by Minoli de Soysa, Groundviews, Colombo, November 29, 2022 They are a small, tight knit community held together by their shared suffering and insurmountable difficulties. Ever since the start of the 1983 civil war, their lives have been marked by tragedy and misery. The 22 families who live in the village of Kanchanamutti in the… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Demography
Thaainilam – Land Grabbing
The Real Pandemic for the Tamils in Sri Lanka – Documentary Film Youth Panel Discussion Sept.25, 2021 on ThaaiNilam: Land Grabbing Documentary at Film Premiere
Sinhalese Settlements and Forced Evictions of Tamils in the North-East Province
by Dr. Chelvadurai Manogaran, TamilNation, UK, June 1, 2000 The planned settlement of Sinhalese peasants in the North-East Province has threatened the economic, social and cultural future of Sri Lanka’s Tamils and undermined the political power they have wielded in the province where they have a long-established history of settlement. Don Stephen Senanayake, the first… Read more »
Urban Poverty Triples in Sri Lanka amid Enduring Crisis
by Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu, Chennai, October 11, 2022 World Bank flags need for higher social security in the island As Sri Lankans continue braving their worst economic crisis since Independence, urban poverty on the island has tripled in the last year, from 5% to 15 %, according to a recent World Bank report. Sri… Read more »
Tsunami Disaster in the Island of Sri Lanka
by Tamil Centre for Human Rights, Paris, date unknown, but probably 2005 (info in 2nd & 3rd tables are as of March 10, 2005) Tamil Centre for Human Rights – TCHR Centre Tamoul pour les Droits de l’Homme Email : tchrgs /A_T/ tchr /D_O_T/ net / tchrdip /A_T/ tchr /D_O_T/ net Website : www.tchr.net A… Read more »
Potential Impacts of Sea-Level Rise upon the Jaffna Peninsula
How Climate Change Can Adversely Affect the Coastal Zone by Tharani Gopalakrishnan, Lalit Kumar, Journal of Coastal Research, J. of Coastal Research, 36(5):951-960 (2020). May 26, 2020 Abstract Gopalakrishnan, T. and Kumar, L., 2020. Potential impacts of sea-level rise upon the Jaffna Peninsula, Sri Lanka: How climate change can adversely affect the coastal zone. Journal of Coastal Research, 36(5),… Read more »
BTF Exhibit in Geneva
by British Tamils Forum, March 2022 Exhibition & Demonstration at UN Human Rights Council in Geneva March 31 & April 1, 2022 Information displayed at exhibition –> Land Occupied by Government Department in North in Acres Land grab P 3 FINAL Land grab P 4 FINAL
An Ancient Harappan Genome
Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers by Vasant Shinde, Vagheesh M. Narasimhan, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Matthew Mah, Mark Lipson, Nathan Nakatsuka, Nicole Adamski, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Matthew Ferry, Ann Marie Lawson, Megan Michel, Jonas Oppenheimer, Kristin Stewardson, Nilesh Jadhav, Yong Jun Kim, Malavika Chatterjee, Avradeep Munshi, Amrithavalli Panyam, Pranjali Waghmare, Yogesh Yadav, Himani… Read more »
Banishment and Belonging
Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon (2019) Book Review by Greg Fealy, New Mandala, June 29, 2020 Ronit Ricci, Banishment and Belonging: Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019, 282pp, ISBN 978-1-108-72724-2. For well over a century, Sri Lanka was the Dutch colonial administration’s main site of exile for… Read more »
How 50% of Tamil Land Has Been Taken
by the Sinhalese by MK Sachithananthan, ‘Kanthalaham,’ 834 Anna Chalai, Chennai 800 002, [date unknown, but after 1995] M K Sachithananthan History of Land Grab
Racial Prejudice Rears Its Head in Singapore
Imperfect harmony The city state is less racially harmonious than its government likes to think by The Economist, London, July 31, 2021 DAVE PARKASH and his girlfriend were strolling down the street one evening in June when an irate man accosted them. Tan Boon Lee accused Mr Parkash of “preying” on his girlfriend, whom Mr Tan,… Read more »
Atrocities Cast Shadow on Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 Response
by J.S. Tissainayagam, Stanley Center for Peace & Security, Iowa, USA, May 17, 2021 Ranjini,* a housewife, lives in Kilinochchi, a town in Sri Lanka’s Tamil-majority Northern Province. Earlier this year, the government began vaccinating the public against COVID-19. But this has made her fearful: she is not sure if she will be injected with… Read more »
Amnesty: Sri Lanka Struggles to Respond Effectively to COVID-19 Third Wave
by Amnesty International, London, June 10, 2021 Index number ASA 37/4262/2021 Amnesty Sri Lanka Struggles to Respond to Covid 3rd Wave ASA3742622021ENGLISH [pdf] As several countries with access to vaccines lift restrictions and seem to be coming out of the pandemic, Covid-19 continues to pose significant challenges in South Asia and beyond, and Sri Lanka… Read more »
Fears over Sri Lanka’s Rising Coronavirus cases and its Militarised response
‘We are bracing ourselves’ by Thusiyan Nandakumar, Tamil Guardian, London, May 4, 2021 Amidst a devastating wave of coronavirus in India, across the Palk Strait in Sri Lanka infections have also been rapidly rising, with newly diagnosed cases breaking records every day. Clusters are now appearing across the island, sparking fears not only of a… Read more »
Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees in India
Conceptual Framework of Repatriation Success by Miriam George, Anita Vaillancourt, and s. Irudaya Rajan, Refuge, Vol. 36, No.3, 2016 Sri Lankan Refugees in India Repatriation Success 2016 Abstract Repatriation to Sri Lanka has become a primary challenge to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Indian refugee camps, and a matter of significant public discussion in India… Read more »
P2P Demands & Pledge
by North East Civil Society Forum, February 7, 2021 P2P Demands and Pledge Pottuvil to Polikandy (P2P) – Demands and Pledge 1) We Tamils have been fighting for over seventy years for self Determination. We are a nation of people living in the merged North and East in the island of Ceylon. We have our… Read more »
Strategies for the Renaissance of Irrigation Glory
by Nimal Wijesinghe, Daily News, Colombo, February 27, 2021 There is an awakening in the field of irrigation development in the country. The ancient kings treated rainwater as a highly precious national asset and constructed small, medium and large-scale tanks and anicuts for collecting and storing every drop of rainwater for irrigational, agricultural and drinking… Read more »
Opening Yan Oya Project Delayed
Families await compensation [Note that this article says the project is in Anuradhapura District, while in 2017, this Colombo Page article says it is in North Central & will irrigate land in both Anuradhapura District & Trincomalee District.] by Daily News, Colombo, February 26, 2021 A major inter-provincial Irrigation in Sri Lanka awarded to China… Read more »
Land and the National Question in Sri Lanka
by N. Shanmugaratnam, Groundviews.org, Colombo, July 13, 2012 Image courtesy Sainthan Sivanesan on 500px I am thankful to the Norwegian Tamil Study Forum for inviting me to address this Workshop and am looking forward to listening to the main speakers. In this brief intervention I wish to make some general comments and raise a few issues,… Read more »
A History of the Jaffnese Community in Klang, Malaysia
by Mr. Sivananthiram Alagandram, date unknown Transformation of the Jaffna Community in Klang,1900-1950. They arrived as a minority towards the end of the 19th Century in Klang from an agrarian background and by 1950, the community had transformed itself into an affluent middle-class society and as a community to be reckoned with. The Royal Town of… Read more »