Colombo, Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan air force jets bombed two ethnic Tamil rebel positions Wednesday, a day after troops killed three insurgents in separate clashes as they continued their campaign to capture two main rebel strongholds, the military said. 

Fighter jets targeted the rebels at two locations where they had been resisting government troops trying to advance into their de facto capital of Kilinochchi, the military said in a statement. It did not give casualty details.

Colombo: Sri Lanka has expressed its willingness to initiate a railway link with neighbouring India via the north-western coastal Mannar Island, which is located a few nautical miles away from India's pilgrim town of Rameshwaram.  

Transport Minister Dulles Alahapperuma has told Parliament that although there was a "quantitative growth" in all modes of transportation, such increase had not taken place in a uniform manner.  

"We have a dream of constructing a railway corridor from Sri Lanka to India via Mannar…. We may not be able to realise it during our regime but we hope to initiate the project," Minister Alahapperuma said during the budget debate in Parliament Tuesday.

by Zacki Jabbar

in New Delhi

A Sri Lankan architecture student, who won first prize in Holcims Sustainable Construction "Next Generation’ Europe competition in Madrid was commended during last week’s awards ceremony for the Asia Pacific Region, in New Delhi.

Semini Samarasinghe, from Kandy, who studies architecture in the United Kingdom, was invited by the Holcim Foundation to participate in the New Delhi ceremony. Her achievement was mentioned just before the Asia Pacific winners were announced.

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Human suffering and miseries being witnessed in the war in Sri Lanka should not be used as a pretext to call for a ceasefire, since they are part of the LTTE’s strategies, said Arular Arudpragasam, the chairman of the Eelam Revolutionary Organisers (EROS) and Eelavar Democratic Front (EDF). 

“The LTTE is duty-bound to face the Sri Lankan Army. The war cannot be stopped without fulfilling the objectives that actually led to it,” he told reporters on Wednesday. The London based Mr. Arudpragasam, now in Chennai, said LTTE leader Prabakaran had agreed to a ceasefire under pressure from India.

Courtesy: Hindu