STF arrests 2 Tamil youths in Batticaloa district

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 May 2010, 09:03 GMT]
Special Task Force (STF) commandos on road patrol arrested a Tamil youth in Ka'luvaangchchikkudi and another in Kalmunai Wednesday evening claiming that the youths had mobile phones containing recent Channel-4 photos and other such film clips from some other websites, the relatives of the arrestees said. STF had told Kalmunai police where the two youths are detained that the youths are working in support of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), sources in Kalmunai said.
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Camouflaged ban on Tamil Eelam by New Delhi, Chennai

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 23:07 GMT]
The Government of Tamil Nadu has gazetted a notification by the Indian Central Government's Ministry of Home Affairs, dated 14 May, banning the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as an 'unlawful association'. The announcement falsely linked 'Tamil Eelam' as threatening the 'sovereignty and territorial integrity of a part of the territory of India'. Questioning when Tamil Eelam became part of Indian territory, Eezham Tamil circles in the diaspora said the notification reflected the guilt related paranoia of New Delhi and Chennai and urged the democratic bodies in the diaspora and the legal activists in Tamil Nadu to address the false interpretation, politically and legally.
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Colombo conducts ‘fake’ conference in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 19:27 GMT]
Northern government department and corporation key officials urgently directed by their superiors to attend a conference Monday in Ki’linochchi in Vanni to discuss resettlement of people uprooted due to war in North were disillusioned to find that the conference failed to address the issues meant, participants in the conference said. The conference, attended by several key ministers including Wimal Weeravansa and Douglas Devananda besides many parliamentarians from the South, revealed the glaring absence of essential matters like allocation of funds for resettlement or definite plans for resettlement, the sources added. Colombo government has enacted another ‘drama’ to show the world that it is able to convene a conference in Ki’linochchi town just as the Liberation Tigers had done in their days, political circles in North said.
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UNP to elect leader by secret ballot if contest prevails

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 03:50 GMT]
The main opposition United National Party (UNP) Friday decided to elect its leader by secret ballot in an event where more than one name is proposed. It states that the same should apply for the posts of Deputy Leader, Assistant Leader, National Organizer and Chairman, according to the six -member Reforms Committee report handed over to the Working Committee of the UNP and approved by the latter. UNP Chief Organizer Joseph Michael Perera was the head of the Reforms Committee.
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“I don’t know why Kalaignar Aiya sent me back”: Parvathi Amma

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 May 2010, 14:02 GMT]
“I do not know why Kalaignar Aiya [Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi] sent me back,” Parvathi Amma, mother of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Velupillai Pirapaharan, admitted to Valveddiththu’rai (VVT) hospital told TamilNet Sunday. Being very frail after going through the ordeal of being sent back to Malaysia from Chennai and coming to Sri Lanka from Malaysia in her old age and paralyzed condition, she ended the conversation saying, “I went there only to get medical treatment.” Meanwhile, many Sinhalese journalists come to Jaffna to see her at the hospital and some of them touching her feet with reverence on leaving, moves the hearts of those around, hospital sources said.
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Sajith Premadasa expected to take over UNP leadership

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 April 2010, 15:54 GMT]
The main opposition United National Party (UNP) is in the process of electing a new leadership to take the party forward from the present plight after facing defeats in every election held in the island since the UNP government was dismissed by the then SL president Chandrika Kumaratunga in 2004. 42-year-old Sajith Premadasa, the son of former president Ranasinghe Premadasa, is expected to take over the leadership of the UNP, political sources said quoting Gayantha Karunatilake, Galle district UNP parliamentarian.
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Lawyers, media persons attacked in Chennai High Court premises

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 April 2010, 07:07 GMT]
Condemning the inaction by Tamil Nadu government for not executing Chennai High Court orders to dismiss Tamil Nadu police officers who had attacked lawyers in the high court in an earlier instance, Tamil Nadu lawyers launched a black flag protest when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi arrived in Chennai High Court Sunday to unveil the statue of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, sources in Chennai said. Chief Minister’s Dravida Munetra Kazhakam (DMK) men who arrived at the scene brutally attacked the protesting lawyers and media persons besides smashing their video cameras and equipments, the protesting lawyers alleged.
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Chennai High Court calls for clarification on deportation of Pirapaharan’s mother

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 April 2010, 12:20 GMT]
Chennai High Court judge who took up Wednesday for inquiry the petition filed by Mr. M. Karupan, a senior lawyer and human rights activist, citing Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr. M. Karunanidhi and the Indian Central Government as respondents for having sent back Mrs. Velupillai Parvathi, mother of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Mr. V Pirapaharan, to Malaysia without allowing her to land in Chennai airport, ordered Mr. Karunanidhi and the Indian Central Government to submit a report on why Mrs. Velupillai Parvathi was sent back, before next Monday, legal sources in Chennai said.
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Uproar in TN State Assembly over India’s refusal to allow Pirapaharan’s mother to land in Chennai

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 April 2010, 10:04 GMT]
Protesting against India’s refusal to allow LTTE Leader Mr. V. Pirapaharan’s mother Mrs. Velupillai Parvathi to land in Chennai airport for medical treatment in Tamil Nadu Friday night, major opposition parties in Tamil Nadu State Assembly moved a special attention-calling motion Monday, sources in Chennai said. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr. M. Karunanithi, in response to the motion said that he knew nothing about the incident and came to know about in the papers the following morning. Heated arguments ensued the response creating uproar in the House. Consequently, the major opposition parties including Patali Makkal Kadchi, Indian Communist Party, Marxist Communist Party and Makkal Dravida Munetra Kazham staged a walkout. Jeyalalitha’s Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhakam party which had not initially participated in the moving of the motion joined in the walkout.
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New party to be launched in Tamil Nadu with Leaping Tiger as its flag

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 April 2010, 05:26 GMT]
Popular Film Director and Tamil activist S. Seeman has introduced Tiger flag for a new political party "Naam Tamilar" (We are Tamils) Saturday, claiming that the establishment of Tamil Eelam should be the moral goal of Tamils in Tamil Nadu as the leaders of the Indian Union and Tamil Nadu State had betrayed Eezham Tamils. Mr. Seeman has called for a major rally towards Mathurai on 18 May 2010, one year after the military subjugation of Eezham Tamils, marking the day as Black Day of Tamils and has announced that the new party would be inaugurated on that day. The event of introducing the flag took place at Thilagar Thidal of Thanjavur, the historic capital of the Cholas, whose emblem was Tiger.
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TNPF manifesto cannot be faulted: Brian Senewiratne

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 April 2010, 02:10 GMT]
There has been no “General Election” in Sri Lanka since 1977. Most of the Tamils in the North and East have been effectively disenfranchised and only marginally better than the Plantation Tamils, says Brian Senewiratne. The options for the Tamils in the North and East are limited. They will not vote for the sympathetic left led by Sinhala leaders. This leaves the choice between the two, TNA and the TNPF. If I were a Tamil, there is no way I would vote for the TNA. The TNPF seems to have got the message that the Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinistic regime has to be confronted, and challenged, not pampered. The election choices facing the Plantation Tamils are serious, mainly because their political party is as ruthless as the government. Facing discontent the CWC is intimidating the Left working in the plantations, Brian writes.
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Tortured Jaffna undergrad commits suicide

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 April 2010, 20:21 GMT]
26-year-old Balasingham Karunanithi, a third year student of the Faculty of Management in Jaffna University, arrested and tortured by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) when he was held in a Vavuniyaa detention camp after the war on Vanni, committed suicide in Jaffna at a house in Naachchimaar Koayiladi where he was staying, sources in Jaffna said. Karunanithi is the fourth Vanni undergraduate of Jaffna University to commit suicide due to mental derangement resulting from their detention in SLA detention centres in Vavuniyaa, the sources added. A medical faculty student and two first year girl students of Jaffna University had committed suicide after the final offensive on Vanni.
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Coup in The Hindu means more than a family feud

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 March 2010, 19:35 GMT]
Battle for control breaks out in The Hindu, very divided family, reported Indian Express Thursday. At the heart of this battle is the proposed retirement of publisher and the group Editor-in-Chief N Ram and his decision to dig his heels in. According to people close to the developments, the board is split, one group supporting Ram and the other seeking his retirement, Indian Express reported further. In the corporate dictated scenario of polity in India, the coup means more than a family feud – a panic in the Indian corporate world over a failed course and scurried attempts to revise it, political observers said. Similar tensions are noticed in recent times in India’s External Affairs and Home establishments too, the observers further said.
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Real war is just beginning, get involved: Brian Senewiratne

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 March 2010, 18:47 GMT]
“Despite my involvement over many years, I was taken aback by the result,” writes Brian Senewiratne on the overwhelming mandate for Tamil Eelam in the referenda of the diaspora in several countries. The time for federation has long since gone. Until the Tamil areas are separated from the control in Colombo there will be neither peace nor prosperity in the island. If there is a genuine referendum in the Tamil areas of the island the ‘yes’ vote might be 100 percent and Delhi will have to duck for cover if such a ballot is taken among the 70 million Tamils of Tamil Nadu, he writes. According to him this major crisis of global dimensions, the genesis of which lies in British colonialism, and the global fall-out in resolving it, demands global response. The real war, not in a military sense, is just beginning. Loss of hope has achieved nothing and the ray of hope is the Tamil youth, he says.
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India to screen academics of Sri Lanka attending conferences

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 February 2010, 20:25 GMT]
Participants from Sri Lanka to conferences in India require advance security clearance from the Home Ministry of India. The restrictions are applicable to peoples of eight countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and to people of Pakistani origin and stateless persons, media reports said Friday, citing instructions sent to all Central Ministries, Departments and Chief Secretaries of all State Governments and Union Territories. India’s foreign policy necessitating six-weeks scrutiny for academics of one half of the countries of South Asia is shocking, political observers said adding that while governments collaborate in state terrorism at higher levels they prevent their peoples uniting against it. Some of the countries now red-flagged for academics were India’s staunch partners in abetting Sri Lanka’s war crimes and defending them at the UNHRC.
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18 ex-UNP parliamentarians appeal to Supreme Court to ensure their security

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 February 2010, 14:15 GMT]
Eighteen former parliamentarians of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) Wednesday filed petitions in Supreme Court seeking relief against the withdrawal of their security by the government. Petitioners said their security had been withdrawn on February 15 whilst a group of former government parliamentarians and government supporters who are not parliamentarians are provided with security of the Ministerial Security Division, legal sources in Colombo said.
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Theological premises of Maha Sangha raise questions

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 February 2010, 10:24 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government should overlook the alleged crimes committed by General (retd) Sarath Fonseka, as the government has taken in its fold 'criminals' such as Karuna and Pillayan, who 'massacred' Bhikus at Aranthalawa, launched a bomb attack on Dalada Maligawa and killed Sinhalese civilians and military personnel. Hence the government should overlook the alleged offences committed by the Sri Lankan Genreal (retd) Sarath Fonseka, who almost lost his life to 'safeguard the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka' and so it surely can overlook the alleged offences committed by him, said a statement signed by the chief prelates of the four chapters of the Buddhist Maha Sangha. Tamil circles question whether the statment outlines the principles of 'practical theology' of the Maha Sangha in the island.
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Proving geopolitical strength, antidote to international injustice to Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 February 2010, 21:20 GMT]
In whatever ways Eezham Tamils may express aspiration for their national liberation, India and Rajapaksa government will quietly go ahead with their agenda of what they understand by ‘reconciliation,’ is the response that comes from the circles of the Indian Establishment. Informed Tamil political circles say there is a ‘high level’ understanding among all powers of geopolitical competition to negate Tamil independence. How to achieve the goal when all are against and what is the point in claiming freedom outside when people are subjugated inside are questions of those who are disillusioned by the psychological war. If crimes against Tamil nation are committed due to geopolitics the antidote is nothing but Tamil uprising to prove geopolitical superiority and the responsibility lies with Tamil Nadu.
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Academic exposes habitual collaboration of Chennai in bungling geopolitics

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 02:12 GMT]
Writing on the negotiations of 1964 Srimao-Shastri Pact that caused adverse impact on the demography of Tamils in Sri Lanka, Professor V. Suryanarayan says, “The most pathetic member of the Indian team was Ramiah, a Cabinet Minister from Tamil Nadu. According to informed sources, throughout the discussions, Ramiah did not utter a single word on behalf of the Tamil plantation workers, who wanted to remain in Sri Lanka and become Sri Lankan citizens.” Mr. Karunanidhi, for his personal consolidation of power, collaborated with New Delhi in ceding Kachchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974. Had he challenged it in the Supreme Court, the India-Sri Lanka relations might have taken a different turn, the academic said in a paper he read last week.
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New Police media spokesman appointed

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 February 2010, 01:58 GMT]
Superintendent of Police (SP) Priyantha Jayakody has been appointed as the new media spokesman of the Sri Lanka Police with immediate effect. He was the Director (Recruitment) prior to this appointment.
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