Ethnic divide reflected in Sri Lanka media coverage

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 May 2008, 17:56 GMT]
The polarization between Sri Lanka’s ethnic communities is also reflected in coverage of the island’s protracted conflict and has rendered ‘the truth’ an inevitable casualty of war, several speakers argued last week at the annual conference in London of the International Association of Tamil Journalists (IATAJ). The day-long event at the University of Westminster was attended by one hundred invited participants and was addressed by journalists, academics and media activists, including Mr. Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, editor of the Uthayan newspaper, Mr Chandana Bandara, senior producer with the BBC’s Sinhala service and Mr. Bhagwan Singh of the Deccan Chronicle.
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Tamil woman, man reported abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 May 2008, 02:04 GMT]
Unidentified men have allegedly abducted two Tamil civilians, a woman and a man, in Colombo in two separate incidents on 28th and 29th of April, sources close to the victims said.
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Indian Coast Guard arrests 65 Sri Lankan fishermen

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 May 2008, 14:35 GMT]
Indian Coast Guard has arrested 65 Sri Lankan fishermen of Sinhalese origin in the past week for illegally fishing in Indian waters without carrying any valid documents. According to reports in the Indian media, a Coast Guard ship on routine offshore patrol had spotted a flotilla of trawlers moving 116 nautical miles off Chennai on April 27.
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Colombo has failed to honour Kachchatheevu agreement after 1983 - CPI

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 May 2008, 07:02 GMT]
Communist Party of India (CPI) National Secretary D Raja on Tuesday made a special mention during the Zero Hour in the Indian Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament of India stated that the agreement on Kachchatheevu and the historical waters between the Government of India and the Government of Sri Lanka, signed in 1974, didn't work after 1983. Mr. Raja said there is a grey area in the agreement with regards to the right of access to the island by the Indian fishermen and said that the agreement should be reopened and renegotiated in order to protect the rights of fishermen.
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Re-negotiate Kachchatheevu: CPI urges Indian Government

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 April 2008, 09:41 GMT]
Communist Party of India (CPI) National Secretary D Raja urged the Indian Government to intervene in Sri Lanka's prolonged ethnic strife in view of the escalation of human rights abuses in the island nation. "Finding a solution to the ethnic crisis alone can bring about a solution to the problems of Tamil Nadu fishermen," he said. Recalling that the state Government of Tamil Nadu had protested when India ceded Kadchaththeevu to Sri Lanka in 1974, he urged upon the Indian Government to renegotiate the Kadchaththeevu Accord and facilitate Tamil Nadu fisherment to catch fish without any hindrance whatsoever.
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Tamil Nadu Assembly urges India to take steps for Lankan peacetalks

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 April 2008, 14:10 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Friday passed a resolution urging the Indian Government to initiate steps to restore talks between the warring sections in Sri Lanka to find a political solution to the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis after a special calling attention motion was introduced after the question hour.
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SLN hands over 5 Tamil Nadu fishermen to Indian Navy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 April 2008, 00:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), as directed by Kayts Magistrate Ms. Joy Mahadeva, handed over Tuesday five Tamil Nadu fishermen arrested on 6 April in the seas between Nedunththeevu and Kachchaitheevu, legal sources in Jaffna said. The five fishermen from Ramanathapuram were produced in Kayts Magistrate Court Tuesday.
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Court places 12 Tamil Nadu fishermen, 6 civilians in remand

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 April 2008, 16:59 GMT]
Kayts Court Magistrate, Joy Mahatheva, directed Kayts police Thursday to continue to detain the 12 Tamil Nadu fishermen arrested in Kachchaitheevu seas and the 6 civilians arrested in Neduntheevu seas on their way to Tamil Nadu as refugees, in Jaffna Prison, atleast until the law enforcement authorities receive instructions from Attorney General’s office in Colombo, legal sources in Kayts said.
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India should organize peace talks: Karunanidhi

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 April 2008, 16:46 GMT]
"India should organize negotiations between the warring parties in Sri Lanka to bring peace to the island nation," said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Kalaignar Karunanidhi in an exclusive interview to the Times of India on Friday. His statement comes at a time when India has chosen to ignore all calls to mediate between Colombo and the Tamil Tigers and has satisfied itself with playing behind-the-scene roles.
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Indian PM denies arms supply to Sri Lanka: Vaiko

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 April 2008, 14:17 GMT]
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told Vaiko who met him Thursday in New Delhi that there is no truth in reports on Indian supply of arms to Sri Lanka. Vaiko met Indian PM to brief him on his meeting with Erik Solheim and Jon Hanssen-Bauer in Oslo and the outcome of the conference organised by the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) in Norway's capital last week. The Indian PM further told Vaiko that he was aware of Pakistan and China supplying arms to Sri Lanka. The general secretary of Marumalarchchi Dravida Munneatta Kazhakam (MDMK) also met Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee Thursday night.
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Liberate Calendar

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 April 2008, 23:57 GMT]
A Calendar is conceived and designed by logic and astronomy rather than emotions and myths of politics. If people don’t understand the calendar they follow, educate them. If any section of the society thinks that the calendar is its prerogative, liberate the calendar, rather than mutilating it or abandoning it. If there is any problem in the calendar it has to be investigated and corrected by a forum of astronomers, climatologists and environmental scientists, sitting along with traditional astronomers historians and Tamil scholars. Any society, which doesn’t care to investigate and understand its own heritage of science, is not going to make any progress. It will always remain in slavery.
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Tamil New Year

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 April 2008, 02:30 GMT]
The Tamil New Year day falls on Sunday, 13th April, since 2008 is a leap year. On other years, it is 14th April. It is not only the Tamil New year, but also the New Year of Sinhalese and Malayalis. It is not appropriate to call it a Hindu New Year since vast majority of Hindus in India don't celebrate it a New Year. It is only an auspicious day called Mesha-samkraanti for them. But, the Sikhs celebrate it a New Year. It is equally inappropriate to call it a Buddhist New Year, as Buddhists don’t celebrate it universally. The calculation for the commencement of this New Year and the calendar based on it are entirely astronomical.
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International Community should learn from experience, Vaiko tells Norway

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 April 2008, 23:03 GMT]
Expressing that the lack of implementation by the Government of Sri Lanka on the agreed principles of the February 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA), especially disarming of army backed paramilitary groups, led to the ultimate breakdown of the peace process, Vaiko, the General Secretary of Marumalarchchi Dravida Munneatta Kazhakam (MDMK), told Norwegian International Development Minister Erik Solheim and Jon Hanssen-Bauer, the Norwegian Special Envoy, that the International Community should prevail upon the GoSL to reinstate the ceasefire in order to engage in a meaningful process for a negotiated settlement.
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Lankan ploy of Buddhism for subversion in Tamil Nadu: Viduthalai Rajendran

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 April 2008, 06:08 GMT]
Circumstantial evidence supports the hand of the Lankan government’s National Intelligence Bureau in the Buddhist temple-building campaign in Tamil Nadu, observed political analyst TSS Mani in Win TV’s News and Views, reported Tehelka Magazine, on Saturday. It further quoted Viduthalai Rajendran, General Secretary of Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK), saying “ the temple-building a ploy to woo Indian Dalits and pit them against Sri Lankan Tamils on religious lines” A Sinhalese delegation of prominent Buddhist monks laid foundation stones for Buddhist places of worship in Tamil Nadu. Most of them are archaeological sites.
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SLN arrests 5 Tamil Nadu fishermen in Nedunththeevu seas

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 April 2008, 01:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) arrested five fishermen from Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu Saturday around 2:00 p.m Sunday when they were fishing in the seas between Nedunththeevu (Delft) and Kachchaitheevu. SLN handed over the fishermen to Nedunththeevu police who produced them before Kayts magistrate Ms. Joy Mahatheva Sunday.
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UN supervised two-states to avoid possible genocide – Peter Schalk

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 April 2008, 11:23 GMT]
A realistic analysis – considering both sides’ unsuccessful negotiations for decades – should end up in a recommendation for a two state solution enforced by UN forces, the sooner the better, facing a possible genocide, said Professor Peter Schalk in a paper presented at a Seminar on Sri Lanka, in London in March. A Humanitarian Military intervention should focus first on the victims by using deterrence and compellence against the Lankan forces and defence of the Tamil speakers, and then – if necessary focus on the perpetrator by defeating him through military offence. In East Timor many thousands of lives were saved through humanitarian military intervention, he concluded in his paper.
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Media groups condemn 'assault' on Thusara Peiries

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 March 2008, 14:04 GMT]
Free Media Movement (FMM), along with four other journalist groups, has written to Alok Prasad, the Indian High Commissioner to Colombo on Sunday seeking his intervention to acquire the master tapes of Thushara Peiris' controversial film from the Gemini Studios in Chennai. In its letter, the FMM maintained that its concern was "with the principle, not the content of the film per se" since it believed in the right to freedom of expression.
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Not possible to remain mute spectators: Ramadoss to Indian PM

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 March 2008, 09:16 GMT]
Labelling Sri Lanka "a failed state, a condominium of anarchy, and a shame on humanity" that "terrorized its own Tamil citizens," Dr. S. Ramadoss, leader of Paaddaa'li Makka'l Kadchi (PMK, Toilers' Party) and a constituent ally of the Congress-led Indian government, said that it was not possible to remain "passing by-standers to this human tragedy at our doorstep" in his letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday. "The sixty million Tamils in India cannot wait and watch while their sisters and brothers are being decimated across the Palk Straits and Gulf of Mannar," he said.
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53% of Sri Lanka's external military training provided by India, TPM protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 March 2008, 15:10 GMT]
Addressing the large demonstration of the Tamil Protection Movement (TPM) opposite the Memorial Hall in Chennai Thursday, Viduthalai Chi'ruththaika'l Kadchi (VCK, Liberation Panthers Party) President Thol. Thirumavalavan, who condemned the Indian government for giving a red carpet welcome to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, charged that one of the primary objectives of Fonseka 's recent visit was to seek a substantial increase in the number of Sri Lankan forces being trained in India. "There has been a three hundred percentage increase in the number of training slots offered to Sri Lankan armed forces personnel between the year 2006-2007 and 2007-2008," he charged.
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Close down Sri Lankan mission in Chennai - Thirumaavalavan

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 March 2008, 11:49 GMT]
The leader of Viduthalai Chi'ruththaika'l Kadchi (VCK, Liberation Panthers Party), Thol. Thirumavalavan called upon the Indian Government to close down the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Tamil Nadu, while addressing a demonstration held in Chennai on Thursday by Tamil Protection Movement, attended by a large gathering.
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