By: Shanika Sriyananda

She could have breathed her last in few minutes or would have been tucked with other dead bodies of her colleagues. Found among 17 dead bodies, she sustained serious injuries in the stomach and the left arm, yet had the luck to live, thanks to the keen eyes of a soldier, who is fighting a battle to liberate thousands of Tamils from the brutal clutches of LTTE.

The fighting escalated at 5.30 am, as the LTTE was still holding ground at the A 32 Road towards Pooneryn. An eight man team of the Delta Company of the 11th Sri Lanka Light Infantry at the Task Force 1, led by Captain Lalantha Kollurage was taking their maximum effort to capture the LTTE bunkers at Paddaruyal Villu between the 10th and 11th mile posts which is three and half km East of the Ponneryn - Mannar main road. After hours long heavy fighting using RPG attacks, the team managed to gain control of the location in the wee hours of November 1, killing 17 LTTE cadres.

Colombo, (IANS) Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to brief Indian leaders on the progress made by an all-party committee on devolution of powers to the provinces during his visit to India to attend the second BIMSTEC summit starting Nov 13.The All Party Representative Committee (APRC) was set up in 2006 by Rajakapsa and is tasked to suggest a system of devolution of powers to end Sri Lanka's bloody ethnic war.The state-run Sunday Observer, quoting APRC chairman Tissa Vitharana, said that Sri Lanka was happy with the progress made by the committee and the Indian leaders would be briefed about it.

by: DAYAN JAYATILLEKA 

"…change this country, and change the world!" – Barack Obama

"He is a transformational figure coming onto the world stage"- Colin Powell

History sometimes hits a high note, sweet and soaring, clean and clear, as if from Satchmo’s horn. The most intelligent, interesting and inspirational of contemporary political personalities is about to be the President of the most powerful nation on the planet. Things will never be the same again. Obama will "electrify the world" predicted Colin Powell.

Obama’s achievement, in and of itself, already changes the world; is a step forward in socio-political achievement. No country however idiosyncratic or culturally narcissistic can live outside the stream of world history. This is more so in the Information Age— the era of "interconnectivity", as Obama terms it. The Obama Effect will be globalized, albeit unevenly. We shall all feel its push and pull factor.

Colombo, (IANS) Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa Thursday unveiled next year's budget that proposes to hike defence spending by nearly seven percent, demanding that the Tamil Tigers surrender their weapons to avoid making the military do so.This is the fourth budget to be presented by President Rajapaksa, who is also the minister of finance, after he was elected to office November 2005.“Even at this decisive moment, I request the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) terrorists to lay down their weapons and enter the democratic process. If they do not do so, our troops will take steps to bring them to their knees,” Rajapaksa, also the minister of defence and commander-in-chief of the armed force, said while making the budget speech.

Given below are extracts from a collection of articles and speeches made by Dr. Jayatilleka (from March 2008 up to now) in which he has made direct references to Barack Obama.  

• Extract taken from a speech given at the UN: Take Barack Obama’s historic speech as example in approaching racism, racial discrimination, appeals Sri Lankan ambassador Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka at UN Human Rights Council (26th March 2008)

  “A new way which puts us on a far higher analytical and ethical vantage point. A new way has opened up to regard and discuss these problems. I refer to the historic speech made by Barack Obama, confronting honestly but not aggressively, these phenomena in his own society, but with a far wider relevance than purely to his society alone. My appeal is that our own discussions, our search, our strivings in the inter-governmental working group, in other Durban related spaces, and in any discussion of this interrelated scourges, we must take into account and seek to emulate that example of Senator Obama which I personally consider to have opened up a new paradigm, may be even a new episteme, in discussing this subject.” 

Web link: Take Barack Obama’s historic speech as example in approaching racism, racial discrimination, appeals Sri Lankan ambassador Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka at UN Human Rights Council

The president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has expressed great pleasure at the success of the US president-elect Senator Barack Obama at the Tuesday’s elections.

The Sri Lankan president said he has been following Mr. Obama’s election campaign ‘closely’."I have been impressed by the freshness and candour that you introduced to the US political landscape and the hope that you generated in the United States, in particular, and the wider world, in general.

I am convinced that under your leadership, the United States, which has always been a beacon to the world on many an issue, will continue to provide that leadership in a re-invigorated manner,” a statement issued by the presidential secretariat quoted Mr. Rajapaksa.

by: Dr. Tissa Abeysekara

“Behind the fear were the hunger and the thirst, and behind the hunger and the thirst was fear again.”

Much has been said of how DA followed SWRD Bandaranaike across the well of the House of Parliament when the latter crossed-over into the Opposition ranks. For me there was a deep significance in that move. In that historic photograph, which I first saw as an unknowing little boy, D.A. Rajapaksa seems to follow Bandaranaike, effortlessly.

For him, it was coming home. Perhaps he was never easy within the ranks which represented the privileged class. With that memorable line opens Leonard Woolf’s novel, Village in the Jungle, which according to the great Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda is a masterpiece ‘both true to life and literature’. Woolf’s line as quoted above sums up with almost clinical precision the harsh and brutal nature of life in the arid deep south of Sri Lanka at the turn of the last century.

New York (IANS): A top US military official Wednesday commended the Sri Lankan military for its recent successes against the Tamil Tigers, whom Washington has designated as a terrorist group.'We are hopeful that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) would be a decreasingly important factor of much less reach than they are and have been in the past,' Admiral Timothy Keating, Commander of US Pacific Joint Command, told foreign correspondents in New York.As head of the US Pacific Command, with its headquarters in Hawaii, Keating is responsible for the US military operation ranging from Australia and New Zealand to China, Taiwan and Japan to India and Sri Lanka.

by:C. S. Poolokasingham  

SCOPP Deputy Secretary General remembers 

The late Dr. Premasiri Khemadasa, fondly known as ‘Master’, passed away at the age of 71 on October 24th at a private hospital in Colombo. He had been ailing for some time.
Recognising his contribution to the art world in Sri Lanka, the Government organised a funeral with state honours at Independence Square. Dr. Khemadasa’s remains were brought in a procession from his home in Rajagiriya, taking almost two hours to cover the short distance with many thousands of his followers accompanying the cortege.

I was asked to give the funeral oration in Tamil, having known and closely associated with Dr. Khemadasa and his family over the last 15 years. 

“Sooner the world realizes what the LTTE is doing with the IDPs, the better. It will help create a world opinion against the LTTE to release the civilians that they are trapping in the Wanni jungles to evade total annihilation at the hands of the State's security forces.”

by Nacholibre

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka, November 6 (UNHCR) –

As the tide of people uprooted by fighting in northern Sri Lanka continues to swell, there's overlooked good news in the east of the country: internally displaced people (IDPs) are returning home with help from the government, UNHCR and its partners.Some 230,000 persons are said to be displaced in the Kilinochchi and Mullativu districts as a result of intensified military operations to regain the last stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Humanitarian agencies have sent emergency supplies to feed the IDPs, most of whom are accommodated in the Mullativu district.

More humanitarian convoys carrying food and shelter material are planned during the coming weeks.Sri Lanka's east experienced a similar wave of displacement two years ago when government forces regained LTTE-held territories in the region. By the end of March 2007, some 170,000 people were reportedly displaced across the Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts.All but 11,000 IDPs in Batticaloa and more than 4,500 persons in Trincomalee have returned home since the start of the government-facilitated process last year, which has seen substantial improvements thanks to interventions by the UN refugee agency and other humanitarian agencies operating in the east.

Paris (Asiantribune.com):

A Photographic depiction of inhuman acts of terrorism committed by the Tamil Tigers has shocked the French public and officials and UNESCO ambassadors who visited the exhibition of photographs titled ‘Sri Lanka: Democracy and Challenges’ opened at the most prestigious Paris venue of Salle du Delegates at UNESCO on November 4.French military analyst General Allain Lomballe who opened the exhibition said that terrorism is the most serious challenge faced by many countries and even the most powerful nations are faced with difficulties in eradication of this global menace. He said that the democratic world should be united in the fight against terrorism.

by: Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

The Thimpu talks

Discussions with the LTTE began with what are termed the Thimpu talks in 1985. The LTTE and other militant groups attended along with the TULF, the main Tamil political party, elected to Parliament in 1977 but no longer there because they vacated their seats consequent to the 6^th amendment to the Constitution passed in 1983. In any case, following the anti-Tamil riots of 1983, influence amongst Tamils had passed from the TULF to militant groups, which all attended at Thimpu. Both sides claimed the intransigence of the other led to the breakdown of the talks. However, to quote Kethesh Loganathan, who represented one of the militant groups at the time, ‘The Tamil organizations took the position that the burden of presenting a broadly acceptable formula lay with Colombo.

The Tamil delegation, instead, subjected the Sri Lankan government delegation to a series of ‘lectures’ on what constitutes the ethnic question and as to why the burden lay with Colombo to come out with a solution “worthy of our consideration”’.Even more significantly, the LTTE used this period to strengthen itself at the expense of the other Tamil groups. They decimated the EPRLF and eliminated Sri Sabaratnam, the leader of TELO, and by the time the talks broke down had emerged as by far the most powerful of the groups.

The Navy rescued three Tamil families with their toddlers and teenage children accompanied by a male adult in the Eastern seas off Pulmudai in the wee hours of Wednesday. The group numbering 13 which includes 8 males and 5 females, had been fleeing from LTTE captivity in Mullaitivu on board a fibre glass dinghy flying a white flag for protection, evading the hawkish eyes of the LTTE cadres on the prowl, when they were encountered by the naval personnel who are exclusively deployed in the Northern seas as a part of the Navy’s humanitarian mission to rescue the fleeing innocent Tamil civilians, the Navy said.

The first family consisted of a father aged 47 and his two teenage children -a son aged 13 and a daughter aged 18. The second family comprised of two young parents -a father and a mother, both aged 22- and their baby son who is just 02 years of age. They were also accompanying their teenage brother aged 15 who was living with them for protection. The third family, which also consisted of young parents, a father and a mother aged 29 and 23 respectively, have two young daughters, of whom one is just five years and the other is barely one and half years of age.

Graham Whillans wants an itinerary that includes tea plantations and a driving tour of the country

Richard Green 

We are looking to visit Sri Lanka next year. Neither my wife, nor I, has been to the sub continent before, and we would rather like to have a car and driver and do a good tour of the country, hopefully see the tea plantations too. Can you suggest a suitable week-long good itinerary for us?

Graham Whillans, Wrexham

Sri Lanka tourism has designed a 'Ramayana tourist package' for the benefit of the travellers, especially from India, to visit more than 50 sites associated with the Ramayana epic in Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India C.R. Jayasinghe said. The package was officially launched in New Delhi in January this year. 

The enumeration of Ramayana sites in Sri Lanka is expected to spur thousands of Indians to visit Sri Lanka this year, especially since the Ramayana tourist package is an attractive travel package for such tourists.Sri Lanka is developing some of these places to narrate to the world the story of the revered epic and attract tourists from abroad, especially India, as Sri Lanka is the proud custodian of more than 50 sites related to the epic Ramayana.

"Efforts to mislead Wanni youth into the LTTE recruitment drive unravelled."

Major concerns have arisen among defence and humanitarian aid circles following a startling revelation made by the security forces now operating deep inside the LTTE territory in Kilinochchi. The findings have given cause for reasonable suspicions of the sort of 'humanitarian' activities conducted by some famed INGOs for years in the non-liberated Wanni region.

According to available evidence, it appears that the local propaganda newspapers, published by the LTTE, carried advertisements from international aid and relief organizations such as the ICRC, Save the Children and the Danish Refugee Council for vacancies in their organizations, alongside LTTE obituaries for its terrorist cadres, in the Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts.

by:B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan military on Tuesday claimed that troops operating in the western half of the Kilinochchi battle front reached a decisive stage in their mission and successfully sealed off over 90 per cent of the 80-km long north-western coast of the island.Following the recent liberation of Nachchikuda, the Task Force 1 now has continuous domination over 70 km stretch of the strategically vital Mannar- Pooneryn [A-32] road. According to the battlefield reports received so far, the Task Force 1 is now on an accelerated march towards Poonaryn, crushing remaining terrorist footholds on the north-western coast, said the Defence Ministry.

Electromobiles (Pvt) Ltd will manufacture solar powered electronic cars in Sri Lanka from next year. Speaking to Daily News Business CEO/ Managing Director of Electromobiles (Pvt) Ltd Gihan Wijethunga said they expect to commence commercial production of the car in May next year.

The company will invest Rs. 30 million for the project and the project will provide around 600 direct and indirect job opportunities.

This will be a passenger car with a solar powered panel fixed on top of the car and this solar panel will generate power to the car. This electronic car needs to be charged six to eight hours per day. It will cost only Rs. 20 to Rs. 25 per kilometre.

A fully charged car could run 120 kms and solar panels will generate additional energy on the way during sunny weather where it enables the car to run an additional 30 kms without any cost.

The Government will give priority to in developing the agricultural sector in the Eastern Province under the 'Eastern Reawakening' development drive as this region had contributed vastly to the agricultural prosperity of the country prior to the activities of the LTTE terrorists, Minister of Industrial Development, Kumara Welgama, noted at a discussion with the Chief Minister of Easter Province Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan. 

Minister Welgama said that measures will be taken to ensure that those engaged in the agricultural sector are provided all necessary facilities as per the especially stipulated "Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu" proviso in the 'Mahinda Chinthana'.