Wearing the bloodstained cap and badge -- evidence in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case -- on the day of his retirement was a cocktail of emotions, says IPS officer Prateep V Phillip, who survived the ghastly attack that killed the former Prime Minister in a 1991 election rally near here.
The defence ministry said the students carried the grenade, which exploded accidentally and caused their deaths.\n
'They told them to use it against the Indian Peace Keeping Force. It was they who gave them arms, so it has to be them who give the Tamils amnesty. It is their ethical duty to do so,' says S C Chandrahasan, founder of the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation.
Joginder Tuteja lists the biggest box office successes with stars in uniform.
Vowing to pursue its campaign for 'Tamil Eelam', the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has named alleged arms smuggler Selvarasa Pathmathan as its new chief to succeed Velupillai Prabhakaran, who was slain along with the entire rebel leadership in Sri Lanka two months ago. The Tamil separatist outfit, which was virtually annihilated by Sri Lankan troops in May, said it will 'modify' the strategies of its struggle but will continue to work for a 'free Tamil Eelam'.
The talks will be the first high-level meeting between the two sides since the peace process stalled in 2003.
A perfect strategist who undertook operations against the Sri Lankan army methodically, Velupillai Prabhakaran provided Tamil translations on English language books on war strategy to his cadres to take on the government forces.
Sri Lanka's Supreme Court on Thursday suspended a contentious deal between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels to disburse billions of dollars of foreign aid to tsunami survivors.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's address at the ceremony to pay tribute to the War Heroes on May 23, 2009
Britain and Norway made a last minute bid to save the lives of two Tamil Tiger leaders but in vain as Sri Lankan troops closed in, the media reported on Saturday. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's political chief, B Nadesan, and peace secretariat head, S Pulidevan, had attempted to surrender, The Daily Telegraph said, in a report quoting Vijay Nambiar, the United Nation Secretary-General's envoy.The men were later found dead.
Talking tough, the United States on Friday told Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to immediately end the war in the island's north and cautioned Colombo that its unity and reconciliation could be at stake if it continued with its current endeavours to end the ethnic conflict 'militarily'. The White House said it was taking 'very seriously' the allegations of violations of international humanitarian law by both sides.
Expressing unhappiness over India's stand on the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Tuesday said the Tamil community expects New Delhi to extend its support to their 'national aspirations', even as it renewed its call for a ceasefire with Colombo. The Tamil Tigers also refused to lay down arms for resuming political dialogue with the Sri Lankan government to resolve the 30-year-old ethnic conflict.
The Sri Lankan troops on Monday stepped up their offensive in the northern region, encircling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam's last military stronghold of Puthyukkudiryirippu town, by overrunning its security bund and killing at least 9 rebels in fierce clashes, the army said on Monday.
After uncovering attempts of Tamil Tigers to build crude submarines, Sri Lankan forces on Thursday said they had unearthed a possible rebel aircraft research wing that apparently studied ways to either repair planes or construct new ones.
In the wake of the visit of India Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, to Colombo for talks with the Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Tamilnet, the English language web site associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has disseminated on January 30, 2009, an article attributed to "a political analyst in Vanni," which has accused "the present Indian establishment run by Congress of waging its own proxy war in the island of Sri Lanka, concurrent to Colombo's war
As Sri Lankan troops advance towards the last Tiger bastion of Mullaittivu, Army Chief Sarath Fonseka has said he was not sure whether Velupillai Prabhakaran was on the island nation but felt that it was not possible for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo to find a shelter in India. The Lankan Air Force had destroyed a vessel carrying arms and ammunitions for the LTTE just when it was being offloaded in the rebel coastal area, Fonseka added.
After MDMK leader Vaiko, Tamil film directors Seeman and Ameer were on Frdiay arrested on the charge of making inflamatory speeches during a rally taken out by the cinema industry in support of Sri Lankan Tamils at Rameswaram on October 19.
The Tigers' air strike on the military base in Vavuniya came as part of a brazen counter-attack by the rebels that led to heavy fighting on the ground in which 22 people, including 10 soldiers and equal number of guerrillas were killed. Sources said the two Indians, identified as Roop and Thakur, were carrying out maintenance and training of Sri Lankan personnel manning an Indian-supplied radar at the northern airbase.
Military sources here said Karuna's fighters could no longer engage the northern leadership of the LTTE as he had failed to secure any support from government forces who had remained neutral in the conflict.
'If Karuna continues to oppose Prabhakaran, it will certainly be a problem for them,' Sri Lankan army chief Lt \n\nGen Lionel Balagalle tells Ramananda Sengupta.
Silva's name was mentioned in the resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2013, alleging rights abuses by the Sri Lankan Army.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagamchief M Karunanidhi on Wednesday said Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's statement -- that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's cadres were still trying very hard to revive the conflict -- was aimed at diverting the world's attention from the alleged human rights violations in the island republic.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's slain supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was jealous of educated people and wanted to destroy the Tamil intellectuals for his survival, a Tamil leader has claimed.
The LTTE has quietly established a presence in the United States as part of its global expansion plan to raise funds and procure anti-aircraft weapons and other military equipment on a massive scale, the Washington Times reported. The group's political wing has established 'branches' in at least 12 countries as part of a global expansion to purchase millions of dollars worth of weapons, ammunition and other military equipment.
S C Chandrahasan, a Tamil leader, advocating a non-violent solution to Sri Lanka's ethnic war, speaks out.
"Being a former chief minister, Jayalalithaa could have obtained a copy of the order in the POTA case from her lawyers and studied it properly before throwing a challenge," Karunanidhi said.
A Ganesh Nadar, who once met V Prabhakaran at the LTTE's press conference in Jaffna, feels Madras Cafe is not at all about the Tigers.
The Lankans have said in their statements that they have no links with LTTE and left Jaffna as they were upset with the continued violence in the region, adding that they wanted to live a peaceful life.
In an interview with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, Colonel Hariharan talks about how Jayalalithaa is using anti-Lanka protests for political mileage and why the Rajapaksa government should immediately address the grievances of the nation's Tamil population
Sri Lankan authorities are verifying with police in Thailand reports about the arrest of top Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam leader Kumaran Padmanathan, who allegedly financed the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The Sri Lankan government on Wednesday held its first ever Cabinet meeting in the Tamil heartland of Kilinochchi, the erstwhile administrative capital of the vanquished Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam."The weekly Cabinet meeting commenced in Kilinochchi at 10 am today under the patronage of President Mahinda Rajapakse," a statement said.The meeting was conducted at the administrative building of the defence forces headquarters near the Iranamadu tank.
Passengers of the Tiruchirapalli-Chennai Rockfort Express had a narrow escape when suspected pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam elements blasted railway tracks at Perani railway station in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu in the wee hours on Saturday.
"There is no point in beating around the bush. The government is ready to re-look at it," Defence Ministry Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said.
The dreaded Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam may have been wiped off from Sri Lanka, but its lessons to Naxals are showing in the form of attacks carried out by improvised explosive devices with precision in the hinterlands of Chhattisgarh. The Left-wing extremists used the technique to blow-up a civilian bus on Monday in which at least 50 people were feared killed, officials said. The Maoists staged the attack by digging a tunnel on either side of the road.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam deployed aircraft for the first time in a combat mission.
A prominent Sri Lankan Tamil journalist, whose arrest and subsequent 20-year sentence for 'supporting terrorism' had drawn international condemnation, has been pardoned by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa has ordered the release of Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam, who was recently released on bail after being sentenced to a jail term of 20 years.Tissainayagam was arrested in March 2008 and later charged under the anti-terrorism legislation, was released on bail.
The disclosure came as police reported that five more bullet-riddled bodies were found in the north-central district of Anuradhapura on Tuesday, 3 days after 5 other bodies bearing bullet injuries were found near the capital.
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