Military parade for Kumaratunge postponed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 November 2005, 14:32 GMT]
A farewell military parade by all three armed forces to the outgoing Sri Lanka President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge has been postponed indefinitely as heavy rains flooded the main parade field of the army head quarters, military sources said.
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UNP to hold postmortem on presidential poll defeat

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 November 2005, 17:20 GMT]
The working committee and parliamentary group of the main opposition United national Party (UNP) are to meet this week to decide its future course of action following the defeat at the presidential poll held on Thursday, Mr.Tissa Attanayake, UNP Assistant General Secretary said at a press briefing Sunday.
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Rajapakse swears in as new President of Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 November 2005, 12:51 GMT]
President Mahinda Rajapakse was sworn in as the fifth executive President of Sri Lanka before the Chief Justice Sarath N Silva at the Presidential Secretariat at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. Mahinda Rajapakse, who hails from the southern district of Hambantota, in his first symbolic speech said his priority was to begin talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and strengthen the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA).
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SL Presidential Polls: Near Fizzle-Out in North East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 November 2005, 10:14 GMT]
Very low attendance of voters was reported at the cluster-polling booths in the North-East as the voting in Sri Lanka to elect the fifth executive president began at 7:00 a.m Thursday. Situation in Jaffna remained calm in complete contrast to the polls eve marred with grenade attack incidents in the peninsula. At least six grenade incidents were reported in Batticaloa-Amparai. Two Tamil civilians were killed in Kalmunai. The voting continued till 4:00 p.m. Security was tightened throughout the country.


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SLA soldiers dishonor GA permits at checkpoint -TNA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 November 2005, 18:08 GMT]
Soldiers manning the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) checkpoints at Kaddaiparichchan and Mahindapura in Muttur east and Eachchilampathu division are not honoring permits issued by the Trincomalee Government Agent to non-governmental organizations and other agencies to take building materials to LTTE held areas to implement approved reconstruction and rehabilitation projects, said Mr.K.Thurairatnasingham, Trincomalee district parliamentarian in a letter faxed to President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge Tuesday.
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UPFA submits budget

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 November 2005, 13:04 GMT]
Finance Minister of the United Peoples Alliance (UPFA) government, Dr Sarath Amunugama, submitted Tuesday afternoon the second and the last budget under the Presidency of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge in Sri Lanka Parliament, parliamentary sources said. Opposition United National Party (UNP), Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF) and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) boycotted the event.
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SL President to attend Dhaka SAARC summit

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 November 2005, 15:43 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge will lead the Sri Lanka delegation to the forthcoming thirteenth South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) Summit at Dhaka, Bangladesh, scheduled for 12-13 November 2005. The delegation includes Mr.Anura Bandaranaike, Foreign Minister and senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Commerce and the Presidential Secretariat, said a press release issued Monday in Colombo.
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Realignment of Sinhala Nationalist forces spells trouble for SL Peace- Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 November 2005, 00:05 GMT]
"Radicalisation of Sri Lanka polity resulting in the realignment of Sinhala Nationalist forces as witnessed by the new coalitions formed for Sri Lanka's presidential elections, raises the spectre of nationlist politics of the 50s and is leading towards imminent collapse of the peace process," said Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, addressing a forum on Sri Lanka's Peace prospects, held in Washington D.C Friday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
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Maharouf appointed NEPC Agriculture Secretary

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 October 2005, 23:33 GMT]
Mr. A.R.M.Maharouf, an experienced agronomist and Director at Socio-Economics and Planning Centre (SEPC), was appointed Secretary to the North East Provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Land with effect from October 26 by North East Provincial Governor Mr.Tyronne Fernando, at an event held at the provincial secretariat in Trincomalee town Wednesday evening.
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SL President, Opposition Leader meet

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 October 2005, 17:03 GMT]
"Both agreed on the importance of all major political parties working together in order to resolve the country's most troubled issue, that of war and peace," said a press release issued by the Presidential House after the meeting with Sri lanka's President Ms Kumaratunge and the Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe on Monday.
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Rajapakse manifesto released

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 October 2005, 10:52 GMT]
Mr.Mahinda Rajapakse, presidential candidate of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) released his manifesto at an event held in the BMICH at an event held Tuesday morning in the Bandaranaike International Memorial Conference Hall (BMICH). The manifesto said that an ultimate solution to the ethnic crisis could only be reached through negotiations and not through war and that a settlement based on a unitary state is the basis to the ethnic crisis.


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CWC ministers resign from UPFA cabinet

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 16:30 GMT]
Parliamentarians Mr.Muthu Sivalingam and Mr.M.S.Sellasamy of the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) Monday evening handed over their resignation letters to Mr.W.J.S.Karunaretna, Secretary to the President from the ministry posts. Mr.Muthu Sivalingam was holding the post of Minister of Community Development and Estate Sector Infrastructure and Mr.Sellasamy the post of Deputy Minister.
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JVP's economic policy criticized by Sri Lanka's FM

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 October 2005, 15:19 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister and the brother of SL President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge, Mr. Anura Bandaranaike, slammed at the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna's (JVP) economic policy and their stance with regard to the scuttled P-TOMS at a press briefing held at his official residence Visumpaya Monday morning.
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NorthEast teachers, principals felicitated on World Teachers Day

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 October 2005, 11:17 GMT]
131 teachers, 35 principals and 14 in-service advisors selected from all the twenty four education zones in the eight districts of the northeast province were felicitated for their services towards the development of education, at an event organized by the Provincial Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Colombo Ministry of Education and held Thursday at Trincomalee St.Mary's Girls College auditorium, sources said.


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Doyen of FP, uncompromising on Tamil National question

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 October 2005, 00:16 GMT]
Are leaders of Sinhala community prepared to share state power with Tamils? Mr. V. Navaratnam, the only surviving founder member of the Federal Party that provided political leadership to Tamils for more than three decades since it was formed in 1949, and described as the brain behind FP, shared with TamilNet his views on Tamil National struggle. The doyen of Tamil politics who negotiated with the father of the incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunge and other Sri Lanka leaders for sharing state power within a federal framework for almost three decades turns 96-years this month in Montreal, Canada. He also inked the Bandaranaiyake Chelvanayagam pact.
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CWC ministers to resign, extend support to Ranil

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 October 2005, 05:13 GMT]
Mr.Armugam Thondaman, CWC leader said at a media briefing Wednesday morning that the party's two ministers would tender their resignations from the UPFA government. He said the CWC has decided to support UNP leader Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe in the forthcoming presidential election. The CWC further announced the 19 proposals that should be included in the agenda by the new Government. One of the proposals has urged the new government to resolve the ethnic problem through extensive power-sharing mechanism. Mr.Thondaman said that the UNP has accepted the 19 demands of the CWC in this regard.
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Kumaratunge leaves for Paris

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 October 2005, 12:59 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge left for Paris Saturday morning to attend the 33rd session of the UNESCO General Conference to be held on 3 October, sources in Colombo said. UNESCO website said "The world's Ministers of Education will meet during UNESCO's General Conference in October to explore practical ways to address Education for All challenges by building on positive examples from different parts of the world."
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SLFP to begin work on manifesto

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 October 2005, 00:28 GMT]
The Central Committee of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Friday appointed a nine-member committee to draft the manifesto for the presidential election at a tensed meeting presided by Sri Lanka's President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge held at the Presidential House Friday, political sources said. The Manifesto has to be ratified by the Central Committee before it is officially released.
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Kumaratunge speech avoids reference to presidential polls

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2005, 15:19 GMT]
In the first public rally attended by Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunge since her return from the UN annual general meeting in New York on Tuesday, she avoided making statements in support of her party's Presidential candidate Premier Mahinda Rajapakse, sources said. The public rally was held to relaunch the Sri Lanka Transport Board at Nittambuwa on Wednesday.


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Discrimination in Bank recruitment, protests TNA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 September 2005, 11:06 GMT]
Mr.R.Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group and the Trincomalee district parliamentarian Sunday faxed a written protest to President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge calling for the cancellation of all appointments made by the State Banks, Bank of Ceylon (BoC) and Peoples Bank (PB) to their branches in the Tamil dominated NorthEast or that the new appointees be recalled "as this is a repetition of the regular discrimination that has been consistently practised against the Tamils in the matter of employment in the state sector including State Banks."
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