Aayiththiyamalai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 October 2010, 07:42 GMT]
The hill of a kind of mineral-rock
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Daytime robbery in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 October 2010, 06:28 GMT]
A gang of men robbed a house during daytime Tuesday in Kaatththaankudi police division in Batticaloa district when there was no one in the house, according to the complaint made to Kaththaankudi police by the owner of the house who is a male nurse in Batticaloa Teaching Hospital. The robbers had stolen 19 sovereign gold and cash more than 400,000 rupees. The robbers had come in a white van on the previous day of the robbery to the location to study the situation, according to a relative of the owner who was in the house at the time.
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Millennium old Tamil inscription found in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 October 2010, 00:53 GMT]
A stone slab having a Tamil inscription, clearly in the alphabet of the Chola times, was found in Trincomalee while digging for cricket stadium construction work recently. The land where it was found is a part of the esplanade, on the right side of the Koa’neasvaram Road leading to the Siva temple inside Fort Frederick and is adjacent to the bay where the temple’s Theerththam (water cutting) ritual is held. Sometimes back, a Buddhist Vihara and another structure called Sanghamitta Buddhist Rest were constructed at this place. The inscribed slab was taken into possession by the Trincomalee police and was sent to the Department of Archaeology in Colombo.
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Tissamaharama Tamil Brahmi inscription ‘missing’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 October 2010, 19:34 GMT]
The third century BCE potsherd inscription in Tamil language and in Tamil Brahmi script found at Tissamaharama in Hambantota district by German excavators is now missing in Sri Lanka’s Archaeology Department, informed sources said. The inscription found sometimes back was not included in the excavation reports of the Archaeology Department. Photo and decipherment of the inscription was brought out by Iravatam Mahadevan in The Hindu in June this year, followed by TamilNet. Meanwhile, accusing TamilNet for false publications, Dr. Susantha Goonatilleke in an article posted by transcurrents.com and published by Daily Mirror said that TamilNet had recently published inscriptions claimed to be from the South of Sri Lanka, which nobody in the Archaeology Department had seen.
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SL Muslim devotees on Hajj pilgrimage

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 October 2010, 11:50 GMT]
The first charter flight comprising 357 Muslim devotees from Sri Lanka left for the Hajj pilgrimage on October 17th, the state daily, Dinamina newspaper said. According to the news article, a total of 5800 pilgrims from Sri Lanka will be going to Makkah in Saudi Arabia to perform the religious obligation of Hajj, which is one of the main pillars of Islam. This year, the Sri Lanka government has made arrangements to provide concessionary rate packages for all pilgrims in comparison to other years when each pilgrim had to pay as much as Rs. 525,000+ for the holy trip.
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Vadamaraadchi fishermen complain of intrusion by Sinhala fishermen

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 October 2010, 05:29 GMT]
Fishermen in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupied areas in Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna peninsula accused the SLA officials for bringing in Sinhala fishermen from South who catch sea cucumber and conch shells in great quantities in the seas of Kudaththanai and Ma’natkaadu where local fishermen are not permitted to fish freely by the SLA. The Sinhala fishermen, numbering from 600 to 800 occupy the houses of local people who are not allowed to resettle in their houses by the SLA authorities, Vadamaraadchi Fishermen Society representatives said.
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IUSF stages protest against police assault on journalists in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 12:23 GMT]
Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) and media rights groups staged a protest demonstration at Lipton Circus in Colombo Tuesday against police assault on media persons covering the protest march of IUSF Thursday in Colombo. The students were protesting outside the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education to demand the release of a group of student activists from Sri Lanka’s Peradeniya University, who were imprisoned after booing the Minister of Higher Education S.B. Dissanayake on a recent campus visit. Twenty-one students arrested at the protest will face court on October 29, according to media reports.
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Identify murderers of Tamil journalist, RSF appeals to Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 11:33 GMT]
Expressing hope that the Government of Sri Lanka will launch an investigation to identify the murderers of Tamil journalist Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan, who was gunned down on 19th October 2000, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), cautioned that "[r]econciliation in Sri Lanka will require tough government initiatives to combat impunity in high-profile cases such as Nimalarajan’s murder, one of the most shocking killings of the past decade."
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Birth centenary of V. Navaratnam, pioneer of Tamil Eelam polity

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 October 2010, 05:35 GMT]
18 October 2010 is the birth centenary of V. Navaratnam, doyen of the Tamil Eelam cause and founder leader of Thamizhar Chuyaadchik Kazhakam (TCK) in the late 1960s. TamilNet interviewed him in July 2005 when he was 95 years old. He passed away on 22 December 2006. Eezham Tamils and Sinhalese could never live under one government, even a confederation will not work and separation is the only way, he asserted in his interview. When his party contested the 1970 election there was only a little support. He was criticized for dividing the vote bank of the Federal Party. But within a few years all the mainstream Tamil political parties fell in line with his polity. The Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of 1976 was a copy of his party manifesto, said Mr. Navaratnam. His interview in voice is reproduced here.
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Amended Local Authorities Elections Bill goes to PCs for ratification

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 October 2010, 10:14 GMT]
The Local Authorities Elections Amendment Bill has been sent to Provincial Councils for their ratification. Provincial Councils that have elected administration are scheduled to meet next week to study the Bill and to express their consent or not. The Bill is to be taken up for perusal at a special meeting of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) that is scheduled to meet on October 19. Western Provincial Council is to meet on October 17. Likewise other elected PCs have also fixed dates to study the amended bill. The Northern Provincial Council, however, has no elected administration and is administered by the Provincial Governor who is a retired Major General in the Sri Lanka Army.
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Fonseka vows to break out of prison to protect masses

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 October 2010, 04:55 GMT]
Sarath Fonseka, former commander of the Sri Lanka Army while leaving the Colombo High Court Friday told media persons gathered there that he along with others remanded in prison by Sri Lanka government are prepared to break out of prisons and protect the people. He has been indicted in the trial at bar of the High Court for causing disrepute to the government by giving an interview to the Sunday leader.
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Kandy court orders remand for UNP MP in defraud case

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 October 2010, 04:53 GMT]
Kandy Additional Magistrate Thanuja Jayatunge Friday ordered remand till October 18 for Ranjan Ramanayake, Ratnapura district parliamentarian of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) when he was produced in court on a complaint of defrauding one million rupees from a female teacher on the promise of marriage. He was arrested in Colombo Thursday afternoon and later taken to Kandy where the complaint was lodged.
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SL government sabotages IUSU activities in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 October 2010, 05:36 GMT]
Inter University Students Union (IUSU) representatives accused Sri Lanka government and the Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka Amy (SLA) for sabotaging their activities in Jaffna peninsula. Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) administration had cancelled its permission for a film show that was to be held in Nalloor Naavalar Cultural Hall on 15, 16 October by the Socialist Youth Organization (SYO), an organ of IUSU, instigated by Sri Lanka government, the representatives said. Meanwhile, SYO representatives alleged that SLA intelligence unit men had attacked Uthila Premaratne, the president of IUSU and stolen his phone and camera in Koappaay in Jaffna Tuesday as he was returning to Colombo after holding a press meet in Jaffna town.
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Abducted Tamil jeweler released on payment of ransom, in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 09:45 GMT]
The unknown persons who had abducted the owner of a jewelry shop in Sea Street in Colombo Wednesday around 7:15 p.m on Green Street in Kotahena released him around midnight after his family members paid the demanded ransom of 50 million rupees, sources in Colombo said.
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Fisherman gone missing in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 08:23 GMT]
A fisherman has gone missing and another reported to have swum ashore safely when their fishing boat collided with a Sri Lankan Navy patrol boat five miles off the coast of Dehiwala in Colombo district Wednesday night. The fishing boat sank after breaking into two, police sources said.
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Police instructs Tamils in Colombo to register their presence

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 05:08 GMT]
Sri Lanka police conducting a search in Narahenpitiya Flats in Colombo instructed the Tamil residents to register their presence anew with the police. They told the residents that application forms are available in all the police stations in Colombo and all Tamil residents should register the presence of all the persons living in their houses with their respective police stations. Though the war has ended Sri Lanka government imposes similar conditions only on Tamils every time the State of Emergency in extended in Parliament causing nervousness, fear and dissatisfaction among them, Tamils residents in Colombo said.
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Indian Secretary General leads Commonwealth away from human rights

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 00:13 GMT]
Another instance of key persons in international organisations sabotaging international norms of humanity came to light when The Guardian leaked last Friday a document of the Commonwealth Secretariat. This time it was the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma, an Indian national heading the organisation telling his staff that it was not their job to speak out against the human rights abuses of the 54 member states. The Secretary General ignored calls from secretariat staff urging him to express concern at least, when abuses were committed in member states in recent years, The Guardian said, citing specific cases including the course of war in the island of Sri Lanka. "All those cases were all about the values the Commonwealth is supposed to stand for and we failed," according to a staff member.
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IUSU demands release of Northern youths detained or disappeared

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 October 2010, 06:00 GMT]
Inter University Students Union (IUSU) president Uthila Premaratne said that a demonstration demanding the release of young men and women of the North detained by Sri Lanka government or gone missing is to be held in Jaffna, in a press meet in Jaffna town Tuesday. He appealed to the families of the youths detained or disappeared after arrest by Sri Lanka armed forces to join in the protest demonstration that is to be held in Jaffna in the end of October. Similar demonstrations will be launched in Colombo, he said. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers had interrogated the media men and local daily reporters who attended the press meet. It is also alleged that the CID officers had intimidated the owner of the lodge where the IUSU group are staying in, media sources in Jaffna said.
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Rajapaksa to form new cabinet after swearing in for second term

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 October 2010, 04:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa Tuesday indicated that a fresh cabinet would be formed after him being sworn in for the second term on November 19. He revealed this at a conference held Tuesday at Temple Trees while addressing Trade unions’ representatives, sources in Colombo said.
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Kanatta

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 October 2010, 17:06 GMT]
The patch of little jungle in the elevated ground
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