Posts Categorized: Biography

by M.K. Elaventhan, August 8, 2016 This is Father Thaninayagam’s 103rd birth anniversary and 36th death anniversary. Thaninayagam Thamil Thaninayagam Eng1  

Sri Lanka’s calendar is full of reminiscences from the bloody years. January is a month to remember the targeted killings of journalists under the previous government’s supervision. Impunity for these crimes against democracy prevails. In February attention is on independence, which opened up the doors for ethnical strife, in May it’s the end of the… Read more »

Mr. Arumugam Thevarajan, who was contributing to the language, history, culture, rights, media and social welfare of Eezham Tamils in the island and in the diaspora for nearly six decades, passed away in New Zealand on Wednesday at the age of 81. Joining the Ceylon government clerical service in the 1950s, and posted in the… Read more »

We are deeply saddened by the death of our founder, colleague and mentor Solomon Arulanandan David, who was known to the Tamil people as “David Iya” or “Gandhiyam David”. He suffered from illness in the last few years and was 92 years of age at the time of death. A qualified architect and town planner,… Read more »

Solomon Arulanandam “Gandhiyam” David [1924-2015] Men involved in our defeated movement always spoke about a man who was there at the beginning.  A man who guided the first generation of the Iyakkam.  A peaceful man who experienced the massacres at Welikade prison in 1983.  A man who the movement never abandoned – freeing him was… Read more »

2013 TEDx talk on social activism — Shanthi Sachithanandam – Visionary Of Social Change & Beautiful Human Being By Visakha Tillkeratne, ‘Colombo Telegraph,’ August 29, 2015 You went too soon………….. Shanthi, was the quintessential human being, multi-talented, multi-faceted and multi-tasking. A sparkling jewel, in looks and thought. A mother who had time to bring up… Read more »

‘Taraki’ aka D. Sivaram was killed on April 28, 2005.  In his memory, we urge all interested in Sri Lanka to read his biography by an American anthropologist, ‘Learning Politics from Sivaram.’ Book Review of Learning Politics from Sivaram by Michele Ruth Gambard, Portland State University in The Journal of Asian Studies Excerpt from book at http://new.sangam.org/2007/10/Sivaram_C-I_1.php Selected… Read more »

World Thamil Organization expresses its deep sympathy on the passing away of Mr. A. P. Venkateswaran http://worldthamil.org/?p=467 World Thamil Organization is shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the passing away of Mr. A. P. Venkateswaran, Former Foreign Secretary of the Indian Government. Mr. Venkateswaran was one of the rare, very few Indian Government officials… Read more »

Arunachalam Muruganantham TIME’s 100 Most Influential People : The entrepreneur who is an unlikely health crusader TED talks: How I Started a Sanitary Napkin Revolution BBC News Magazine: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

Mr. Reed was U.S. ambassador to the Indian Ocean island republic of Sri Lanka and the Maldives in 1976-77 and again from 1981 to 1985, serving the first stint under President Gerald R. Ford and his second under President Ronald Reagan.

At the time, the Sri Lankan government reportedly was seeking U.S. military equipment to combat the Tamil rebels who were fighting for an independent state in the northern part of the country. The bloody guerrilla war began in 1983 and lasted 26 years, until the government defeated the so-called Tamil Tigers. Tens of thousands of lives were lost on both sides in addition to environmental and economic destruction.

PA often differed from me and others regarding compromises between nationalistic tendencies and socialistic strategies, we nevertheless always recognised his positions were always anchored in his fundamental beliefs. PA said it clearly:
“For me oppression (whether it is violent or non-violent, armed or unarmed) is terrorism. Opposing oppression in any form is not terrorism and I am always at home to be on the side of resistance, whether enlightened by Marxism or not.”