The war against the LTTE, waged by the Mahinda Rajapakse government, may have restored peace in Sri Lanka. But thousands of Tamils paid the price for the so-called victory with their lives, journalist Frances Harrison says in her new book Still Counting the Dead.
The Obama administration has expressed its deep disappointment with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse for relegating the devolution of power in the Tamil majority areas, in the country's northern province, to the back-burner. The international community had urged the Lankan government to put the motion in process after crushing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Over 1,500 workers of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam are participating in a dharna at Chindwara, Madhya Pradesh. MDMK party workers have travelled all the way from Tamil Nadu to protest Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse's visit to Sanchi.
Turning down a request made by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Vaiko -- to call off his party's protest against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse -- party workers on Monday left for Sanchi to demonstrate against the violation of rights of Tamils in the island nation.
A 26-year old CITU activist on Monday attempted self-immolation here protesting the proposed visit of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to India, police said.
The proposed visit of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to Sanchi next week -- to lay the foundation of a Buddhist University -- is mired in controversy with the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam strongly opposing the visit.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday denied allegations of some pro-Tamil leaders, including Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Vaiko that party leader Sushma Swaraj had invited Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse for an official event in Madhya Pradesh on September 21.
Taking on senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj and the Madhya Pradesh government over a proposed visit of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse there later in September, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam founder Vaiko on Monday urged Bharatiya Janata Party's top brass against entertaining him and threatened a black flag demo if his demand was not heeded to.
As UNHRC is set to take up the US-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka, a 41-year-old man in Tamil Nadu on Monday attempted self immolation and various pro-Tamil groups staged protests demanding action against Sri Lanka for alleged war crimes.
A man who tried to attempt self-immolation here protesting the proposed visit of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to India died on Tuesday, the police said.
Foreign coaches in Sri Lanka are all set to gain from new tax laws outlined in the government budget of 2012, officials said on Thursday.
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.
The 2009 Lahore terror attack is yet to become even a distant memory but Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse has reportedly given his consent to the country's cricket team touring Pakistan again.
Ajantha Mendis bettered his own T20 record by taking six wickets for just eight runs as Sri Lanka walloped minnows Zimbabwe by 82 runs in the opening match of the World Twenty20 tournament in Hambantota on Tuesday.
Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan on Monday said he hasn't confirmed his availability in any franchise-based T20 league at this stage, refuting reports that he could participate in the inaugural Lanka Premier League, starting on August 28.
Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan could be one of the biggest attractions in the inaugural Lanka Premier League (LPL) as he is among the 70 foreign players who have expressed interest in competing in the event starting August 28.
The Sri Lankan government has slapped a fresh case on detained former army chief Sarath Fonseka for allegedly employing military deserters during the presidential campaign earlier this year, the poll which he contested unsuccessfully against President Mahinda Rajapakse. The attorney general's department filed a fresh case against Fonseka, who is now an opposition lawmaker. He is accused of employing 10 army deserters in the run-up to the January presidential poll.
Tamil-actor-turned political leader Vijaykanth told rediff.com that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's announcement of demanding Indian citizenship for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees is helping the dream of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, who visited Sri Lanka last week and met President Mahinda Rajapakse and senior Sri Lankan officials, has said that India had been reassured over the Lankan government's efforts to return internally-displaced persons to their homes and also hopeful over a future political process to alleviate the lot of the Tamil-speaking community and other minorities.
A leading Washington, DC-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notwithstanding the arrest of retired Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka who challenged President Mahinda Rajapakse at the recent elections, and the country's poor record on human rights and its treatment of several thousand internally displaced persons, has said that the United States cannot afford to disengage with the island nation.
Set to form the next government in Tamil Nadu, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo J Jayalalithaa on Friday said the top agenda for her government would be to restore "law and order" which had "totally deteriorated".
In a major success, the Sri Lankan troops today seized the strategic Elephant Pass, the gateway to the Jaffna peninsula, dislodging the Tamil Tigers from their key bastion a week after capturing the rebels' de facto capital Kilinochcci in the island nation's embattled north.
Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapakse on Wednesday ordered a ban on a World Cup song that carries a latent threat to defending champions Australia and New Zealand.
Sri Lanka's new Foreign Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris, who visited Washington, DC last month, feels the tensions that existed in the United States and Sri Lanka during the height of the conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, when Colombo refused to acquiesce to a ceasefire, have been repaired.
The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse made a surprise visit to the tamil dominated town of Jaffna, a week before elections are scheduled to be held in the country.
A behind-the-scenes account of how the three-decade old conflict came to an end in the island nation.
The fallout of the spat between two headstrong and powerful personalities like Mahinda Rajapakse and Sarath Fonseka does not augur well for this small and beautiful Island nation struggling to leave the ravages of war behind, writes Nitin Gokhale.
Sri Lanka's presidential polls on January 26, between incumbent President Mahinda Rajapakse and the combined opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka, may be surprisingly too close to call, even as it has emerged that Rajapakse did the Congress party a favour during the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu last year by withdrawing the use of heavy weaponry against pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels in the last days of the war.
"India would have loved to get more involved in Sri Lanka positively -- helping us to fight terrorism. Now, remember, India suffered a lot in the sense, it lost its leader -- Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by the LTTE. That is something, which India can never forgive nor forget," says Razik Zarook, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse's Counsel.
As India's fears mounted for Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone in Sri Lanka, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday night sought an assurance from President Mahinda Rajapakse that the innocents are safe and humanitarian situation will be taken into consideration.
The Pak defence delegation's visit comes at a crucial time when the Lankan military, emboldened by Colombo's withdrawal from the six-year old ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has stepped up its offensive against the rebels.
Bolstered by American and Pakistani support, Colombo is increasingly insensitive to Indian concerns over the plight of the Tamils.
'The struggle for Tamil equality and justice for Tamils did not start with the LTTE and will not end with LTTE. I am not saying that the LTTE has come to an end.'
Accusing Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse of abdicating his responsibility to save civilians in the restive north, Tamil Americans have asked United States President Barack Obama to send his forces to the strife-torn nation to save the lives of innocent people. "This is pure and simple genocide. We are asking the Obama administration to intervene to save the Tamils of Sri Lanka by sending its army there," they said.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam today virtually conceded that its de-facto capital Kilinochchi has fallen to the Sri Lankan Army, saying that the security forces have entered a "virtual ghost town" as the whole infrastructure of Tamil Tigers have shifted to the northeast.
Lankan MP M K Sivajilingam of Pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance, said the Sri Lankan government's move to devolve powers to region is a 'joke played by them (Lankan government) on minority Tamils' who have 'not been able to lead a peaceful life in their own nation'.
"If Dr Singh makes it to Colombo, which would be the first in several years, it would undoubtedly be a big blow to LTTE, which is why pro-LTTE parties in Tamil Nadu are objecting it."
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, who perhaps became the first Head of State to speak in Tamil at the UN General Assembly, has conveyed that the government puts the language on equal status with that of Sinhala, a top minister said.
Ruling out talks with the LTTE till the outlawed outfit agreed to disarm, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has accused Britain of double standards in dealing with the global menace of terrorism.
During Rajapakse's nationally televised address on the country's 61st independence day, he broke into Tamil, assuring the people of the community in the embattled north and other parts of the country of their well-being and equality in status.
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