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 »
Posts Categorized: History
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 »
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: Obituary – Mangala Samaraweera
by Tamil Guardian View, London, August 26, 2021 Mangala Samaraweera, a formidable figure in Sri Lankan politics who previously held several ministerial posts, passed away from COVID-19 at a private hospital in Colombo this week. News of his death was met with international tributes from senior political figures worldwide, including the United States, UK, Europe and… Read more »
Postscript on Mullaitivu Falls to Tamil Forces in 1803
by By V P Lingajothy Esq, August 25, 2021 Mullaitivu Falls to the Tamil Forces 210 Years Ago Today Postscript: After writing the above historical essay on Vanni on the 25th of August 2013 in order to commemorate the 210th year anniversary of the capture of Mullaitivu fort by Pandaravanniyan and allied forces led by… 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
Letter by FeTA-UK to Aid Agencies in 1996
by Federation of Tamil Associations in the UK, March 31, 1996 Fed Tamil Assoc UK 1996 Letter SL military budget 1996
Robert Knox Was Held Captive in Kandy
For nineteen and a half years King Rajasinghe II held him in captivity in the Kandyan Kingdom from 1660 till he escaped through Vanni in 1679 by R Shanmugananthan, August 10, 2021 Robert Knox held captive in Kandy
In Sri Lanka, The COVID Response is Exacerbating Religious & Ethnic Tensions
by Mark Leon Goldberg, UN Dispatch in cooperation with Stanley Center for Peace & Security, June 22, 2021 Podcast interview with J.S. Tissainayagam at In Sri Lanka, The COVID Response is Exacerbating Religious and Ethnic Tensions | UN Dispatch In May 2009, the long running civil war in Sri Lanka ended with the defeat of… Read more »
TG: Echoes of the Past
by Tamil Guardian, London, July 23, 2021 This year marks 38 years since Black July: the anti-Tamil pogrom where thousands of Tamils were killed by brutal state-supported Sinhala mobs. It was a week of violence that saw Tamils murdered, tortured and displaced. It remains a premeditated and meticulously coordinated act of genocide. The remnants of… Read more »
Yet Another Incident in July 1983
by Basil Fernando, TamilNet, July 24, 2008 A poem, based on an eye-witness account of an event during 1983 pogrom captures the determination of a Tamil father at the time of his agonising death. The poem by Basil Fernando, a Sinhala lawyer, encapsulates the impelling spirit of the Tamil struggle of the post-pogrom years. Mr…. Read more »
The Origins of the Great Divergence
A review of Peer Vries’ “Escaping poverty” by Branko Milanovic, his personal Substack, July 22, 2021 While the world is witnessing global convergence (essentially the catch up of Asia with the West), the debates about the origins of the Great Divergence—the take-off of the West and absence of growth in the Rest—are going strong. I… Read more »
Who Are the Tamil People?
by Curiosity Stream, June 19, 2021
Review of ‘Methagu’ Film
by Arul MurugesaPandian, July 5, 2021 The most important factor about this movie is its timing. While a concerted effort is being made by nefarious forces to discredit the genuine liberation struggle of Eelam Tamils, this sincere effort to document the root causes of the armed struggle is a fitting reply. The Family Man –… Read more »
Report of the Consultation Task Force, Nov. 2016
by Consultation Task Force, Sri Lanka, November 17, 2016 CTF-Final-Report-Volume-I-Nov-16 As the Secretariat for Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanisms no longer has a website and our link to this report of the Consultation Task Force at Consultation Task Force Final Report – Ilankai Tamil Sangam no longer works, we are posting the PDF here. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A…. Read more »
Remembering the Jaffna Public Library
“A city’s public library is the eye of the city by which the citizens are able to behold the realness of their heritage, and behold the still greater greatness of their future.” … Read more »
India Today 1986: ‘Profile of a Tiger
by India Today, 1986
Inside Camps, Outside Battlefields
Security and Survival for Tamil Women by Nimmi Gowrinathan, St Antony’s International Review, 9, no. 1 (2013): 11-32, Oxford, UK Gowrinathan Inside Camps Outside Battlefields 2013 Abstract In May of 2009, images of displaced Tamil people trapped behind the barbed wireof internment camps flashed across the world. “Everybody wanted to get out of those camps, but they… Read more »
Hardeep Singh Puri
Hardeep Singh Puri is now India’s Union Home Minister grappling with the pandemic. At one time he was the Indian High Commission’s First Secretary in Colombo. On May 17, 2020 last year he tweeted: I was a young First Secy (Political) at the Indian High Commission in Colombo in 1987 when I met V. Prabhakaran… Read more »