Indians need three years to clear mines

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 August 2009, 11:36 GMT]
It will take one-and-a-half to two years to do away with most land mines and another year to declare the areas safe for habitation, reported Times of India, Sunday, citing Indian Army’s retired Major General Prem K. Puri who is heading one of the Indian outfits engaged in de-mining the North and East. Meanwhile, 82 more former Indian soldiers have gone to Sri Lanka last week to join the hundreds or perhaps thousands already operating under the care of Colombo’s National Steering Committee. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s insistence on ‘de-mining first’ to free civilians from the concentration camps and India sitting on international intervention raise serious concern in Tamil circles, how long both the Establishments are going to continue the ‘human shield’ in fulfilling their agenda.
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Hundreds of Tamils interrogated in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 08:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched Friday an intensive search mostly in Fort and Bambalapitiya stopping passenger buses and other vehicles and interrogated hundreds of Tamils, sources in Colombo said. Though the search was conducted for more than three hours no official information of anyone arrested is available, they said.
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Kandy / Senkadagala / Mahanuwara

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 August 2009, 07:43 GMT]
The enclosure / The red hill of difficult side / The great city
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Raameasvaram fishermen expected to identify the bodies washed ashore in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 July 2009, 17:48 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and Indian Navy (IN) authorities informed Jaffna Fisheries Societies that they would sail the relatives and friends of the Rameasvaram fishermen whose corpses were washed ashore in the islets of Jaffna recently, to Kaangkeasanththu’rai harbour Friday. They are expected to identify the six bodies which lie in Jaffna Teaching Hospital (JTH) mortuary Friday, fisheries society sources in Jaffna said.
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Attend to Vanni IDPs’ problems first – Jaffna University Students Union

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 17:10 GMT]
“We strongly criticize the Tamil politicians who seek votes without attending to the problems faced by the Vanni people held in the internment camps in Vavuniyaa,” Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) said in a press release Tuesday in Jaffna. “We are deeply dissatisfied with some Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians who do not attend to the immediate problems of the Vanni IDPs,” JUSU said in its press release.
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Sri Lankan port yet to clear Mercy Mission supplies

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 July 2009, 11:09 GMT]
Sri Lankan port authorities in Colombo are refusing to hand over the humanitarian supplies of Tamil diaspora Mercy Mission, stating that the Indian authorities are yet to produce necessary documents including the Bill of Lading, Sri Lankan Red Cross officials in Colombo said. Meanwhile, customs authorities in Colombo said though the government has waved off the import duty, the Sri Lankan Red Cross has to pay demurrage for harbouring the cargo in the port.
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3 washed ashore bodies in the islets of Jaffna identified

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 July 2009, 15:33 GMT]
Three of the six bodies washed ashore since Sunday in the islets of Jaffna have been identified as belonging to fishermen from Raameasvaram in Tamil Nadu, according to the identity cards found on the recovered bodies. Meanwhile, fishermen returning from the sea in the islets Thursday said that another body was sighted in the sea and that it would reach the shore Thursday night or Friday morning.
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French university conference on Tamils flawed in perspectives - Tamil academic

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 09:28 GMT]
Organisers from two French universities have embarked upon an international pluridisciplinary conference on ‘Tamil communities and the Sri Lankan conflict’, based on presumptions that the LTTE has ‘surrendered’ and what exists is only Tamil ‘minority rights’ issues, as though the question of Eezham Tamil nation doesn't exist. One of the conference themes is the role of religious communities in seeking solutions to “the traditional Tamil society founded mainly upon the importance of caste and religious solidarity.” A Tamil academic in Colombo, responding to the conference scheme said the current task of the Eezham Tamils is to prove their status of nationhood since the agenda of priority for Colombo, New Delhi and the IC that orchestrate media and universities, is to nullify Eezham Tamil nationalism.
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Altogether 4 bodies washed ashore in the islets of Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 15:11 GMT]
Oorkaavattu’rai police recovered a male body washed ashore each in Pungkudutheevu and Ezhuvaitheevu beaches in the islets of Jaffna Tuesday in addition to a male body washed ashore each in Pungkudutheevu and Ezhuvaitheevu Sunday, sources in Jaffna said. The four recovered bodies may belong to the fishermen from Raameasvaram in Tamil Nadu gone missing on the seas recently, police said. Oorkaavattu’rai magistrate, Ms. Joy Mahatheva, has directed the police to inform the Indian High Commission in Colombo and the fisheries societies in India and Sri Lanka to take necessary action to find whether the dead bodies belong to Indian fishermen.
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Castes, religions and Eezham Tamil nationalism

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 July 2009, 23:34 GMT]
“Tamil nationalism needs to realise its potentialities and weaknesses in making it progressive, benevolent and an internationally recognised culture in the future world,” writes Opinion Columnist Ampalam. “The secular linguistic identity of Tamil nationalism, based on a classical language in which more than two millennia of human experience and discourses both spiritual and temporal are recorded, and its inclusiveness cum plurality are strong points in making criteria for nationalism and in contributing to the paradigm ‘culture and development’. But jingoism of religions, which soon will be used as cards by imperialisms regional as well as international, and castes cum hierarchies old as well as new, are the liabilities,” he further writes.
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Policy on Tamils haunts India

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 July 2009, 05:20 GMT]
Setting the parameters based on 13 plus and ruling out federal, the Colombo – Chennai – New Delhi axis is learnt to be pressurising Tamil political circles to come out with a political formula, as early as possible, to hastily close the file on Tamil nationalism and to hide all skeletons under the cupboard. The haste in the Indian Establishment is said to be arising from the fear of China’s growing influence in the island resulted from India’s folly of not maintaining balance in the ethnic war. “Grasping geopolitics and aspirations of people, the Tamil political circles need to play the cards with dexterity,” said TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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United Sri Lanka is the steadfast aim of UNP – Tissa Athanayake, in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 July 2009, 10:32 GMT]
General Secretary of United National Party (UNP), the main opposition party, Tissa Athanayake, said that the UNP believes in one country with equal rights to all its people, in a press meet held Thursday in Jaffna City Hotel. Tissa Athanayake, accompanied by Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene, UNP parliamentarian and UNP principal candidate in Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election, A. S. Sathiyendra, explained the policy of his party to the media. “One of the main functions of the ICRC is family reunion of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and Rajapakse’s government’s decision to stop ICRC’s functions and to expel it from the country needs to be vehemently condemned,” Dr. Jayalath Jayawardne said.
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Holding grounds is fundamental to everything

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2009, 22:34 GMT]
Professing defeatism or surrendering the basic grounds are not the ways to begin or to sustain the struggle with the masses, even in ways anew, perhaps through democratic means. Talking on the need to continue the struggle is not to rule out the need to negotiate. But negotiation is not collaboration. Negotiators need a firm platform supported by the hearts of the masses on behalf of whom they negotiate. Negotiation cannot take place when the platform is surrendered. It is to safeguard the platform for struggle and negotiation the Tamil circles are now keen in re-affirming the democratically mandated Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of 1976 that upholds independence, sovereignty and self-determination of Eezham Tamils, at least where there is freedom of expression. Even after 2000 years the Jews were able to regain their land because they never lost their nationalism or the thought of Israel.
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Graves of Peter Percival, R B Foote, discovered at Yercaud

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 July 2009, 18:33 GMT]
A team of archaeologists located the graves of two illustrious scholars, Rev. Dr. Peter Percival (1803-1882) and his son-in-law Robert Bruce Foote (1834-1912), at Yercaud, a hill station near Salem in Tamil Nadu, reported The Hindu, Wednesday. Peter Percival was a former principal of Jaffna Central College, with whom Arumuga Navalar was associated with in his early days in translating the Bible into Tamil. The discovery was made when Prehistoric archaeologists Shanti Pappu, Kumar Akhilesh and V R Pappu set out on a mission to find the grave of Robert Bruce Foote (1834-1912), who is regarded as the pioneer of studies in Geology and Prehistory in India. Dr Shanti is working on a monograph on R B Foote, who first spotted evidence for Palaeolithic culture dating back to 500,000 years, in Tamil Nadu.
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Devotees to Nainaatheevu temple inconvenienced, delayed

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 09:55 GMT]
Around a thousand devotees on their way Monday to attend the annual Thear (charriot) festival of Nainaatheevu Nakapoosha’ni Amman temple, a historically famous Saiva temple in the islets of Jaffna, had to undergo severe checking and undue delay at the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) check post at Allaippiddi, sources in Jaffna said. Only around 50 ordinary boats were used by SLN to sail the devotees from Allaippiddi to the Nainaatheevu, the devotees said.
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The onus is on the diaspora

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 00:22 GMT]
The military outcome of the crisis has emboldened a bunch of people to chant that ‘we told you so’ and now collaborate with thy oppressors. This group is not new to Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet's political commentator in Colombo. "Ever since universal suffrage was introduced in the ethnically divided island in 1931, there was always a section willing to play stooges to the majority. Yet the struggle of the freedom seekers also remained alive. If the fighters are accused of not achieving any, so are the collaborators and the ‘we told you so’ groups," the commentator writes. "The onus of facing the situation now entirely rests on the Eezham Tamil diaspora, as it is the only entity that has the freedom of expression. Response to Karunanidhi has to come from the diaspora through reaffirming the Vaddukkoaddai resolution," he further writes.
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Animosity of Tamils will not help India’s maritime ambitions

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 16:46 GMT]
Dominating the Indian Ocean, the shores of which are shared by 47 countries, has been the long-cherished dream of India ever since its independence. As China entering into a competition, the Indian Ocean is fast emerging as the new hotspot of Sino-Indian rivalry, says an article appeared Wednesday in Pakistan Observer. India’s security concerns as well as its needs to assert as a world power may be justifiable, but it is making a grave blunder in earning the animosity of Tamils, which is not going to help in its maritime ambitions, says TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
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Galle / Kaali

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 03:03 GMT]
The rocks
The rocky place
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Ploy of Buddhism in nullifying Tamil nationalism

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 01:53 GMT]
The North and East of the island of Sri Lanka should first be subjected to ‘archaeological’ investigation to prove the land’s Sinhala ownership, before its ‘resettlement’, is the demand of the National Front of Buddhist monks of Sri Lanka, reported Virakesari a few days ago. If archaeology has any say, the entire island having microlithic sites of prehistoric period has to be resettled by Veddas, and if enough Veddas are not found in the island they could still be found among their next of kin outside, ranging from the Austro-Asiatic tribes of the South Asian subcontinent to aborigines of Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Australia, commented an academic of ethnic studies in the island.
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Task of legal war vested with diaspora

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 22:32 GMT]
When serious action is needed against Colombo and the Sri Lankan state in order to uphold human dignity and world civilisation, some world leaders pathetically believe in not penalising Colombo and in a ‘carrot and stick’ approach. The Eezham Tamils have seen enough of carrots always going to Colombo and stick always coming to them, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. "The legal system and procedural governments of the liberal democracies have enough space to indict these leaders and governments in their own countries to remind them of their crime and responsibilities. Unless humanitarian organizations and the Eezham Tamil diaspora take up this matter seriously, these leaders will not only go on conning but will also dare to abet Colombo’s agenda of structural genocide."
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