President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday congratulated Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on his re-election and expressed confidence that the country would find lasting peace in which all communities would live with dignity and harmony.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Wednesday said that the government's fight was only against terrorism and that democracy will soon be restored in the embattled north of the country. Rajapaksa also said that the state was not against the Tamil people but against terrorists.
Sri Lanka's defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka on Tuesday filed a petition in the supreme court in Colombo challenging the results of the January 26 polls and accused President Mahinda Rajapaksa of rigging the vote.
Gota has to decide if he could order elder brother Mahinda's arrest as the agent provocateur of Monday's violence. Then he has to prepare for an interim government, in which no one would now want to become a cabinet minister leave alone prime minister, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
The two brothers led a decisive campaign that helped end the island nation's three decade long civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ruled out greater political autonomy for Tamils, saying ethnicity-based division was 'not practical' for the country, appearing to back away from his promise made as part of the country's reconciliation process.
The SLPP, led by prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, has won in 145 constituencies, bagging a total of 150 seats with its allies, a two-thirds majority in the 225-member Parliament, according to the results announced by the election commission.
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam General Secretary Vaiko was on Friday detained by the police when he tried to move further from Gadchicholi to Sanchi to protest Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's visit.
Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo and requested him to mobilise other Tamil parties in the northern province besides the dominant Tamil National Alliance to achieve political reconciliation.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, along with his wife and family, fled his official residence -- Temple Trees -- and took shelter at the naval base in Trincomalee.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's scheduled speech on Wednesday at the Commonwealth Economic Forum was cancelled, amid concerns about possible demonstrations by Tamil groups protesting against human rights violations in his country.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Friday led a state-wide protest against the visit of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to India, accusing him of making efforts to 'annihilate' the Tamils in the island republic.
A federal United States court has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, noting he is immune from lawsuits as a sitting Head of State. Dismissing the case on Thursday, the US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said that Rajapaksa has immunity as head of the State.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to meet President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his private visit to the country next week, against the backdrop of attacks on pilgrims from this country in Tamil Nadu.
Sri Lanka enjoys good bilateral relations with India despite the anti-Lanka protests in Tamil Nadu, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Monday. Replying to a question on the simmering tension in Tamil Nadu vis a vis Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa said that he would welcome the politicians from the state to visit the island nation and witness its progress.
Mahinda Rajapaksa recovered from his 2015 electoral losses, went to the people and campaigned about the injustice done to him. Without attempting to be subtle, he underscored his image of the Sinhala Buddhist warrior a la Dutugemunu, the king of Sri Lanka (164 BC to 140 BC) who led the military campaign against the invading warlord Elara.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday asked the Tamil National Alliance, country's main Tamil political party, to shed the 'LTTE mentality' and join hands with the government to deal with various contentious issues.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday dismissed reports about his government flouting agreements reached in the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord which created devolved administrative units, saying there had been no violations.
Rehabilitation of displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka on Friday came up for discussion during a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa amid India's insistence that it was time for its neighbour to act decisively to 'win over' the ethnic minority.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday appealed to the Tamil civilians, still trapped in the No-fire Zone, to come over to the "cleared areas" and assured that the government will ensure their safety.
Unofficial results indicate that the SLPP would comfortably win at least 17 out of the 22 districts on offer.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa today declared that the war against the LTTE was over as he reached out to the Tamil population, saying their protection was the responsibility of his government.
Though dubbed as the "war hero", the role of Rajapaksa in ending the conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009 is quite divisive as he stands accused of violating human rights, a charge he vehemently denies.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa will visit India later this month, primarily to lay the foundation stone of a Centre for Buddhist Studies in Madhya Pradesh's Sanchi, home to some of the vital and finest Buddhist monuments.
The Sri Lankan government hit back at defeated opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka on Thursday alleging that he had attempted to "assassinate" President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family.
The stage is now set for what is expected to be the most closely contested Presidential polls in Sri Lanka, with the incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa and his main challenger Sarath Fonseka are exuding full confidence of emerging victorious.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa arrived in Beijing on Monday on a 4-day state visit, his sixth, with Colombo saying that its ties with Beijing were not an "exclusive one" and would not harm interests of others.
"The President in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces has confirmed the findings and the punishment handed down by the first court martial," a military official said.
Rajapaksa sworn in new Chief Justice Mohan Peiris to replace Sri Lanka's first woman chief justice who was impeached by the parliament in a controversial move.
A delegation from former president Maithripala Sirisena's Sri Lanka Freedom Party met him in the morning to press for their demand on the formation of the interim government.
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.
Dismissing reports that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was planning constitutional amendments to extend his term without holding elections, the Sri Lankan government said on Monday that he had no intention to be in power "beyond the period mandated by the ballot".
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has launched his son Namal into active politics ahead of the April 8 parliamentary polls in which the 23-year- old would contest from the southeastern Hambantota district.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, a populist leader who trounced his former ally-turned-foe Sarath Fonseka in the Sri Lankan presidential elections, is proving to be a man with a Midas touch and has enjoyed good rapport with India in his first four years in office.
With barely five days to go for the crucial Presidential elections in Sri Lanka, incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa has vowed not to allow re-emergence of the LTTE that was defeated in May last year.
Anti-government protesters in Sri Lanka on Tuesday set up a checkpoint on the road leading to the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo to prevent the Rajapaksa family loyalists from fleeing the country, as violence and widespread protest continued against the regime over the country's worst economic crisis in decades.
Ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, a Sri Lankan man, who migrated to Australia, has filed war crimes charges against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a Melbourne court. Rajapaksa is scheduled to arrive in Melbourne to participate in the CHOGM to be held at Perth. Jegan Waran, a retired engineer who migrated to Australia from Sri Lanka, said before the magistrate that he was still haunted by what he saw in the hospitals.
A Sri Lankan federal minister on Monday alleged that 'certain Indian officials' wanted President Mahinda Rajapaksa to lose the recent polls and worked towards it, but India rejected the claims, saying it does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.Minister of Post and Telecommunications Nandana Goonathilake also claimed that the Indian government 'strengthened' Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Mahinda Rajapaksa's re-election as Sri Lankan president has come as a disappointment for the Tamil diaspora, which is still reeling from Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels' defeat in the country's civil war last year. The influential community of Tamils living overseas now doesn't know about what role it should play in their homeland, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
Triumphant Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared on Thursday that emergency provisions in the country would be scrapped but not hastily and said he would soon unveil a political plan for the estranged Tamils. A day after his thumping victory in the presidential elections, 64-year-old Rajapaksa said he would come out with his plans after a dialouge with Tamil leaders.
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