Valañciyaṉ-veḷi, Ainūṟṟuvaṉ-vaḷavu, Veḷańda-goḍa, Ūrvaṇikaṉ-paṟṟu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 October 2016, 21:34 GMT]
The open place of a member of the Vaḷañciyar merchant community

The premises of a member of the Ainūṟṟuvar merchant community

The mercantile village or the bank that has a mart/market place

The part under the control of a merchant of Ūrvaṇikaṉ identity
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Sirisena regime will not deliver acceptable solution without international intervention: ITAK MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 October 2016, 21:53 GMT]
In a revealing interview to TamilNet, S. Yogeswaran, a TNA parliamentarian representing ITAK in Batticaloa district categorically stated that the regime of Sirisena and Wickramasinghe, which was brought to power with the votes of Tamils, is not going to deliver a reasonable political solution satisfying the expectation of Tamils on its own without international intervention. “I don't speak for others. My conviction is that the Government will not deliver an acceptable solution for Tamils on its own,” he said. “There are a lot of steps to be taken,” and none of these have been achieved so far, he added. Austin Fernando, the governor of the East, installed after Sirisena became the president, was preoccupied with tracing every avenue to Sinhalicise the Batticaloa district. It has now been revealed that SL President Sirisena's Mahaweli ministry is behind the Sinhala colonisation, he said.
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Colombo deploys police ‘pistol squad’ in Jaffna to threaten Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 October 2016, 07:10 GMT]
Tamil political leaders, who are firm in calling for the de-militarisation of the Tamil homeland, have been avoiding to voice against the crimes being committed by Colombo's police system as they don't want to be interpreted as ‘Tamil extremists’ opposing everything coming from Colombo. But, the role played by the SL police in the war against Eezham Tamils has already been well exposed through the genocidal crimes committed by the notorious Special Task Force, a full-fledged military force administratively organised under the SL Police system. The SL police system operating in the North-East has long been the protecting agency of Sinhala colonists engaged in demographic genocide against the nation of Eezham Tamils. Under Sirisena’s rule, the SL police in North has deployed pistol squads roaming around and threatening the Tamils as demonstrated this week at Kokkuvil in Jaffna.
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Landless Tamils in Maanthai West should be given new lands: senior grassroots activist

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 October 2016, 16:25 GMT]
Various acts enacted by the colonial British rulers before 1948 had brought the public lands in the entire island into the domain of the Colombo-based State structure and its constitution, which was enacted without the democratic mandate of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the North-East. It was the so-called ‘Crown Lands Encroachment Ordinance’ that brought these lands, for which private ownership could not be documented, into Crown property in 1840. Later, in 1972, after the Sinhalese unilaterally enacted the genocidal State of ‘Sri Lanka’, amidst protests and without the democratic mandate of Eezham Tamils, a series of ‘land reforms’ were introduced by Colombo. Even these reforms brought after 1972 are now being violated by the SL State itself in seizing the lands of Tamils, says Seemanpillai Sountharanayakam, the deputy chairman of Maanthai West Divisional Council.
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Uprooted Tamils yet to resettle in Ampaa'rai village risk losing their lands

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 October 2016, 19:23 GMT]
The Divisional Secretary of Poththuvil, Mr N.M.Musharaf, has been harassing the Tamil families who were uprooted from Vadduve'li (P/11) GS division to forget resettlement in Ki'raval-kuzhi village as their lands are to be seized for ‘public purposes’, informed civil sources in Ampaa'rai told TamilNet on Wednesday. 173 Tamil families were uprooted from their native village in 1990 and they were reluctant to resettle due to persistent threat from the occupying military and police, especially after the massacre that took place in 1994 in close proximity to the SL Police station. The Divisional Secretary has now dashed the hopes of uprooted Tamils who have been waiting for a conducive situation to return to their lands.
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UN refugee agency discriminates against stateless Eezham Tamil refugees

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 October 2016, 22:43 GMT]
Around 100,000 uprooted and poverty-stricken refugees from the country of Eezham Tamils are staying in the camps in Tamil Nadu State in India. Apart from them, more than 200,000 Eezham Tamils, who are also uprooted due to the conflict in the island, are also living outside the camps in Tamil Nadu. Only 4,564 people, belonging to 1,854 families have returned back to Northern Province. Most of the people returned to the island within the last five years the UN refugee agency UNHCR complain that they have been abandoned by the agency and the authorities. People who have returned to Vavuniyaa complain that Sinhala colonisers had seized their lands and that they are now let to look after themselves without any programmes of resettlement. The UN agency was only interested in paying the travel expenses. The returnees complain that they have not heard anything from the UNCHR after that.
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Colombo stands further exposed by contradictory messages from SL President, Foreign Minister

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 October 2016, 23:20 GMT]
The continued seizure of pasturelands in Koa'ra'lippattu South (Kiraan) division in Batticaloa, where dairy farmers with more than 150,000 are forced to take to the streets. The land grab is a wide-scale issue across North-East, causing increased ethnic tension. Social problems are on increase as many families in the district have fallen victims to the vicious circle of bank loans and debts after 2009. In the meantime Colombo government’s poverty alleviation ‘Samurdhi’ programme stocks savings of people amounting to 2,500 millions of rupees at the banks without being utilized. And the war-affected people are being told that their perpetrators will not be subjected to criminal investigations even if they were to be identified. SL President and SL Foreign Minister speak differently. Justice is far from the island, says S. Sivayoganathan, the president of NGO Forum in the district.
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Sinhala colonisers in Batticaloa challenge officials with Sirisena-issued land permits

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 October 2016, 23:01 GMT]
A group of government officials belonging to various departments including the officials from Mahaweli ‘development’ authority, which comes under the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, were confronted by the Sinhala settlers, who claimed the lands were given to them by none other than Mr Maithiripala Sirisena, when he was serving under Mahinda Rajapakasa a few years ago. The officials were on a fact-finding mission to Mayilaththa-madu and Maathava'nai pasturelands, situated in the interior Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division in Batticaloa district. The visit took place on 25 September after repeated complaints coming from Tamil dairy farmers in the division. However, there was no sign of action from the authorities, the farmers told TamilNet on Sunday.
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People rise up against occupation of Vidaththal-theevu at DDS meeting

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 October 2016, 23:36 GMT]
Former Deputy Chairman of Maanthai West Divisional Council S. Soundaranayagam and rural representatives of various organisations across Maanthai West division in Mannaar on Friday confronted the co-chairs of Divisional Development Committee meeting and the Divisional Secretary of Maanthai West against the structural genocide prevailing in their division. Unable to defend the Colombo system, the co-chairs were forced to conclude the meeting with the decision of instructing the Divisional Secretary M. Sriskanthakumar to officially inform the SL Navy to immediately vacate Vidaththal-theevu jetty and the properties belonging to resettled Tamil fishing families.
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Colombo steps up hate campaign against Wigneswaran

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 September 2016, 21:29 GMT]
The Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council was only raising questions in a cautious speech at Ezhuka Thamizh uprising on Saturday. Justice C.V. Wigneswaran didn't even refer to the Genocide Resolution passed unanimously by the elected NPC assembly. Further, the resolution drafted by the organisers was limiting the scope of the Tamil aspiration just at self-rule, an out-dated demand which was abandoned by the late Tamil leader S.J.V Chelvanayakam in favour of Tamil sovereignty-centred aspiration as he realised that Colombo would never reconcile with Tamils without any compulsion beyond the parameters of SL parliamentary politics. Now, Wigneswaran asking simple questions with a mobilised mass, is being intentionally projected as ‘extremism’ by Colombo, commented Tamil activists in Vavuniyaa, who witnessed a hate campaign by Sinhala Buddhists in their town on Friday.
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Monk sets ablaze Hindu temple as Maithiripala proclaims ‘Buddhist Sri Lanka’ at UN

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2016, 23:01 GMT]
A Sinhala Buddhist monk from the so-called ‘Pashana Pabbatha Rajamaha viharaya’, which has been put up with a Sinhala name in the occupied Tamil village of Kalladi in the Eastern province by occupying Colombo after 2009, set ablaze the building of a Madam (mutt) of Malai-neeli-Amman temple (the dark goddess of the hill) on Tuesday. It happened within a week after the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena addressed the UN General Assembly in New York claiming the island as a Buddhist country. Eechchilam-patttai (Verukal) is the south most coastal Tamil division in the Trincomalee district bordering Batticaloa and was under the de-facto Tamil Eelam civil administration during the times of the LTTE. The division is now facing Sinhala-Buddhist occupation from Seruvila and Welikanda. Sirisena's ‘Mahaweli’ ministry is spearheading the structural genocide in the area.
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Criticism emerges in Jaffna over USA training SL military, IC soft-pedalling Tamil genocide

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2016, 23:18 GMT]
In spite of all the accusations against the Sri Lankan government of war-crimes and other atrocities committed during the war, USA and other governments continue to have naval and military exercises with the Sri Lankan forces, as they also had these trainings with the SL military during the regime of the Mahinda Rajapaksa, said Rev Fr S.V.B. Mangalarajah, the chairman of the Commission for Justice & Peace of the Catholic Diocese in Jaffna in a follow-up video interview to TamilNet after the Ezhuka Thamizh uprising held in Jaffna. The implied message coming from the veteran human rights activist based in Jaffna was that the international community and its approach towards the national question of Tamils in the island was lopsided and unless that problem is seriously addressed by Tamils, the SL Government and the South would not deliver anything substantial for Tamils.
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Hīnaṭi-pana, Kīra-panē, Nāraň-panāva

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2016, 16:13 GMT]
The place or field of Hīnaṭi paddy

The place or field of leaf vegetables

The place or field of orange trees
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Ezhuka Thamizh has sent sharp message to all corners: Fr Ravichandran

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 September 2016, 18:36 GMT]
The main message coming from the ‘Ezhuka Thamizh’ uprising, especially from the people, who participated in their thousands, was that Tamils on the ground were not prepared to compromise their collective demand for self-rule in a merged North-East, said Jaffna-based human rights and civil activist Rev. Fr. M.V.E. Ravichandran in a video interview to TamilNet on Monday. Tamils reject the unitary system and the message has now been conveyed clearly to all the corners, he said. “Tamils want to live as a People and they don't want their cultural and national identity erased in any way. They are opposed to structural genocide,” the director of Jaffna Diocesan Catholic Youth Federation further said. Tamils should be given the right to appoint international judges to ensure the credibility of any model of investigations with international participation, he said.
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Sin of US, UN in Eezham War sets paradigm for Russia in Syrian War

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2016, 18:12 GMT]
If the US bandwagon and the UN are really keen in seeking peace and justice in Syria, they should first set their paradigm right, by bringing in expeditious international justice to the war crimes and genocide committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils and by openly acknowledging the sin of their sponsorship in the Vanni War. Without that, shedding crocodile tears for the grave sufferings of the Syrian civilians, or coming out with empty threats against Russia and Syria that follow just the same model set by US bandwagon and ‘Sri Lanka’, would neither help world humanity nor would bring in any credibility to the UN or to the US bandwagon, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.
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SL military, Buddhist monk bring Sinhala ‘War Heroes’ project to Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 September 2016, 23:27 GMT]
The so-called ‘Ranaviru Seva Authority’ (War Heroes Welfare Authority), an outfit operated by the Defence Ministry of genocidal Sri Lanka to support the families of war-dead soldiers and the wounded soldiers of the occupying Sinhala military has expanded its work to Batticaloa in close association with the Sinhala extremist monk Venerable Ampitiye Sumanarathna Thera, informed civil sources in the city of Batticaloa said. The main intention is to bring in poverty-stricken families of ‘Sinhala war heroes’ to occupy the country of Eezham Tamils through so-called ‘welfare settlements’ in the Tamil-speaking district.
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15,000 Tamils attend historic uprising in Jaffna, reject Unitary Constitution, ITAK draws flak

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 September 2016, 16:10 GMT]
Ezhuka Thamizh (Let Tamil rise up), the biggest uprising to take place in the country of Eezham Tamils after the Pongku Thamizh uprisings during the times of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), declared on Saturday that the ‘consultations’ staged by Colombo for the new constitution completely failed to include the genuine political aspirations of the Tamil people. The Ilankai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK) with a hijacked leadership and the powers operating it, received a serious message from the people at the grassroots, regardless of the organisers of the event, that the people on the ground are fully prepared to replace the ITAK hierarchy once a good leadership takes shape to lead the nation of Eehzam Tamils in the next phase of their struggle. It is now time for NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran to prove the case, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna.
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Tamil POWs denounce Colombo's latest announcement, continue fast

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 September 2016, 23:35 GMT]
Tamil Prisoners of War waging a continuous hunger strike at Anuradhapura prison told TamilNet on Friday that the latest announcement of Colombo's Ministry of Prison Reforms of sending 23 of the detained Tamil prisoners under the notorious ‘Prevention of Terrorism Act’ to the so-called ‘military rehabilitation’ before their release was a deceptive move. Most of those in the announced list were mentioned together with one case per person. But, most of the detainees were facing three to four cases in different courts and relieving them of one case with the outcome of ‘military rehabilitation’ will not deliver freedom to them from the other cases, they said. In addition, the announcement also contained names of those already released and subjected to military rehabilitation, which exposed the level of ignorance on the part of Colombo in addressing their PTA cases, the Tamil prisoners said.
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Mobilisation towards ‘Ezhuka Thamizh’ uprising in Jaffna gains momentum

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 September 2016, 22:26 GMT]
Grassroots organisations, academics and students of University of Jaffna, business community, religious leaders involved in civil activism and various political parties voicing for the rights of Eezham Tamils are extending their support to the public rally named ‘Ezhuka Thamizh’ (Let Tamil rise up) to take place in Jaffna on Saturday. Despite the deviatory sections of the TNA hierarchy, led by M.A. Sumanthiran and Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, have been fully busy with causing obstacles to the move taken forward by the Tamil People’s Council (TPC), the mobilisation has gained support from the people on the ground, activists close to the organisers said.
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Sinhala colonists step up assaults on Tamil cattle herders in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 September 2016, 18:56 GMT]
Three Sinhalese colonists severely assaulted a 44-year-old Tamil cattle farmer, who was taking care of his cattle Monday evening at Mayilaththa-madu in Maathava'nai pastureland situated in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South (Kiraan) division of Batticaloa district. The wounded cattle herder, a father of three, was admitted to Chanthi-ve'li and transferred to Batticaloa Teaching Hospital on Tuesday with badly injured legs. The incident took place around 3:30 p.m. on Monday. This is the second assault on Tamil cattle herders in the area, Tamil farmers said.
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