Sri Lanka's main Tamil party on Sunday secured a landslide win in the historic provincial council polls held after a gap of 25 years in the former Tamil Tigers-ruled northern province, an outcome expected to give limited autonomy to the Tamils after the end of decades of ethnic war.
The Tamil Nadu chief minister may have opened a Pandora's Box on the religion front with the appointment of qualified non-Brahmin temple priests, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ending months of speculation, Sri Lanka's vanquished former president Mahinda Rajapaksa on Wednesday announced his return to electoral politics, saying he will lead an opposition faction during the general elections in August.
Shoojit Sircar's Madras Cafe, starring John Abraham as a RAW agent, is a political espionage thriller.
Sri Lanka's newly elected president Mithripala Sirisena waves at media as he leaves the election commission in Colombo. Photograph: Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Reuters
Sherine Xavier, a Sri Lankan Tamil filmmaker from Canada, is happy. After months of struggle with the Indian censor board, she has finally obtained approval to screen her film Muttrupullia?, which deals with the post-war situation in Sri Lanka's Tamil areas.
Naam Tamilar leader Seeman on why his party opposes John Abraham's new film.
Sri Lanka on Wednesday stoutly opposed a United States sponsored resolution coming up against the country at the ongoing UN Human Rights Council, terming it as "unfair and unjust".
The new laws will give the security forces and police wide powers of arrest and detention, but stopped short of banning the Tigers as demanded by nationalists.
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Imprisoned since 1991, this is the first time she has been out on parole for 30 days.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi on Friday said Narendra Modi's invitation to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for his swearing-in was "not acceptable and unwelcome" by Tamils all over the world and urged the BJP leader to drop the initiative.
V Balakumaran, a senior leader of the political wing of the LTTE, said India should come forward to improve the relationship with a sincere heart.
The Athletics Federation of India (AAI) has said that it would try its best to hold the Asian Athletics Championship in another city of the country after the prestigious event, schedule to be held in Chennai, was shunned by the Tamil Nadu government.
India said it will continue to extend its developmental assistance to the friendly people of Sri Lanka.
Leaders of Sri Lanka's main Tamil party TNA on Friday told officials from the United Nations human rights body that the Tamils displaced in the LTTE war were facing problems with resettlement and discrimination at the hands of authorities
Rediff.com's Abhishek Mande visited Sri Lanka and returned with these photographs.
Rediff.com's Abhishek Mande shares photos of Sri Lanka on Rediff ZaraBol from 3.30 pm onwards today!
India, which normally does not vote on nation-specific resolutions, made a last-minute departure in the current instance after overwhelming pressure from parties in Tamil Nadu, especially the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which had even considered pulling out its ministers from the government at the Centre, to vote against Sri Lanka.
Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy on Thursday said India should not support the United States-backed United Nations resolution for an inquiry into human rights violations by Sri Lankan army following alleged surfacing of video footage of the bullet-riddled body of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's chief V Pirabhakaran's son.
The Sri Lankan Army, accused of human rights violations will produce a video film covering the last phase of the battle with the LTTE to counter 'false propaganda' against it by a British media outlet, Army chief Jagath Jayasuriya said on Monday.
Mahinda Rajapaksa completed 50 years of parliamentary politics in July this year. He was elected as a Member of Parliament at the young age of 24 in 1970. He has since been elected president twice and has been appointed prime minister thrice.
-- Seven suicide bombers believed to be members of an Islamist extremist group carried out the series of explosions. -- Police have so far arrested 24 people - mostly members of an Islamist extremist group - in connection with the blasts
It was unhappy with the government's proposals on ways to rebuild war-hit Tamil parts of the country.
If Sri Lanka continues to follow the path of evasion and tries to impose a dictated solution on the Tamils, India has to act tough, says B Raman
'Tamil Nadu is a state of temples, it's a holy land. People don't seem to realise that.'
'Collateral damage during operations needs to be avoided.' 'Such an objective can be achieved more easily should stone throwers not gear up to en masse oppose security forces.' 'With the conditions being quite sensitive at this stage, the death of one of these boys could easily serve the terrorists in instigating violence,' notes Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
The cable, dated 15 January 2010, updated the Secretary of State on war crimes accountability following the end of the country's long and bloody conflict.
The ATR 72-600 aircraft was accorded water salute as it landed at the Jaffna airport, about 400-km from capital Colombo.
The International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) has initiated a charity project to provide rehabilitation measures for the Tamil population of Sri Lanka that suffered due to a decades-old war between the country's defence forces and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Seeking to give a fillip to bilateral military ties, army chief General V K Singh is set to undertake a five-day visit to Sri Lanka from Sunday to discuss defence cooperation.
Parvati, who was supposed to get admitted to a hospital in Chennai, arrived from Kuala Lumpur but policemen did not permit her to alight from the aircraft, officials said.
Notwithstanding the demise of the mercurial leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Velupillai Prabakharan, who was killed by the Sri Lankan security forces over a year ago, , the pro-LTTE lobby in the United States has remained active, particularly in the US Congress.
Despite the killings of top LTTE leaders, including its chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, and the decimation of the rebels, the concept of Tamil Eelam has not died out amongst those harbouring it, the Sri Lankan Army chief has warned.
In a letter addressed to the President, the 'Mahanayakes' or the Buddhist religious leaders said the monks' grouping 'Maha Sangha' has throughout its long history come forward to help resolve grave national issues, including conflicts among the rulers.
Mirza Himayat Baig, a suspected LeT operative arrested for his alleged role in Pune's German Bakery blast, had been to Colombo for training in bomb making for three weeks in 2008, a senior ATS official said on Thursday.
The Madras High Court directed the Centre to submit its reply by Thursday on the matter of slain LTTE Chief Prabhakaran's mother being denied medical treatment and deported back to Malaysia recently. A PIL was filed by an advocate Karuppan recently after the immigration authorities denied permission to Prabhakaran's mother Parvathi Ammal to undergo medical treatment in Chennai and sent her back to Malaysia.
Asserting that the Tamil Nadu government had no role in the Friday's deportation of Parvathi, mother of slain LTTE leader V Prabhakaran, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Monday said that the state would write to the Centre on allowing her for medical treatment, if she insisted.
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