Growing nexus between India’s corporates and diplomatic minds

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 March 2015, 20:13 GMT]
Ms. Nirupama Menon Rao, a former foreign secretary of the New Delhi Establishment, has been appointed on Thursday as an independent director of the board of an Ambani-led media company that owns CNN-IBN and CNBC in India, according to an Associated Press report on Friday. Mr Mukesh Ambani the second richest Indian, heads the petrochemicals to telecoms corporate, Reliance Industries Ltd. Sponsored by this Ambani conglomerate, The Observer Research Foundation (ORF) was vocal in supporting Rajapaksa as well as the Colombo-centric State in the island. Ms Nirupama Menon Rao served as New Delhi’s High Commissioner in Colombo (2004 - 2006) and later became Foreign Secretary (August 2009 to July 2011), before going as New Delhi’s ambassador to Washington – all during the NSA tenure of MK Narayanan and Shiv Shankar Menon.
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New regime should demonstrate attitudinal change, says Bishop of Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2015, 23:16 GMT]
Whatever the step the new president of Sri Lanka is taking, seems to be too slow and is beyond the expectations of the affected people in the North and East, the Bishop of Batticaloa Rev. Dr. Joseph Ponniah told TamilNet in an interview this week. The new government should demonstrate that it possesses the ability to take bold steps such as the appointment of non-military governors. What is mostly needed now is an attitudinal change on the part of the Colombo government. Even today, whenever someone raises the issues of the affected people in the North and East, the government leaders in Colombo seem to brush off the critiques as coming from ethno-nationalists. This attitude is one of the main problems, the Bishop of Batticaloa said.
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While UN charges ISIS for genocide, SL military gets space for exoneration

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 March 2015, 23:25 GMT]
While deferring the report on Sri Lanka, the UN Human Rights Office acting in sharp contrast called on the UN Security Council earlier this month to refer the ISIS to International Criminal Court, charging the ISIS for genocide committed against Yezidi people in Iraq as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians including children. Obviously the contrast comes from the fact that the genocide of Eezham Tamils was determined by the USA and India, conducted by a military needed by the both, and was allowed by the UN. The regime change in Colombo is yet another time and space tactic to exonerate the genocidal Sinhala military and to use it as anchor for the furtherance of the original designs of the ultimate culprits, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics, citing recent reports coming from Colombo.
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Report unearths more facts on UK’s role in Sri Lanka’s counter-insurgency

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 March 2015, 23:50 GMT]
Facts are evidence used to build a truth, which is a very fluid thing. The truth Phil Miller has set out to prove is that “the British State colluded with the Sri Lankan State in its counter-insurgency operations against Tamils since the 1980's,” says Dr N. Malathy, a key member of NESoHR and the author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in My Country’. Phil's latest report, “Exporting Police Death Squads” identifies a person, the late Jack Morton, his career path, and his report, “Morten report”, which was produced for Sri Lanka’s counter-insurgency operations against Tamils. The so-called Morton report is still kept secret by the British State, Phil Miller's research has revealed.
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Wigneswaran urges SL State to respect international principle on resettlement

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 March 2015, 12:04 GMT]
“Unless Grama Sevaka Divisions 244 and 252 are released in full as promised earlier, what has been gingerly granted today would hardly be of any use to the few families now selected to enter their erstwhile denied lands,” Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran said in his address at Vazhalaay during the visit by SL President, Prime Minister and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga. “It may not be out of place for me to mention here of the land grabs taking place in the Vanni not only by the military but also by certain Politicians who wielded power earlier and who continue to wield power now, may be more so. They still influence in selecting inappropriate beneficiaries for the Indian Housing Schemes,” the CM said, urging the SL State to adhere to the UN Principles for Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and IDPs, which is known as the Pinheiro Principles.
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Ex-LTTE woman returned from France escapes assassination attempt in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2015, 08:03 GMT]
A group of assailants believed to belong to a surveillance squad of the Sri Lankan military attempted on Wednesday night to assassinate 41-year-old Baheerathy Murukesu, who was arrested earlier this month at Colombo airport and later released on bail with a restriction to leave the island. The two-member squad, which was waiting outside her house at Ka'ndaava'lai in Mullaiththeevu, followed Ms Baheerathy and hit her with their motorbike. Baheerathy was thrown away, but survived the attempt on her life. She was arrested by the Sri Lankan ‘Terrorist Investigation Department’ earlier this month when she was visiting her family on vacation from France. Baheerathy headed a naval wing of the LTTE's Sea Tigers between 1997 and 2000 and had left the island in 2005, the SL police has stated earlier.
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Grasping affairs of Maldives in larger perspective

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 March 2015, 00:06 GMT]
Rather than taking sides with the imprisoned former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed or with the current President Abdulla Yameen, the people of the Maldives and the peoples of entire southern South Asia should carefully understand the larger anti-people designs of New Delhi, Washington and Beijing, and vigilantly act in unison against the larger security threat that is being caused by the powers to the peoples of the region, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics. Nasheed, who is often highlighted in the Western and Indian media as the first democratically elected president of the archipelago, was also the first in involving the country in genocide in the neighbourhood, the activists cited.
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TNA, TNPF politicians address press conference in Geneva

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 March 2015, 22:02 GMT]
Northern provincial councillors Ananthy Sasitharan, M.K. Shivajilingam and TNPF Leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam addressed the press at the Geneva Press Club on Tuesday, briefing the audience on the various aspects of the structural genocide targeting the Eezham Tamil nation, which continued unabated despite the internationally orchestrated ‘regime change’ hatching Maithriplala Sirisena as the SL president. The Tamil politicians from the homeland also said that the procrastination in delivering justice to Tamils on the part of the international community in the deferral of the OISL report only emboldened the Sri Lankan State in its crimes against Tamils. Human rights activist and one of the judges in the People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka, Maung Zarini also addressed the audience together with Tamil diaspora activists Sivakami Rajamanoharan from the UK and R Sri Ranjan from Canada.
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New regime silently steps up military land grab in North

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 March 2015, 09:01 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has again started to seize private lands outside the so-called High Security Zone (HSZ) in the North. While releasing some of the lands in the HSZ back to people in the North, the SL military is silently seizing lands outside the HSZ to maintain and expand its cantonments in the country of Eezham Tamils. Informed sources from the district secretariats of Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet Wednesday that the military seizure of lands has been stepped up during the past 3 weeks at more than 20 localities in Vanni. Under the Rajapaksa regime, the SL officials were open about the military seizure of lands. But, now the process is almost invisible. Surveying officers are also brought from Colombo and legal notices are not issued in order to avoid public protests.
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Naayanmaar-kaddu, Naayanaar-koayil, Naayiniyaar-kollai

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 March 2015, 23:21 GMT]
The residence or mansion of the lords

The temple of the (warrior hero/ guardian) deity

The grove of the (folk) goddess or the grove of the lady
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NESoHR vice chairman pays homage to Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 March 2015, 23:03 GMT]
Former Supreme Court Judge Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer who reformed the Indian criminal justice system and championed the cause of the suppressed including the Eezham Tamils, is remembered by exiled Eezham Tamil rights activist Attorney K. Sivapalan, who is also the vice chairman of the North Eastern Secretariat of Human Rights (NESoHR). Krishna Iyer had passed away 100 days ago on December 4, 2014 at the age of 100. “Even in his ripe old age he made a plea on behalf of Murugan, Shanthan and Perarivalan to commute their death sentence to Life imprisonment. He was a great supporter of Eelam Tamils in their struggle for their rights,” Mr Sivapalan writes.
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Wigneswaran seeks extra-constitutional approach to resolve Tamil national question

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2015, 16:03 GMT]
NPC Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran on Saturday urged the visiting Indian PM to support a negotiation process without succumbing to the constraints of the Sri Lankan Constitution and the associated protocols. Such a negotiation process should involve the Indian Government, Sri Lankan Government and the Provincial Councils of North and East in the island to resolve the national question. The current 13th Amendment Framework and the existing Sri Lankan constitutional architecture had evolved since the first Republican Constitution of 1972 without the consent and participation of Tamils of North and East of our Country, he said adding that both of them pose formidable challenges and hindrances in realizing the quantum of devolution required to fulfill the needs and aspirations of the Tamil Speaking People of North and East of Sri Lanka.
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New Delhi should stop looking at Eezham Tamils through Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 March 2015, 23:54 GMT]
The very fact that no Indian Prime Minister before Mr Modi hitherto cared to visit Jaffna shows the long-offensive foreign policy attitude of New Delhi towards the nation of Eezham Tamils, located at the closest proximity to India. This should be read along with another foreign policy fact that it was in the case of Eezham Tamils India for the first time in its history was involved in the crime of genocide outside of its country. Both stemmed from an adamantly practised policy of New Delhi viewing Eezham Tamils through the prism of ‘Sri Lanka’ and the establishment in Colombo. Whether China or the USA, or both – whatever may be the ultimate foreign policy concern of India, the times are such that New Delhi should learn to approach Eezham Tamils as a nation of its own right.
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Indian consulate attempts to prevent civil mobilisation during Modi visit

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 March 2015, 23:32 GMT]
The officials at the office of the Consulate General of India (CGI) in Jaffna have been urging the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians, provincial councillors and civic members not to promote any peaceful rally during the visit by the Indian Prime Minister to North. The CGI officials in collaboration with a section of Sri Lankan officials have also instructed the government officials to suppress public mobilisation. A representative of War-affected people's group, Mr V. Sahathevan, who is waging a three-day fasting in front of the Public Library of Jaffna was insulted on Thursday as the Municipal Council officers removed his banner and his temporary hut. However, a section of the public organisations in Jaffna have announced a peaceful rally on Saturday with 10 demands addressed to the visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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SL military operatives threaten distributors of Tamil weekly

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 March 2015, 23:14 GMT]
While the Sri Lankan State is waging a propaganda that it has allowed free media operations in the island, the SL military intelligence of Maithiripala Sirisena's regime has silently stepped up monitoring and harassment on the Tamil weekly, Ithu Nam Theasam, a pro TNPF paper which has gained popularity among the serious Tamil readers in the recent times, especially after the regime change. Three operatives, who came in two motorbikes were following the distributor of Ithu Nam Theasam at Sivanakar in Ki'linochchi on Tuesday. The squad stopped the distributor at a place where there was no civilian witnesses and seized the papers from him issuing a threat on his life, the distributor told media.
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Vayiraaviyaar-keeththu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 11:37 GMT]
The part (of paddy-field land) assigned to a Siva temple official
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Ki Pi Aravinthan's 2008 interview to TamilNet serialized

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 09:06 GMT]
TamilNet serializes this week a 2008 interview with veteran former Tamil militant, poet and writer Ki Pi Aravinthan (Christopher Francis alias Sunthar), who passed away on Sunday in Paris at the age of 62. Mr Aravinthan narrates the background of early Tamil militancy, the political events in the island and the prevailing outside trends of the late 1960s that contributed to the culmination of the armed struggle of the later decades. From his perspective as a teenage student, as an associate militant of Sivakumaran in 1974 and later as an EROS member till 1988, he explains the nation-formation of the Eezham Tamils and the evolvement of Tamil militancy which culminated into a mass movement from the active participation from all the echelons of the Tamil society.
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Ki Pi Aravinthan passes away in Paris

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 March 2015, 09:07 GMT]
Mr Ki Pi Aravinthan, a veteran former Tamil militant of the 1970's, a poet and a well-known Tamil writer has passed away at the age of 62 at a hospital in Paris on Sunday morning. Born as Christopher Francis, he was also known by the name Sunthar. He was an associate of Urumpiraay Sivakumaran in early 1970s and was the only surviving member of Sivakumar's movement. He was arrested after Sivakumaran's demise in 1974 and was imprisoned by Colombo for some years. Later, he was a senior member of the EROS.
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Externally designed silencing of victims to uphold ‘internal political power’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2015, 22:38 GMT]
One of the convicts of the 2012 New Delhi gang rape now makes the world to stand aghast at what he said on the crime. Blaming the victim for the rape and gruesome torture causing her death, the assailant said, a decent girl would not have been out at 9 pm. “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back […] She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then we would have dropped her off.” An article in similar lines appeared in Colombo Telegraph on Friday, written by Rajan Hoole, N. Sivapalan, Ahilan Kadirgamar and K. Sritharan. Blaming 35-years of ‘assassination politics’ by Tamil leadership as responsible for the 2009 culmination, which according to the writers was not genocide, they condemned the NPC Chief Minister Justice Wigneswaran’s call for international investigations on the protracted genocide faced by Eezham Tamils.
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Norwegian Ambassador questions NPC CM on Genocide Resolution

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 March 2015, 23:56 GMT]
The Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Ms Grete Løchen visited Jaffna on Friday and met Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran. Ms Løchen was echoing the UN Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs as well as a US diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, who visited Jaffna earlier this week to convey the message that the deferral of OISL findings was a ‘one-time only’ postponement. Like Mr Feltman, Ms Løchen was also questioning Mr Wigneswaran on whether the NPC resolution on genocide was appropriate at this juncture of cooperation coming from the Colombo regime, news sources in Jaffna said. The CM responded by explaining that the truth of the past was essential for real reconciliation between Tamils and the Sinhalese in the future. If anyone wanted to question the resolution, they should first read it and respond to the established facts in the document, he said.
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