The govt decided to recommend to the governor, the release of Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan, Jayakumar, Ravichandran, Robert Payas and Nalini, serving life imprisonment.
A new book by former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi claims that former chief election commissioner T N Seshan proposed an immediate halt to the general election process after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991 and even offered to become home minister. Gandhi, who was joint secretary to then president R Venkatraman, writes that Seshan was the one who broke the news of the assassination to the president and arrived at the Rashtrapati Bhawan "super-fast" that night. According to Gandhi's account, Seshan told Venkatraman that he felt the election process needed to be stopped and that he was ready to take on the role of home minister if necessary. However, Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra assured the president that the situation was under control and that there was no need to pause the election process. Seshan's suggestions were ultimately ignored, but he did manage to postpone the second and third phases of polling.
The 20-page report on the island nation covering the period from November 2006 to September 2007, notes that 'both parties have failed to cease the abduction, recruitment and use of children.'
'While Prabhakaran made LTTE cadres consume cyanide in the face of imminent capture, he did not do so himself when he was cornered. This exposes Prabhakaran's hypocrisy,' says Varadaraja Perumal.
The all-party meeting aimed at reconciliation and conferring full powers to Sri Lanka's provincial councils will be reconvened in a month after initial deliberations on Wednesday failed to yield any agreements, party officials said on Thursday.
The faction controlled by renegade commander V Muralitharan alias Karuna fired mortars and small arms fire for nearly two hours across the Verugal river.
"The unrest in Sri Lanka was triggered off only because the Tamils of the island were relegated, post-independence, to the status of secondary citizens in their own homeland. Decimation of the LTTE or the killings of its leaders will not wipe away the injustice meted out to this large community which had its roots in Sri Lanka," she said
India considers the full implementation of the 13th Amendment in Sri Lanka "critical" for achieving reconciliation with the minority Tamil community, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday, underlining that New Delhi has always supported both the political and economic stability in the island nation.
A former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam child soldier-turned-politician was acquitted by a court in Sri Lanka on Wednesday in the 2005 murder case of a senior ethnic Tamil lawmaker at the height of the country's bloody civil war.
On the night of July 5, the Tigers launched their first kamikaze operation. Miller took the wheels of the explosive-packed truck, smiled at everyone as he turned the ignition key and drove it slowly towards the Sri Lankan military camp. A few moments later all of Jaffna heard a thunderous explosion that brought the complex crashing down in clouds of dust. Miller had given birth to a deadly tactic that Prabhakaran would employ time and again with devastating consequences to Sri Lanka -- and India. A fascinating excerpt from M R Narayan Swamy's must read new book, The Rout Of Prabhakaran.
The use of the LTTE's air force for the first time means that the war in Lanka is likely to intensify.
Nitin Gokhale, Defence Editor, NDTV, recalls his encounter with then Sri Lankan army chief General Sarath Fonseka soon after the LTTE's defeat last year. A fascinating column on how Velupillai Prabhakaran finally met his nemesis.
'The CBI did a wonderful job of tracking down the killers, but at the end of the day, all the hard work went for a toss.' 'If we had caught them alive, the operation would have been successful completely.'
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the unfortunate controversy and asks why politics must score over sport.
50-year-old Balendra Jeyakumari's release came days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the country.
Sections of top Tamil Tiger leadership on Wednesday began to surrender before rapidly advancing Sri Lankan forces, signalling an imminent collapse of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after a two-decade long relentless battle.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's key ally in Tamil Nadu, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Wednesday slammed the saffron party alleging that it is anti-Tamil and claimed that the party could never grow in the state.
A staunch supporter of slain LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran, he also criticised the former prime minister for sending the Indian Peacekeeping Force to Sri Lanka in the 1980s.
As Prabhakaran was leaving his house, Rajiv Gandhi called his son Rahul and asked him to fetch his (Gandhi's) bulletproof jacket. He put the jacket on Prabhakaran's back and remarked with his usual charming smile: "Take care of yourself."
Clamping down on terrorist funding, a Canadian Court has sentenced a Tamil Tiger fundraiser to six months in jail after the man pleaded guilty to raising funds in the country to help support the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels in Sri Lanka. The court in Vancouver sentenced Tamil-Canadian Prapaharan Thambithurai, 46, for raising funds for a banned terrorist organisation. He was the first person to be charged under a new Canadian legislation.
Forty-four Tamil Tigers and two soldiers were killed in fierce clashes between the rebels and security forces in the embattled northern Sri Lanka, where fighting has intensified since the government pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam this month.
Heavy gun battles on Wednesday left at least 17 Tamil Tigers dead, while rebels claimed they killed over two dozen soldiers in Sri Lanka's embattled north.
Classified as 'Secret' and titled 'LTTE Threat to Canada', the intelligence report said the Canadian Tamil community was among the LTTE's largest sources of funds, having contributed up to 10 to 12 million dollars annually in past years.
The body of the 24-year-old Anthony, chief of the LTTE's air wing, was found during mop-up operations in the last rebel-held territory in the no-fire zone on Monday morning, the defence ministry said
The European Union on Tuesday stepped up pressure on Sri Lanka to probe alleged human rights abuses during the 25-year ethnic war that came to an end after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers.
Under international flak for his handling of the Tamil issue, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Friday that nations who sympathise with separatism are bound to become the victims of terrorism, as Sri Lanka celebrated with pomp a year of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's military defeat.
Disclosing that more than 5,000 LTTE cadres had surrendered before the gvernment, Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa made it clear that criminal elements among the surrendered Tiger cadres would be brought to book while others will be rehabilitated.
LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, in an annual speech on Monday, said the 2002 ceasefire agreement "defunct" and vowed to resume fighting.
The Sri Lankan Navy on Wednesday claimed that it has killed at least 40 Tamil Tiger rebels when it confronted a flotilla of Sea Tiger boats in the seas off Vettilaikerni in the northern Jaffna peninsula.
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran's son Charles Anthony is commanding a contingent of the Tamil Tigers, alongside other top rebel leaders like Banu and Lakshman, arrested black Tigers have revealed. Anthony, who returned from Ireland in 2006, is believed to have got a degree in aeronautical engineering and is heading the air wing and computer unit of the LTTE, according to the reports.
Sri Lankan security forces destroyed four Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam bunkers as they continued to lay siege to the crucial Kilinochchi town and 35 Tamil Tigers and six security personnel were killed in fierce clashes in the northern region, the army said on Monday.
'Tamil Nadu is a state of temples, it's a holy land. People don't seem to realise that.'
Sri Lankan Air Force pounded identified LTTE hideout located in the jungles south of Puthukudiyirippu, Mullaittivu, believed to be frequented by top Tamil Tiger leadership, including supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran. According to Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara, Air Force spokesperson, the air raids targeted the hideout believed to be frequented by Prabhakaran.
Three Sri Lankan sailors and four Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres were killed in a pre-dawn attack by Tamil rebels on a navy outpost in Mannar on Wednesday.The Tigers claimed that the area was brought under their control for a few hours after they captured arms and military gadgets, including a radar equipment."According to the available information, four sea tigers, including their leader Sirimaran, have died in the battle," the Defence Ministry said.
Sri Lanka on Tuesday claimed to have found slain Tamil Tiger chief Vellupilai Prabhakaran's personal gun and body armour, seven months after overrunning the last Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam bastion in the decisive battle at Nanthaikadal lagoon off the northern coast.The arms used by Prabhakaran were found buried 15 feet under the ground at Vellamulliwaikkal area in Mulaittivu along with scores of suicide kits and several anti-aircraft guns.
Breaking a 28-year-long hiatus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday embarked on an important visit to Sri Lanka with the message that India favoured a life of equality, justice, peace and dignity for Tamils in its "new journey" of peace and reconciliation.
Three Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam supporters who admitted providing over one million dollars in cash to the terror group were allowed to walk free on Wednesday by the Australian Supreme Court on bonds to be of good behaviour. The supreme court was told an Australian-based charity was used as a cover to collect and send money to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the Herald Sun reported.
Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department has arrested the head of the finance division of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, a front organisation for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in Jaffna.He is alleged to have provided millions of rupees to the Tiger rebels for their war efforts. Investigations have claimed that he had provided TRO funds to slain LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, its political head S Thamil Selvan and several key members.
More than 35,000 trapped Tamil civilians on Monday made a dramatic breakout from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-controlled areas in Sri Lanka's embattled north, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa handing out a last 24-hour deadline for Tiger supremo V Prabhakaran and his top aides to surrender. Proclaiming that the mass exodus indicated that a 'complete defeat' of the Tigers was imminent, Rajapaksa warned that after this, his forces would make an 'all out' bid.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the army exchanged fire across the Muhamalai-Nagarkovil frontline in the peninsula, the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website said.
