யாழ் திரைகடலோடி

நினைவேந்தல் உரிமை குறித்து இன்று பாராளுமன்றில் திரு கஜேந்திரகுமார் பொன்னம்பலம் அவர்கள் இன்று சமர்ப்பிக்கவிருந்த எழுத்துமூல கேள்விக்கான அனுமதியை சபாநாயகர் தடை செய்தமையை எதிர்த்து பாராளுமன்றில் கஜேந்திரகுமார் - தினேஸ் குணவர்தன ,ஜோன்ஸ்டன் பெர்னாண்டோ ஆகியோரின் குறுக்கீடுகளுக்கு பதில் வழங்கியபடி தமிழர் தரப்பு நியாயத்தை எடுத்துரைத்தார் கஜேந்திரகுமாருக்குத் தென்னிலங்கை நா.உறுப்பினர்கள் சபாநாயகர் மூலமாக முட்டுக்கட்டை போட்ட வேளையில் சுமந்திரன் குறுக்கிட்டு சட்ட ஆதாரங்களை சாதுரியமாக முன்வைத்து கஜேந்திரகுமாரின் உரிமைக்காக வாதாடினார்!

Even in an empty Delhi metro coach, middle-class Indians make their maids sit on the floor Photo tweeted by Sanya Dhingra With rising prosperity, more double-income couples and nuclear families, the need for domestic workers is increasing – and so is the class divide. Our reporter Sanya Dhingra tweeted this brilliant, eye-opening picture on Saturday that tells us more than a thousand words on our class differences and the way we treat our domestic workers. Even in a fairly empty metro coach, a maid sits on the floor and not with her employer and her child. The tweet took …

Published 2 days ago on August 31, 2020 As a part of carrying out operations in the Asia-Pacific region, two Russian Navy warships have arrived in Sri Lanka, the Russian Pacific Fleet spokesman said on Monday. The warships – Admiral Tributs and Admiral Vinogradov are Udaloy-class anti-submarine guided-missile destroyers. Seven such destroyers are currently in service with the Russian Navy’s Northern and Pacific fleets. The warships arrived at the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, for a business call- and are set to replenish water and fuel supplies. File Picture “Today, in accordance with th…

23 November 2013 An acclaimed Tamil writer Shanmugampillai Jayapalan has been arrested and detained by Sri Lankan police on Friday (22) while he was on his way to pay homage to his mother at her graveyard in the former war-zone of Wanni. Reports from Jaffna say that the 69-year old Tamil scholar, who is now a Norwegian citizen, has visited Jaffna during the second week of November after seven long years. As a Tamil literary stalwart, he was interviewed by Tamil newspapers in Jaffna and was warmly welcomed by his community. Photographs of him, addressing the media in Jaffna on his latest work in the field of literature, art and South Indian Kollywood film indu…

The Tamil Tigers. http://youtu.be/e3167Wc4kW0

Whose Responsibility is it to protect?As the world watches and India celebrates elections and cricket, hundreds upon thousands are dying a few hundred kilometers away. It is time to awaken our conscience and the spirit of universal brotherhood. Dear Charles Anthony Please accept my solidarity with your struggle for survival, identity and freedom. Having witnessed the struggle in Punjab from close quarters, I can understand the circumstances in which you and your people are waging a fight for survival. In the media, one day, your father –Vellupillai Prabhakaran is a friend, the other day he is a foe. Some day he was protected, today he …

Publishing a book about a highly charged ethnic conflict in which tens of thousands have died is no path to a peaceful life. You only need to look at the racial abuse and filthy language in the comments sections of online sites frequented by Sri Lankans to see how intense the emotions still are. Like anyone who writes on Sri Lanka I’ve had my share of abuse from both sides. I’ve been told I am covered in the blood of the babies who perished in the killing fields, that I’ve been making money out of the dead, and am a terrorist or “white Tiger” not to mention, a hysterical liar. But what the public doesn’t see are the private messages from readers around the world. Ev…

The town of Amatrice has been hit by earthquakes several times in recent months Sunday's early-morning quake near the town of Norcia is the biggest in Italy since the Magnitude-6.9 Irpinia event in the south of the country in 1980. Back then, some 2,500 people died and more than 7,000 were injured. Thankfully, we are not expecting loss of life on that scale here. In part this is because of the strides made in recent years in improving readiness and reaction. But the fact that the population of central Italy is currently living on such an acute alert status also will have further limited any dreadful consequences. The first, in August, was a 6.2. This was f…

I WOMEN OF IMPACT I For these women, an age-old way of life is ending in the Horn of Africa Droughts are killing livestock, forcing herders to move to camps for displaced people, where they face an uncertain, often violent, new world. So many died at once “it was like they were poisoned,” said Rahma Hassan Mahmoud, a herder in Somaliland, of the catastrophe that befell her 300 goats and sheep and 20 camels. After the last camel died, she and her family lived off milk from their neighbors, but with everyone else’s livestock dying, it wasn’t long before there wasn’t enough to go around. The people of Rahma’s village pooled money to rent a truck. Fifty …

Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and Chairman of the UNP Leadership Council Karu Jayasuriya aspiring to be the common candidate at the next presidential election are reported to be planning a trip to the Indian capital with the view to meet Indian Premier Narendra Modi, political sources disclosed yesterday. Sources said the three leaders plan to seek blessings from India in their move to contest the next presidential election. According to these sources no dates have fixed for the trio to fly to the Indian capital. However, the government is yet to officially announce a proclamation calling a presidential elect…

23 November 2013 By Frances Harrison There are reports that the Sri Lankan security forces have been detaining and questioning Tamils who gave interviews to the British media covering the Commonwealth meeting in the island last week. In other cases family members of those who gave interviews or helped the media have been threatened and intimidated. The victims do not want publicity for their individual cases for fear of further retaliation but the intimidation has involved threatening phone calls, security forces turning up at people’s homes, as well as visits to children’s schools, work places and detention for hours of questioning. This is in additio…

The contemporary novel has become something of a showboat. It hinges more than ever on a grand concept, a spectacle to drive it: starving children battling in a post-apocalyptic landscape, a ripped-from-the-headlines murder scheme ever so slightly rejiggered to avoid exploitation. Given this, any astute reader or writer could be forgiven for believing the contemporary novel well-suited for tackling the divisiveness and violence of Sri Lanka’s recent history. The brutal quarter-century war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan government left thousands dead, dislocated and dispossessed. What could be meatier? After all, the novel’s inherent…

Published Sunday, November 10, 2013 9:51PM EST Last Updated Sunday, November 10, 2013 9:58PM EST CANBERRA, Australia -- Australia's prime minister was under mounting pressure Monday to join his Indian and Canadian counterparts in boycotting a British Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka this week over concerns about the island nation's human rights record. India announced Sunday that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the second leader after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to boycott the Nov. 15-17 meeting. There are 54 members of the Commonwealth, a loose association of former British colonies. Australian Senator Lee Rhiannon called on Prime Mi…

The Tamil-Canadian artist talks finding space in the international music scene and the controversy over his appearance on Rolling Stone India Gajan Balan Last summer, Toronto singer Witch Prophet and her producer Sun Sun pulled up to rapper Shan Vincent de Paul’s downtown studio out of the blue. They were there to hand him an award, just for being dope. “It meant a lot,” says Vincent de Paul, on a Zoom call from that same studio, describing the one-off gesture that Witch Prophet and Sun Sun bestowed on a handful of local artists. Vincent de Paul’s never been shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize or nominated for a Juno, never mind the bangers he’s be…

சிங்களம் தெரிந்தவர்கள், எனது நேற்றைய பாராளுமன்ற உரையை கேளுங்கள். ஒரு தமிழ் பேசும் அரசியல்வாதியால் சிங்கள மொழியில் இதைவிட அதிகமாக கன்னத்தில் அறைவதை போல் (அல்லது செருப்பால் அடிப்பதை போல்) எதை சொல்ல முடியும் என எவராவது எனக்கு சொல்லுங்கள்? இந்த உரையை கூட ஒரிரு ஊடகங்களை தவிர பல தமிழ் ஊடகங்கள் முழுமையாக ஒளியொலி/பிரசுரிக்க இல்லை. (எனது உரையை அடுத்து உரையாற்றிய நண்பர் சுமந்திரன், எனது உரையை வெகுவாக பாராட்டினார் என்பது வேறு விஷயம்)

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara had pinned his statement of faith to a map used to brief journalists visiting Sri Lanka: "It's the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press," it began. It went on to say the soldier, not politicians, "ensures our right to Life, Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness". I was recently in Sri Lanka to report on the final stages of a civil war that has been raging for a quarter of a century. As I write, 200,000 civilians are caught between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers. Unfortunately, it became a story about the difficulty of reporting at all and, in the case of local journalists, about its per…

"The Burning of the Jaffna Public Library by the Police in 1981" In 1933, the same year the Nazis burnt large numbers of books that they considered ‘anti-German’, the idea of setting up a library in Jaffna was born. The Jaffna Public Library (JPL) would have celebrated its golden jubilee in 1983 had it not been burned down in 1981. Instead, June 2023 marked the 42 nd anniversary of that tragedy. 1933 was a difficult time in Sri Lanka. The economy was slow and unemployment was very high. Amid the gloom, one K M Chellappah, who worked for the district court in Jaffna, circulated an appeal in English and Tamil for “A Central Free Tamil Lib…

The Government today slammed the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay and expressed confidence in the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussei. The Ministry of External Affairs said Pillay, who is scheduled to leave office at the end of this month, is making public pronouncements to the media on an investigation which has commenced only recently, and is a clear indication of personal bias. 'It is evidence of an attempt to influence the investigation process and make it follow a preconceived trajectory. She refers in her statement to a wealth of information outside Sri Lanka. This is the same wealt…

Says it will be ‘equal rights to all communities’ The solution that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has in mind for the Tamil quest for a greater say in their own fate — which he said soon after the war in 2009 that he will reveal at an appropriate time — involves “equal rights to all communities”. Ruling out granting minority Tamils of the North any political autonomy as a solution to the three-decades-long ethnic conflict, he said when people lived together in unity there should be no racial or religious differentiation. “It is not practical for this country to have different administrations based on ethnicity. The solution is to live together in this cou…

If the Indian Navy 'continues to fail to protect' Tamil Nadu fishermen from attacks by the Sri Lankan navy, the State government should then impart weapons training to fishermen to defend themselves from being hunted down on the high seas, Tamil Nationalist Movement leader, Pazha. Nedumaran has said. Speaking to reporters here on Saturday, Mr. Nedumaran said the transfer of 'Katchatheevu' to Sri Lanka did not have legal backing as the then government failed to get Parliament's consent for this transfer. Hence, the present Bharatiya Janata Party government should make all-out efforts to get back the strategic island from Sri Lanka, which was working clandest…

And then they came for the judges HIS foes accuse Mahinda Rajapaksa of many sins during his seven years as Sri Lanka’s president. They blame him for the savagery that cost so many civilian lives as his army defeated the rebel Tamil Tigers in 2009. They bridle at how he has carved up the government among his brothers, like a thriving family-run conglomerate. They resent the amendment of the constitution pushed through in 2010 to remove the limit on his tenure of two six-year terms, and to give himself legal immunity and the final say in appointments to the civil service, the judiciary and the police. And they suspect his regime of connivance in the beatings, disap…