Diaspora Tamil to perform at The Proms

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 04:46 GMT]
A young Diaspora Tamil will perform Wednesday evening alongside leading South Indian vocalist Aruna Sairam at the first Carnatic concert as part of the BBC Proms. Veena virtuoso Hari Sivanesan, the latest recipient of the BBC Radio 3 World Routes Academy, is a student of Smt Sivasakthi Sivanesan, one of the UK's foremost Carnatic figures, and is mentored by Aruna Sairam, widely regarded as the leading South Indian female vocalist of her generation. Whilst Sivanesan was at university, Sitar Maestro Ravi Shankar invited him to tour with his forty concert "Festival of India" tour throughout the States. The Proms, considered the world’s greatest classical music festival is underway in London's Royal Albert Hall.
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Canadian Tamils unveil memorial, remember victims of Black July

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 01:30 GMT]
Glen Murray, Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Toronto Centre, working with Canadian-Tamil youth, unveiled a plaque at a Tamil Memorial Tree Planting event at Evergreen Brick Works – a community environmental centre, Saturday honoring the tens of thousands Tamil lives lost in the struggle for human rights in Sri Lanka. Erected hours before the Black July remembrance event, the memorial commemorates the events of Black July 1983 to Mu'l'livaikkaal of May 2009, the organizers said. Later in the day, in a memorial event organized by National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT), Canadian-Tamils gathered at Queens Park –Toronto, to remember the victims of Black July- bracing the heavy rains.
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‘Dropping call for justice and independence is worst crime’

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 July 2011, 21:03 GMT]
Voicing on behalf of the present establishment in New Delhi, sections in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) unnecessarily declaring against independence of Eezham Tamils and discouraging war crimes investigations are worst of the crimes committed not merely against Eezham Tamils but against human civilization, said Tamil national as well as Left political circles in the island and in the diaspora to TamilNet on Monday. The comments have come responding to TNA views expressed after its victory and during its campaign in the civic elections. TNA leader Sampanthan interpreted the victory as Tamil wish for solutions within ‘united Sri Lanka’ and a confidential document circulated among ‘friends of the TNA’ during the civic elections said that the war crimes investigations were actually directed against India than against Colombo, and hence Tamils should not pin hopes on them.
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Remembering Sri Lanka’s longer history of mass killing of Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 July 2011, 02:40 GMT]
British Tamils held a candle light vigil Saturday evening opposite the Prime Minister’s official residence, 10 Downing Street, to remember victims of Sri Lanka’s 1983 ‘Black July’ anti-Tamil pogrom. Six days of mob violence, organized by ruling politicians and abetted by Sri Lanka’s security forces, which began on July 23 that year killed over three thousand people, and emptied the capital, Colombo, of Tamils. On Saturday, a thousand British Tamils dressed in black and carrying black flags and Eelam national flags, held a vigil between 6 and 9 pm, with lit candles and banners commemorating the pogrom. For several hours before the vigil began, activists and supporters handed out leaflets in the surrounding Whitehall area. The events were organized by the British Tamil Forum.
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Colombo is not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence: New Zealand MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 17:51 GMT]
“We see every action pursued by the Government of Sri Lanka after the war being malignant towards the Tamils and are not conducive to reconciliation or co-existence. It is time for TNA to explain to the Governments of the world the ground situation in Sri Lanka,” said New Zealand parliamentarian Keith Locke while addressing a gathering in Auckland, on Saturday that remembered Black July, the pogram against Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka in 1983. In a calculated move genocidal Sri Lanka chose 23 July, the remenmbrance day to conduct civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils. But it didn’t prevent Eezham Tamils in many parts of the world from observing the day, which marks the times that impelled the actual beginnings of their militant struggle.
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TNA councilors swearing in event to be held in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 16:24 GMT]
Chairmen and members elected to the local authorities on behalf of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the North and East will be sworn in at a special event held to be held in Ki'linochchi town in the first week of August, said Mr.R.Sampanthan, leader of the TNA and the Trincomalee district parliamentarian.
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Tamils reject collaboration-reconciliation, favour identity-based peace

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 08:03 GMT]
The results of civic elections in the country of Eezham Tamils decisively show that despite maximum intimidation and ‘development’ lures, people reject the paradigm of ‘collaboration-reconciliation’ but determinedly favour a polity of peace, based on the identity of their nation, political observers in the island said on Sunday. The message should be useful in seeking innovative and creative ways to resolve the national question in the island in order to achieve peace and stability in the region, they further said.
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TNA wins Trincomalee Town and Gravets PS

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 05:14 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has captured the administration of the Trincomalee Town and Gravets Piratheasa Chapai in the election held Saturday. The TNA polled 8,986 votes and won five seats in the nine-member council. The United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) polled 6,353 votes and obtained 3 seats and he United National Party (UNP) polled 2,869 votes and obtained one seat. However, the TNA failed to secure power in the Kuchchave'li PS.
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Batticaloa Tamil political detainees begin hunger strike

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 July 2011, 02:55 GMT]
Seven Tamil political prisoners began hunger strike from Saturday morning in protest to the assault on three fellow inmates by jail guards, civil sources in Batticaloa said. The protesting prisoners demanded that all detainees be provided with better facilities, detainees should be given separate cells and that harassment of prisoners by prison officials should stop. The protesters added that the hunger-strike will continue until the demands are met.
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EPDP assaults youth leader of TNA in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 19:14 GMT]
Ki'linohchi EPDP chief organizer V. Thavanathan and Sri Lanka Army intelligence personnel at Viveakaananthaa Nakar in Ki'linochchi severely assulted the youth wing leader of the Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) of Ki'linochchi district Suntharalingam Lokeswaran while he was returning from a polling booth Saturday aroiund 4:30 p.m. Mr. Lokeswaran was admitted to the Ki'linochchil hospital and was later transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital with serious injuries, reports from Ki'linohchi said.
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TNA wins Thirukkoayil PS in East

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 19:06 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has secured 72.87% of the votes polled in Thirukkoayil Piratheasa Chapai (PS) in Ampaa'rai district. The ruling UPFA and the UNP received one seat each. The victory of the TNA in Thirukkoayil in Ampaa'rai is an expression of Eezham Tamil unity across the Northern and Eastern Provinces, political observers in Colombo said.
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TNA wins civic elections in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 17:58 GMT]
Despite widespread SLA harassments in Ki'linochchi administrative district and violations by UPFA-EPDP of election practices in Jaffna, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has won the civic elections in North by more than two third majority in all of the urban councils and most of the Piratheasa-Chapai (PS). Of 16 Piratheasa Chapais, the TNA has won 14. The UPFA captured two islands off Jaffna, Neduntheevu (Delft) and Oorkaavat-thu'rai (Kayts). These islands were completely sealed off for campaign by the occupying SL Navy. The SL Governor for the Eastern Province who was formerly a Navy commander in the islands was brought to Delft for Rajapaksa's election campaign. In Ki'linochchi, where Rajapaksa regime let loose its military even on the election day, the TNA has managed to secure at least 50% of the polled votes. In Mullaiththeevu, the TNA secured 7 seats polling 72% of the votes.
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Protests make India withdraw SLA training in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 14:21 GMT]
A programme of the Indian military to train soldiers of the genocidal Army of Sri Lanka at the Madras Regimental Centre at Wellington in the Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu was withdrawn after a protest of the people of Tamil Nadu staged by Periyar Dravida Kazhakam (PDK), Naam Thamizhar Party (NTP), Viduthali Chiruththaigal Katchi (VCK) and other activists groups on Friday. 25 soldiers of Sri Lanka’s Army who arrived at Wellington Thursday night for a three months training were sent back in a bus via Chennai, Indian officials said Saturday. About 200 activists participated in the protest demonstration at Wellington on Friday. A wordy quarrel took place between the Tamil Nadu police and a section of the agitators when the latter attempted to squat on road, PTI reported.
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Widespread SLA attacks reported on voters, candidates in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 July 2011, 13:02 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army let loose its soldiers in civil cloths on house-to-house attack in many of the villages in Ki'linochchi district in the early hours of Saturday, causing panic and fear among the voters in Vanni and forcing the voters to stay inside their houses. The armed men in civil, speaking broken Tamil, came in vehicles as early as 3:00 a.m. and attacked the civilians instructing them to stay indoors on the election day. Knowing that it would be difficult to entirely change the mindset of the people of Jaffna, the SLA was ordered to stay inside the barracks in Jaffna. But, the SLA was deployed in Ki'linochchi, threatening both the candidates and voters, with a clear intent to capture the councils by intimidation.
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91 killed in Norway, Tamil politician escapes massacre

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 20:38 GMT]
At least four Eezham Tamil youths, including a politician of the ruling Labour Party of Norway, Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, were amongst those who escaped the indiscriminate shooting by a lone gunman at the summer camp of the youth wing of the party (AUF) on Friday. The attack killed at least 84 people. A short-while before the gunman struck at the camp held at Utøya island, a bomb blast ripped through the political enclave of central Oslo, killing at least seven people and injuring many more in the locality where government offices and ministries including the Prime Minister's Office are located. Oslo police are questioning a 32-year-old ethnic Norwegian man, who is reportedly a right-wing extremist, in connection with both the attacks, described by Norwegian media as the worst episode of violence in the country since World War II.
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US official foresees elections in the north as way for ‘indigenous leadership’

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 12:17 GMT]
While the US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton visiting Chennai was looking at “some innovative and creative ideas” to break the impasse over the ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue, a senior US State Department official told reporters in Chennai on Wednesday that the US government was looking towards Sri Lanka conducting provincial council elections in the north to facilitate the emergence of indigenous leadership for the first time in 30 years. Meanwhile, campaigning for Rajapaksa in the intimidated civic elections in the north that is now taking place ‘guided’ by the Rajapaksa regime and its occupying Army, SL minister Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said in Jaffna that Tamils should vote for Rajapaksa to “ensure that there is no foreign interferences.”
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Rajapaksa gives Tamil Nadu trio stage fright

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 02:47 GMT]
Three film singers from Tamil Nadu who had accepted a Sri Lankan government invitation to perform for Tamils in the former warzone town of Kilinochchi pulled out Thursday after finding out the event was to be part of the ruling party’s election campaign and that Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa would be attending, Indian press reports said. Mano, Krish and Suchitra (eds: single names only) were “shocked” to discover this whilst at Colombo airport waiting for their special military flight to Kilinochchi, and were hurriedly returning to Tamil Nadu, where their visit had triggered controversy, the reports said.
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India signs MoU with Colombo to ‘rehabilitate’ KKS harbour

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 July 2011, 00:27 GMT]
The government of India entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Rajapaksa regime of Sri Lanka on Thursday to carry out a “complex and wide-ranging project” to “rehabilitate” the Kaangkeasanthu'rai (KKS) harbour in the SL Army occupied High Security Zone in Valikaamam, Jaffna.
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SL Minister Nanayakara accepts mass killings of civilians in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 22:57 GMT]
A top minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has publicly accepted the mass-scale killing of Tamil civilians during the final months of the war in 2009. SL Minister and the leader of Democratic Left Front (DLF), Vasudeva Nanayakara on Tuesday said that his party accepted the important fact that innocent civilians have been killed during the Vanni war. Amid growing international pressure for an international probe into the credible allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka, Mr. Nanayakara, who was on a propaganda drive seeking the public in Jaffna to support the Rajapaksa alliance in the upcoming civic elections in North, said that Tamils could only exert meaningful pressure on the SL government by supporting his alliance.
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Clinton’s analogue contradicts political reality

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 July 2011, 11:26 GMT]
Visiting Chennai and appreciating the Tamil Nadu state in India, the US Secretary of State Ms. Hilary Clinton on Wednesday said, "Every Sri Lankan deserves the same hope and opportunity." If Ms. Clinton implies an Indian-modeled federal solution to the chronic national crisis in the island then she is making a historic mistake in her analogy, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. Federalism in India had an altogether different origin beginning from the days of the English East India Company compared to the vicious experiment of the British ‘Crown Colony’ in the island. Ms. Clinton should now delete the word ‘Sri Lanka’ if she means talking about Eezham Tamils or about ‘reconciliation’ in the island, he further writes.
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