Tamil Nadu fishermen stage protest on World Fishermen Day

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 November 2009, 06:35 GMT]
Fishermen in Tamil Nadu have decided to fly black flags instead of Indian National flag in their fishing vessels in a protest against Indian Government’s failure to stop the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen and condemning the Sri Lankan government, fisheries society sources in Puthukkoaddai district in Tamil Nadu said. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu fishermen staged a boycott Sunday on World Fishermen Day without going for fishing, remaining in their houses where black flags were seen hoisted, sources in Tamil Nadu said.
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'Future bleak, but do not give up,' veteran Marxist reviewed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 November 2009, 21:19 GMT]
“Fifty years of ethnic cleansing have wiped out whole generations who knew any sort of peace, and made cohabitation with the Sinhalese people virtually impossible,” says veteran Marxist A.Sivanandan on the political future of the island of Sri Lanka in an interview to the New Left Review 60, November-December 2009. The 87 years old ideologue, who in his younger days “had no sense at all of being a Tamil” while living in the south, and who now feels “not only for the Tamils but also for the Sinhalese people,” further said: “The Sinhala elite has transformed the country into a counter-insurgency state like Colombia, in which repression, torture, imprisonment without trial and disappeared people are institutionally embedded. I don’t think anything now can be done from above, let alone from the debased self-interests of the ‘international community’.”
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Voter turnout endorses NCET, 15 members elected

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 November 2009, 05:27 GMT]
The Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET) attracted enough number of participants in the poll that took place Sunday in 16 centres of the different regions of Norway, in which 2767 voters turned out to elect 5 members under a national list and 10 under regional lists. Noticeable of the results was Mr. Bjønar Moxnes topping the national list polling 1864 votes. Mr. Vijayshankar from Tamil Nadu is elected to the Council topping the list of Western Region. Considering the electoral history of Eezham Tamils, who have hitherto been imposed with constitutions and were voting in elections conducted by others, this is their first ever country-wide elections, conducted by them on their own, to form a political body of their own, based on their own constitution. The eight-member Election Commission performed the task with professional perfection, observers said.
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Natives of Norway, Tamil Nadu, among 37 contesting NCET elections

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 November 2009, 06:43 GMT]
As the final list of candidates is out for the popular elections of the Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET) scheduled Sunday, 9 candidates contest for 5 seats of the national list and 28 candidates are in the fray for 10 seats under regional list. Figuring in the list are three native Norwegians and one Tamil of Tamil Nadu. The NCET constitution, while permitting vote only to people of Eezham Tamil descent above 16, allows even others to be elected provided they accept the principle of the Council advocating independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam in the island of Sri Lanka. Another feature of the candidates list is that many of them are highly educated and are professionals in various walks of life. Seven in the list are women, eight under 35 and two over 60. Two are young women among the 5 who have already been elected by institutions for the second chamber.
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Sri Lanka schemes ‘legal reform’ to negate identity and grab land

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 November 2009, 02:34 GMT]
News reports from Colombo indicate Sri Lanka government is planning to revise the Theasa Vazhamai law of Tamils, which is a constituent legal code, ever since the formulation of the island’s current legal system by the Dutch. The urgency of the Sri Lanka state at this juncture is not social reformation but grabbing the lands of Tamils without legal hurdles, besides removing last vestiges of Tamil sovereignty in the state apparatus, Tamil legal circles said.
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SLN arrests 18 Tamil Nadu fishermen in the islets of Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 November 2009, 17:26 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) arrested eighteen fishermen from Tamil Nadu Wednesday early morning in the islets of Jaffna for illegal entry into Sri Lankan waters, sources in Jaffna said. Nearly 2000 fishermen in Puthukkoaddai in Tamil Nadu are boycotting fishing demanding the immediate release of their fellow fishermen, sources in Tamil Nadu said. Meanwhile in Tamil Nadu, Indian Navy arrested ten fishermen from Sri Lanka for trespassing on Indian seas Wednesday and the arrested fishermen were handed over to Fishing Harbour police in Tamil Nadu.
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Adappara-gama

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 November 2009, 01:44 GMT]
The village of a headman of the pearl-diving community of Paravas.
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Tamil Eelam not a lost cause: Fr. Jegath Gaspar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 November 2009, 01:14 GMT]
“I don't think Tamil Eelam is a lost cause. If there was any point of time in history that Eelam was a possibility, I think it is now. Tamils all over the world are more determined than ever,” says Fr. Jegath Gaspar Raj, Chennai based Catholic priest and international broadcast journalist in an interview to TamilNet Sunday. “I believe that geopolitics or foreign policy or security policies are never static; they are ever dynamic, they will keep changing. I am confident that at some point of time India will come to realize that the only strategic leverage it has against the Chinese-Sri Lankan combine in the Indian Ocean is the Indo-Tamil combination,” he said, pinning the responsibility for the failure of Indian foreign policy to M K Narayanan Doctrine.
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Chinese Navy involved in attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen - FMOA

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 November 2009, 10:59 GMT]
Fishing Motorboat Owners Association (FMOA) in Tamil Nadu publicly informed Sunday that Chinese Navy men had attacked fishermen from Tamil Nadu fishing on the maritime boundary between Sri Lanka and South India. According to the statements of Tamil Nadu fishermen who were attacked on the sea a few days ago, there were eight Chinese navy soldiers and two Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) men in the boat which attacked them, FMOA said. The media in India had given much publicity to the presence of Chinese Navy soldiers on Indian sea.
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Tamil protection movement launches Four Directions March in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 October 2009, 13:13 GMT]
Ilangkai Thamizhar Paathukaappu Iyakkam (ITPI) led by Pazha. Nedumaaran and consisting of PMK leader Dr. Ramadoss, MDMK leader Vaiko, CPI leaders in Tamil Nadu, R. Nallakannu and C. Mahendran are engaged in launching awareness marches from the four corners of Tamil Nadu highlighting the plight of Eelam Tamils and demanding the immediate release of more than 250,000 Tamils detained in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in the north of Sri Lanka.
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Tamil Nadu must recognize and support establishment of Tamil Eelam: Thirumavalavan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 13:38 GMT]
Stating that there was a total violation of human rights in the Sri Lankan Government's camps for Internally Displaced Persons, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi President Thol.Thirumavalavan, told TamilNet Friday in an exclusive interview of the "appalling conditions" prevalent in these "barbed-wire concentration camps" which he witnessed firsthand as one of the ten-member parliamentary delegation from Tamil Nadu. Pointing out that Tamil people could not become a "permanent slave society" and "live as second class citizens in Sri Lanka," Thirumavalavan sought to emphasize that Tamil Eelam was the only solution to a struggle that had claimed the lives of nearly fifteen hundred thousand Tamils civilians and more than thirty thousand Tamil Tiger fighters.
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Tamils hold “Will Break the Obstacles!” rally in Berlin

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 October 2009, 08:44 GMT]
Tamil Diaspora in Germany gathered Thursday in Berlin to stage a protest march in an effort to draw the attention of the international community to the pathetic plight of Tamils interned in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camps. Two youths, representing students in Tamil Nadu, T. Sreenivasa Rao and Iraa. Gnanasekaran, on their journey in Europe to take part in the UN conference on Global Warming Awareness in Denmark on 7 December, took part in the march and rally. They have made it their duty to raise their voices for the interned Tamils, in all the countries they pass through, sources in Berlin said.
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Addressing ambiguity of Right to Self-Determination

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 October 2009, 00:26 GMT]
The international system is erratic in justifying right to self-determination (RSD) of nations set against right to security of states. All areas of discretion were interpreted against, in the case of Eezham Tamils. As the militant-created de facto state that has been making a case for RSD all this time doesn’t exist in its territory today, democratic political move should create a new de facto situation. RSD can be invoked when peoples of more than one state are involved, but Mr Karunanidhi nullified the opportunity. The option now is not asking for RSD, but exercising it and mandating democratic de facto situation or situations. This is why spelling out the goal of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam is paramount for transnational governance. Elected country councils enhance meeting the task by structurally involving ‘peoples of many states.’
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'Time for South India to take care of its own geopolitics'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 00:26 GMT]
The historic duty of Tamil Nadu today is to cast with far sight its diplomatic weight internationally, convincing New Delhi and the international community to come out with fundamental solutions recognizing the national aspirations of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. "Saying foreign affairs is an exclusive domain of the Centre is only an excuse in contemporary world, especially when a federal government fails in it seriously affecting the strategic interests of a state. A Tamil Nadu delegation visiting Sri Lanka is perhaps for the first time an external affairs exercise of a state in India, but it has cut a negative image with the people to whom it was meant for, raising questions on the bona fides of the whole exercise," the commentator further says.
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Public demonstration in Chennai in support of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 October 2009, 08:12 GMT]
More than a thousand people from various parts of Tamil Nadu gathered in front of Munro Statue in Anna Salai in Chennai, Tamil Nadu Sunday around 11:00 a.m and marched in a procession to the Government Guest House in Cheppaakam, demanding the UN to hold a referendum among the Eezham Tamils to know whether they want a separate state and to free at once all the Eezham Tamils detained behind barbed wire in the internment camps in Sri Lanka, sources Chennai said. Protection Committee for Tamils (PCT) organized the demonstration and later in the evening held a conference in T-Nakar in Chennai where resolutions related to the demands were passed, the sources added.
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SLA denies permission to Thirumavalavan to meet public in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 October 2009, 07:26 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna turned down the request of Thol. Thirumavalavan, Tamil Nadu Parliamentarian and leader of Viduthalai Chiruthaikal Kadchi (VCK) Party, to meet the public in Jaffna when the delegation of Tamil Nadu MPs was taken to Jaffna Public Library for a meeting Sunday, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, Jaffna University Students expressed their strong protest against India for having let down the Eezham Tamils and for deceiving them continually, when the MPs met students in Jaffna University Sunday, the sources added.
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Tamils get international recognition in sciences

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 October 2009, 23:23 GMT]
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, born in Chithamparam, Tamil Nadu is named for Nobel Prize 2009 in Chemistry, Wednesday, for contributing to the knowledge of structure and functions of ribosome, leading to development of direct and more effective antibiotics in medicine. In June, Jaffna-born Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, an old student of Mahajana College, Thellippazhai, was conferred knighthood for his contributions in the field of medicine in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. While such achievements inspire younger generation of diaspora Tamils in making global contributions to humanity, it is also time for the diaspora to forge its own global organization to help itself as well as to remind a dodging IC of its responsibilities to the plight of Tamils. Sir Arulkumaran’s Alma Mater, celebrating its centenary next year, is in the military occupied HSZ for years now, being deprived of its population.
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Colombo cancels TamilNadu MPs visit to east

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 October 2009, 15:33 GMT]
The visit of a group of parliamentarians of Tamilnadu in India to the eastern province was cancelled Saturday last minute, according to media reports from Colombo. The TN group arrived in Colombo Saturday morning, and was scheduled to visit Batticaloa and especially the resettled village Vaaharai the same day.
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Tamil Nadu MPs delegation to see IDP internment camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 October 2009, 11:45 GMT]
Eight Members of Parliament from Tamil Nadu, from the ruling Congress Party and its supporting political parties Dravida Munetra Kazhakam (DMK) and Viduthalai Chiruththaikal (VCK) are expected to arrive in Colombo Sunday and from there they will be taken to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa where the Vannin IDPs are detained, sources in Colombo said. Meanwhile, opposition parties in Tamil Nadu and India including Communist Party have expressed their strong protest for not having included any MP from the opposition or prominent leaders who had stood up for Eezham Tamils for many years. Sri Lanka government intends to take this delegation on a ‘guided tour’ to ‘selected spots’ in an effort to hide the true conditions under which the IDPs are suffering, representatives of IDP welfare organizations said.
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Indian strategic analyst writes on 'lost leverage'

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 October 2009, 11:58 GMT]
“Today, India stands more marginalized than ever in Sri Lanka. Its natural constituency—the Tamils—feels not only betrayed, but also looks at India as a colluder in the bloodbath. India already had alienated the Sinhalese majority in the 1980s,” writes Professor Brahma Chellaney of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, in a forthright article appeared in Forbes, Friday. Welcoming his admissions and responding to him, Tamil circles said that who ever now addresses the national aspirations of Eezham Tamils, holds the key to the region of South India-Sri Lanka- Maldives, but India is yet to learn the lesson and may continue forfeiting leverage even with its own people, by blunting the national question.
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