‘Could you call this country a Sinhala or Sinhala Buddhist Country’ by Daily Mirror Online, Colombo, December 6, 2021 Q Recently in Parliament the words “Tamil Homeland” and “Tamil National Leader Prabhakaran” were used and objected to by the Government Members who wanted those words to be expunged from the Hansard. The Chairman of that… Read more »
The Tragic and Needless Destruction of Raj Rajaratnam
Price-Giver Extraordinaire by Jim Tamney, Forbes, New York, December 8, 2021 Years ago, and while at a dinner in New York City, the subject of “insider trading” came up. A woman who had formerly worked in Royal Dutch Shell’s headquarters had an interesting anecdote to convey about trading on material non-public information (MNPI). She’d worked… Read more »
TLHR Hearing: Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka
by Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, US House of Representatives, Washington, DC, December 8, 2021 Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka | Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (house.gov) Announcement Please join the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission for a hearing on accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic multi-religious state that… Read more »
Karthigai Deepam: The Light of the Gods
by Anuradha Srinivasan, Sri Lalitam Trust, Pondicherry, December 6, 2021 Rows of unlit lamps dot both sides of the street, all the way to the village temple tank. Women dressed in colourful silk saris, draw intricate geometric patterns, or kolams, at the entrance to their house. In the centre of each kolam stands a kuthu… Read more »
From Sachi’s Files – Chapter 19
A 1985 Report on Rajiv Gandhi and Tamil Insurgency by Sachi Sri Kantha, December 5, 2021 Front Note by Sachi A report on Rajiv Gandhi and the Tamil Insurgency, May 17, 1985 Sometime back, while trawling the net on Eelam Tamil militancy, I picked up a ‘Sanitized Copy approved for release on 2010/11/08: CIA-RDP85T01058R000406330001-0’, from… Read more »
Remembering the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact of 1957
by Tamil Guardian, London, July 26, 2020 Bandaranaike and Chelvanayakam in 1957. On 26th July 1957, Sri Lankan Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike and the leader of the Federal Party SJV Chelvanayakam signed a deal, that contained provisions for the recognition of Tamil as the language of administration for the Northern and Eastern provinces, which came to be… Read more »
Meeks, McCaul Urge State Department to Prioritize Political Solution
in Engagement with Sri Lanka by US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair & Ranking Member, December 3, 2021 https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2021/12/meeks-mccaul-urge-state-department-to-prioritize-political-solution-in-engagement-with-sri-lanka Washington, DC – Today, Representatives Gregory W. Meeks and Michael McCaul, Chair and Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging the Administration to prioritize in… Read more »
Sangam Global Dec. 4
www.sangam.global Saturday, December 4 11:00 am EST (US & Canada) 4:00 pm BST (UK) 9:30 pm IST (Tamil Nadu & Eelam) 10:30 pm Myanmar * Live links YouTube Facebook
Prabhakaran’s Critics
An Alphabetical Assembly by Sachi Sri Kantha, November 22, 2021 Front Note by Sachi I contributed this commentary to this site on Nov.19, 2004, to celebrate V. Prabhakaran’s 50th birthday. Now, 17 year later, I reproduce it without altering a word, in memory of Velupillai Kumar Pancharatnam, aka George Master (1936-2021), a postmaster who had… Read more »
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 »
‘Early Indians’ Review
Who we are and where do we come from by Sujatha Byravan, ‘TheHindu,’ Chennai, January 19, 2019 A compelling story of new DNA findings, tracing the people of India from prehistory to near history Between 45,000 and 20,000 years ago, most of humanity lived in South Asia, reflecting the unmatched population expansion of people living… Read more »
FeTNA 2021 Today
by Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America, November 19, 20, 21 www.YouTube.com/FeTNA/live காலை நிகழ்ச்சிகள் நாள்: நவம்பர் 20 – சனிக்கிழமை நேரம்: 9 AM EST – 1 PM EST தமிழ்த்தாய் வாழ்த்து மறை ஓதுதல் பேரவை விழாப் பண் வரவேற்புரை ஒருங்கிணைப்பாளர் உரை தலைமைக் குழு அறிமுகம் அமைச்சர் PTRP தியாகராஜன்/ ராஜமாணிக்கம் CEO Tata OSAT உரை திரை நட்சத்திரங்களின் நேரம் ஹூஸ்டன் தமிழ் இருக்கை நிகழ்வு சான்றோரைப் போற்றுவோம்- பரிதிமாற் கலைஞரின்… Read more »
North-Eastern Diplomacy of the Rajapaksas
by Jathindra, Uthayam News, Jaffna November 10, 2021 [Translation from the original Tamil by Google Translate] Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently opened a new international airport in Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, India. Kushinagar is believed to be the final resting place of Gautama Buddha. Namal Rajapaksa, the son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, was present at the event along… Read more »
Interview by an IDP in 2009
Interview of an IDP by MANISATNEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM (originally on YouTube) in Tamil in 2009 Figurative translation into English by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, Ph.D. (Cornell) in November 2021 The host warned the young people who are not strong enough to see tragic scenes not to watch. She said that what you are about to see is what the… Read more »
TG: Remembering Raviraj
15 years and still no justice by Tamil Guardian, London, November 10, 2021 Today marks 15 years since Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP and human rights lawyer, Nadarajah Raviraj was assassinated in Colombo. Mr Raviraj was shot in Colombo at close range by unidentified gunmen on a motorbike at around 8:30am on November 10 2006, as… Read more »
Aubrey Collette’s 1950s’ Political Cartoons Revisited
by Sachi Sri Kantha, November 3, 2021 I like political cartoons. Nine years ago, in Sept. 15, 2012, I wrote a column entitled, ‘On Sri Lankan Political Cartoonists, stray dogs and hypocrites’ in which I had commented about cartoonists Hasantha Wijenayake and Jiffry Yoonoos. [https://sangam.org/on-sri-lankan-political-cartoonists-stray-dogs-and-hypocrites/] Prior to that, in November 2006, I had contributed a… Read more »
Sangam Global Nov. 6
www.sangam.global Saturday, November 6 10:30 am EST (US & Canada) 3:30 pmpm BST (UK) 8:00 pm IST (India & Sri Lanka) * Live links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilIRnB4O2Gk https://www.facebook.com/sangamglobal.live Program details at www.sangam.global
Poet Kannadasan: Autobiographical Notes
Of pre-1943 period translated by Sachi Sri Kantha, October 25, 2021 Front Note by Sachi 40th death anniversary of King Poet Kannadasan (1927-1981) passed by on October 17th. Among his numerous books, two autobiographical memoirs, Vana Vaasam (1965, 376 pp) and Mana Vaasam (1980, 228 pp) stands out. Vana Vaasam covers the period of Kannadasan’s… Read more »
Zero Performance of Tamil Parties
And their leaders N.B. Not to say that Tamil leaders could not do a lot better than their current splintered disarray, but we’d like to quote a frequent comment by a member of our editorial committee – “One can’t blame Tamil leaders for not accomplishing much, since they hold no power.” — Editor by Thambu… 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 »