, 23:50 GMT]
Funeral of assassinated Krishnasamy Nakuleswaran was held on Sunday at his village, Eekam-kudiyiruppu (settlement of sacrifice), at Ve’l’laang-ku’lam in Mannaar. 15 uniformed SL military men were busy taking photographs from different corners at the funeral and 70 of the 200 participants were intelligence operatives on surveillance assignment, residents told TamilNet Sunday. While many people believed that the SL military intelligence had chosen a target to create fear psychosis among the families of Tamil Heroes, the residents of the village were of the opinion that Nakuleswaran’s interest in working for the proper resettlement of his people had cost him his life. Nakuleswaran's assassination was timed to respond to the call made by C.V. Wigneswaran in Tamil Nadu on bringing back Eezham Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu and resettling them in the North, political observers said.
Full story >>

Penang conference demands IC to end SL military occupation, investigate genocide

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 November 2014, 12:27 GMT]
Malaysian and foreign delegates, who took part in an international Tamil conference, held in Georgetown, Penang, demanded UN referendum on Tamil Eelam, OISL investigations to also include genocide investigation and the international community to end Sri Lankan military occupation and Sinhala colonization of Tamil homeland. The conference was a success as it raised critical and far-reaching issues that often not raised in the Malaysian political milieu, Deputy Chief Minister of Penang, Professor P. Ramasamy, a long time advocate of the rights of Eezham Tamils, told TamilNet.
Full story >>

US-trained commander of SL military steps up surveillance on Jaffna University

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 November 2014, 09:37 GMT]
The commander of the occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka in Jaffna, Major General Udaya Perera, who was trained and awarded in the US Army War College in 2012, after his role in the genocidal onslaught in 2009 followed by counter-insurgency foreign service, is engaged in creating fear psychosis among the Tamil youth, ex-LTTE members and the civil society in North before Tamil Heroes Day, Tamil activists in Jaffna say. Two ‘surveillance centers’ have been created near the University of Jaffna in recent days at Naachchimaar koayil and at Kaladdi Junction, obtaining civilian houses within 500 meters and one km from the university premises. The primary task given to the intelligence operatives is to block activists and students from marking Tamil Heroes Day on November 27.
Full story >>

SL military fabricates evidences to distort Mannaar assassination, say residents

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 November 2014, 08:20 GMT]
Ve’l’laangku’lam residents on Saturday denied Sri Lankan police reports that sought to fabricate evidence and distort the facts about Nakuleswaran, who was assassinated on Wednesday. The Sri Lankan military intelligence and the SL police have been trying to fabricate a story that the ex-LTTE member and former Tamil Eelam policeman Nakuleswaran was slain due to personal grudges, the residents said. On Friday, the Sri Lankan police claimed that two T-56 rifles had been located and four persons involved in a gang had been detained. In the meantime, Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) youth wing secretary S.V. Sivakaran in Mannaar told TamilNet that Mr Nakuleswaran was not an active supporter or member of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
Full story >>

Mannaar Bishop condemns assassination of Nakuleswaran

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 November 2014, 10:37 GMT]
Bishop of Mannaar Rt Rev Rayappu Joesph has condemned the killing of Krishnaswamy Nakuleswaran, a father of two and a former LTTE member and police constable of Tamil Eelam Police. Unknown gunmen shot and killed Mr Nakuleswaran at the premises of his new house Wednesday night. The victim, aged 40 had been released after so-called rehabilitation in the Sri Lanka Army custody in December 2012. Nakuleswarn's wife, a teacher, on Thursday said her husband had no enemies.
Full story >>

Arup-passa

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 November 2014, 09:20 GMT]
The ascending side, quarter or neighbourhood
Full story >>

Malnutrition in Vanni worse today than in war time: UNP MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 November 2014, 23:54 GMT]
A large number of women and children in Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts in the North are badly affected due to malnutrition. During the times of war, 36.6 percent of women and children were suffering due to malnutrition, but after the end of the war the situation has worsened to 40.9 percent in Ki’linochchi district, Ms Rosy Senanayake, a UNP parliamentarian told the Sri Lankan Parliament on Tuesday. In the upcountry, 41 percent of pregnant mothers are suffering from malnutrition due to poverty and non-availability of health facilities.
Full story >>

Tamil diaspora youth express solidarity with Baloch nation on Martyrs Day

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 November 2014, 23:40 GMT]
On 13th November, the oppressed Baloch nation, both in the occupied homeland and in the diaspora, commemorates their heroes who have fought for the sovereignty and freedom of Balochistan. The Baloch martyrdom is traced from 1836 onwards, when the Baloch leader Mir Mehran Khan Baloch was killed alongside his followers while battling the Imperialist British forces who eventually brought the Baloch homeland under colonial domination. Subsequently the Baloch have fought the British, the Persians, the Iranian and Pakistani state in a bid to regain their lost sovereignty and to safeguard their national existence and rights.
Full story >>

Missing Tamil located after 23 years of incarceration in South

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 November 2014, 22:45 GMT]
A Tamil man who was reported missing twenty three years ago following a bomb explosion in 1991 at Armor Street Junction in Colombo is said to have been located in a detention camp in the South. The victim, K. Vairvanathan, from Chu’n’naakam in Jaffna is now 53. Both his parents, who have been searching for him, have passed away. After searching for their son for several years, both the parents had come to the conclusion that Vairavanathan was also killed in the bomb explosion, legal sources in Colombo told TamilNet.
Full story >>

Former Tamil Eelam policeman shot dead in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 November 2014, 22:01 GMT]
Unknown gunmen, believed to be the intelligence operatives of the Sri Lanka military, have shot and killed a former constable of Tamil Eelam Police, a father of two children, at Ve’l’laang-ku’lam in Mannaar district Wednesday night around 8:30 p.m., news sources in Mannaar said. The victim, 40-year-old Krishnasamy Nakuleswaran, was cutting cement stones together with his wife for their resettlement house being constructed under the Indian Housing assistance, when the incident took place. Mr Nakuleswaran, as several other former LTTE members, was facing continuous harassment from the occupying SL military in the former LTTE administered area.
Full story >>

Wigneswaran becomes last escape route for New Delhi

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 November 2014, 08:49 GMT]
While it increasingly becomes clear that genocide on Eezham Tamils was committed not because of ‘terrorism’ or of anything else, but just because of a stubborn stand motivated by the greed of imperialisms, especially of New Delhi that independence to Eezham Tamils would spoil their chances of eating the cake in full; and after New Delhi’s ridiculous failure of 13A with the genocidal Sinhala State for well over quarter a century, the NPC chief minister C.V. Wigneswaran now talking of federal and ‘internal’ self-determination seems to be the last trump of New Delhi to contain Tamil Nadu, slip away from indictment in genocide, but at the same time to come out with further deceptions, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in Eezham.
Full story >>