Jaffna paper office encircled by thugs

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 22:12 GMT]
A group of 10 to 15 men wearing black masks have encircled the Jaffna office of Thinakkural located at Kasthooriyaar Road Friday midnight. The newspaper officers who contacted their Colombo office have told the management to take immediate steps to ensure their safety as the presence of the gang posed a direct threat to the media workers at the office and attached press of the Jaffna edition of Thinakkural daily.
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Sri Lanka will reject any political settlement with Tamils - editorial

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 November 2010, 12:27 GMT]
“If [India's External Affairs Minister S M] Krishna is intending to take up the issue of a political settlement during his visit to Sri Lanka, he will get short shrift in Colombo. President Mahinda Rajapakse has already made his response clear in an interview with The Hindu newspaper this week: there will be no such thing,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper said in its editorial this week. “It is in this way that a long-standing contradiction between the Sinhala establishment and the international community, which had been masked by Indian and Western hostility to the Tamil armed struggle, is now coming clearly to the fore.”
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Indian External Affairs Minister Krishna arrives in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 17:36 GMT]
Indian External Affairs Minister Mr. S. M. Krishna arrived in Sri Lanka on a three day visit Thursday evening by a special plane from New Delhi. He is accompanied by a delegation of twenty members. He was received at the Katunayake International Airport by his counterpart in Sri Lanka Mr.G.L.Peiris. Mr. Krishna is scheduled to meet a delegation of the Tamil Parties Forum on Sunday morning around 9:00 a.m and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) delegation around 10:00 a.m the same day in Colombo.
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Missing Tamil trader found dead

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 13:37 GMT]
The body of a Tamil trader Kanapathy Gunaratnam, 52, who was reported missing since Wednesday morning was recovered in Wellawatte Thursday morning, according to initial reports from the Wellawatte Police. The trader was a resident of Alwis Town in Wattala, a suburb in Colombo.
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New Secretaries appointed to ‘Mahinda Chintana’ government

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 12:24 GMT]
55 Secretaries, the highest civil servants of the ministries appointed Tuesday by the President of the Colombo government Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, were advised by him to discharge their duties properly according to the ‘Mahinda Chintana’, reports Daily Mirror. Structuring the ministries in his second term of office, Mr. Rajapasksa handed over new appointment letters to the secretaries of the various ministries. The Mahinda Chintana list of Secretaries has one Tamil and one Muslim among the 55. The lone Tamil secretary is appointed to the Ministry of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development for which Mr. Douglas Devananda is the minister.
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Tamil civilian reported missing in Wattala

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 November 2010, 09:31 GMT]
A fifty two year-old Tamil civilian has been reported missing since Wednesday morning, according to a complaint by his relatives in the Wattala Police station. Wattala is in the suburbs of Colombo.
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SDC hands over completed building to Education Department in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 November 2010, 16:20 GMT]
Officials from the Switzerland Embassy in Colombo rushed to Jaffna Tuesday to open a school building built by Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) in Ma’ravanpulavu in Thenmaraadchi avoiding the standing instruction by Sri Lanka government to all Government and Non-government Organizations to invite its ministers and military officials to any public or ceremonial event held by them, sources in Jaffna said. The building was handed over to the Jaffna Education Department by the visiting Swiss Embassy officials. Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, SL minister Douglas Devananda and his party parliamentarian Athavan are alleged of compelling the NGOs and voluntary organizations to invite them as chief guests to the opening of the development projects completed by them.
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Washington Post questions ethics in Indian media

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 November 2010, 11:51 GMT]
“Do you have in mind a clear political solution, even if you have not revealed the specifics?” Mr. N. Ram of The Hindu who was awarded ‘Sri Lanka Ratna’ gave the lead to Mahinda Rajapaksa in a recent interview. The Hindu, lobbying for Colombo, later titled the news “I have a political solution in mind: President Rajapaksa.” The Sri Lanka president in fact sounded vicious when he said “We defeated terrorists, not freedom fighters…What we refused to give Prabakaran, we won’t give to others,” and even on provincial elections he said “We can’t have elections under the 1981 Census,” indicating what schemes are hatching in his mind. Meanwhile, Indian journalists are accused of secretly helping politicians, businesses, said the lead of an article in Washington Post, Monday, in the context of a multibillion-dollar scandal causing the resignation of a DMK minister in the New Delhi Establishment.
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SLA active in grabbing strategic lands in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 14:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Ki’linochchi have threatened 18 Tamil families in Irathinapuram where they were each given 5 acres of land to live in 1994 by Sri Lanka government for which they have the documents proving ownership. SLA now claims that a Sinhala school had been located in the said area and therefore the land belongs to the government. SLA further says that it wants the land to be used as cattle grazing ground, the families said. Similarly, SLA officials in the Achchuveali camp have claimed areas in Puththoor and Vaatharavaththai in Valikaamam East saying that a Sinhala school called Panjaseeva and a Buddhist temple had been functioning in the said area. A military establishment and Sinhala colony at strategic Vaatharavaththai will check free movement of Tamils among the sectors of Valikaamam, Vadamaraadchi and Thenmaraadchi regions of the Jaffna peninsula.
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CHR urges LLRC to ensure free, secure environment in Trincomalee, Mannar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 06:54 GMT]
The Centre for Human Rights (CHR) – Sri Lanka in a statement has requested the LLRC to ensure a free and secure environment where people can give evidence without fearing future persecution in its up-coming sessions in Trincomalee and Mannaar. Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) is to conduct its sittings in Trincomalee on December 17, 18 and 19. The LLRC would record the evidence from relatives of affected persons in the Trincomalee district due to abduction, disappeared in round up by military and killing by security forces between the year 2001 and 2009, LLRC sources said. CHR has issued the statement as a press release Sunday.
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Kadugannawa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 06:54 GMT]
The fierce mountain pass
The mountain pass at the frontier
The mountain pass to traverse

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Genetics and etymology go contrary to myths

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 06:38 GMT]
Kadugannawa, the Sinhala name of a key mountain pass in the Kandy district of the island of Sri Lanka comes from Dravidian etymology and is related to Kadu-ka’navaay in Tamil, reveals an etymological column in TamilNet. Meanwhile, genetic studies based on DNA conducted on Sinhala expatriates by a British medical institute 10 years ago showed that the Sinhalese predominantly carry M20, the Dravidian marker in them, says Subramaniyam Visahan who recently came out with an outline publication on the peopling of the island of Sri Lanka. Myths that obscure objective history about the peopling of the island could have been shattered had Colombo joined the DNA mapping programme, the Human Genome Project, said the UK-based writer, who formerly worked for the British National Archives.
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Wall Street Journal skeptical about Sri Lanka promises

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 November 2010, 19:58 GMT]
Commenting on Sri Lanka’s new budget unveiled Monday, the Wall Street Journal echoed international investors’ skepticism, saying “implementing reforms is more important than announcing them.” Warning that “given its recent track record Colombo should expect investors to sit on the sidelines until the government shows it's serious about reform,” the paper singled out for criticism President Mahinda Rajapakse’s approach to business, noting his bragging about the state’s renationalisation successes. The paper also expressed other concerns: “Local businesses report an increasing trend toward crony capitalism. Corruption is endemic, and hostility to the private sector rife in the bureaucracy and among elected politicians.” The concern of WSJ was rather ‘investment reforms’ and not the fuming situation arising out of an unresolved national question.
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Jaffna district Fishermen Societies to boycott meeting with Tamil Nadu counterparts

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 November 2010, 10:49 GMT]
The representatives of Jaffna District Fishermen Societies said Monday that they will boycott the meeting with the representatives of Tamil Nadu Fishermen Societies that is to be chaired by Sri Lanka Minister of Fisheries in Colombo as they had not been officially invited to the above meeting. They further said that they had visited Tamil Nadu in August where they met fishermen society representatives and learnt first hand of their problems but the visiting Tamil Nadu Fishermen Society representatives are not prepared to meet the fishermen in the North. Moreover, Sri Lanka government is trying to create a picture that they are disputes prevailing between the fishermen in the North and Tamil Nadu fishermen with the motive to play down the issue of Tamil Nadu fishermen being attacked by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) soldiers on the Northern seas, they said.
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Tamil Nadu fishermen society delegation to visit Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 November 2010, 05:45 GMT]
A delegation of representatives of fishermen societies in Raameasvaram and Tamil Nadu are expected to visit Sri Lanka shortly to conduct talks with the related authorities in Colombo on issues affecting the fishermen of both Tamil Nadu and Northern fishermen, fisheries society representatives in Jaffna said. Many decisions taken by both fishermen society representatives in the talks held in Tamil Nadu in August remain unexecuted due to non-cooperation by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), the sources added.
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Colombo orders Red Cross to leave North

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 November 2010, 13:55 GMT]
Sri Lanka Government ordered the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) to cease operations in the Northern Province at the earliest without giving a specific deadline, ICRC informational officials told the local media, Sunday Times reported. Colombo gave no reason for the order that was given early this week, according to ICRC official Ms. Wijeratne.
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Colombo censors Tamil Nadu magazines, articles

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 November 2010, 08:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka government continues to censor articles related to the Eezham Tamil national cause or the State terrorism in Sri Lanka appearing in magazines, books and other written literature coming into the island from foreign countries, particularly the Tamil Nadu state of India. Both Tamil and English works are subjected to the censorship. An article written by the news reporter of Anantha Vikadan, a Tamil weekly magazine published in Tamil Nadu, in its last issue had been torn off from all the imported copies and the title of the article on the cover rendered illegible.
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Sarath Fonseka discharged from prison hospital

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 November 2010, 07:42 GMT]
Sarath Fonseka, former Commander of the Sri Lanka Army and the leader of the Democratic National Alliance (DNA), was discharged from the prison hospital and sent back to his cell at the Welikada Prison Saturday afternoon, according to Commissioner of Prisons Major General. V.R. Silva. He was suddenly taken ill after he returned from the inquiry in the Colombo High Court in a case in which he was charged for causing disrepute to the government by giving an interview to the Sunday Leader, English weekly published from Colombo. He was then immediately transferred to prison hospital.
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CID launches investigation into JVP-Lebanon Hisbulla connection

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 November 2010, 07:36 GMT]
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Sri Lanka Police is said to be investigating to find out whether the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has any connection with militant Hisbulla Organization based in Lebanon following the arrest and deportation of a Lebanese couple on Saturday, sources in Colombo said. Mohamed Hottait, the Vice President of the Union of Democratic Lebanon Youth (UDLY) and his wife were arrested in Kandy on Friday on a report that they attended an anti-government rally organized by the JVP.
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Sri Lanka deports Lebanese couple

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 November 2010, 10:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Immigration and Emigration Department Saturday morning deported the Lebanese Democratic Youth Union Leader, Mohamed Hottait, and his wife on a charge of participating in a protest rally organized by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) against the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government in Kandy. The couple had been a tour in Sri Lanka.
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