Day: 22 August 2016

Australian High Commissioner (HC) Bruce Hutchesson has responded to the Sunday Times following last week’s page 1 lead story “Australia lists Tamil Eelam in census”, stating that, what happened was that internal guidelines of the census enumerators accidentally got into the official website. Not that the country’s national census recognised ‘Tamil Eelam’ as a separate country. Explaining what happened, the HC says the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) provides internal guidance- instructions given on how to sort responses by members of the public to the question on ‘country of birth’-…

President Maithripala Sirisena must reveal the secrets that he knows, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake says. The observation was made while he was speaking to reporters in Colombo this afternoon (22). Dissanayake was referring to a comment made by the President who warned the members of the former government that information kept as secrets so far would be disclosed if a ‘new’ political party is formed. “It is not a secret that the President was referring to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his comment. We have no issues,…

COLOMBO: The Chief Minister of the Tamil-majority Northern Province,  C.V.Wigneswaran,   boycotted  the International Investment Forum organized by the  Northern Province Governor Reginold  Cooray  in Jaffna on Monday. In a letter written to Cooray last week, Wigneswaran objected to the Governor’s organizing the forum without consulting him. He said that the elected representatives of the people of the Northern Province  ought to have been consulted on the needs of the province before inviting investors. The proper way was to have conducted a survey to find out what kind of investment people…

COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan Ministry of Rehabilitation has recommended, through its National Policy Document, the enactment of a comprehensive law that addresses all displaced persons and communities in order to be prepared for any eventuality in the future. The comprehensive policy document has recommended recognition and registration of conflict-affected Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs); return of lands taken by the military and the government; provision of facilities to refugee returnees from abroad; provision of livelihood and income generating opportunities; coordination of various line ministries and constant monitoring of the rehabilitation schemes.…

Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran has appointed a five member medical committee to assist in an investigation into the alleged deaths and illnesses of some ex-LTTE cadres during and since their time in rehabilitation. The Chief Minister appointed the committee heeding a call by the provincial health ministry to assist in the probe which is yet to take off the ground. The five member team is led by Dr. Sivan Sudan. Sub-committees are to be appointed to assist Dr. Sudan’s team in all districts in the north. The Northern…

by Thushari Nathaniel PLOT leader and TNA MP D. Sidharthan says he has confidence in the current regime that it will deliver justice to the Tamil people. He said that even though the government has good intentions, they implement these mechanisms extremely slow, so the Tamil people are fast losing faith in the government. In an interview with The Sunday Leader he said that the passing of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) Bill was also a good sign that the government is doing its best for the Tamil people.…

Residents of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts staged a protest on Thursday claiming that the setting up of the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) in Colombo, will not be beneficial to the people in the North. The protesters demanded the government to set up the Office on Missing Persons in Kilinochchi or Mullaitivu claiming that most of the missing people were from north who went on missing due to the war. They said the families of the missing have to bear huge expenses to come to Colombo to present their grievances…

The number of such landless families in Jaffna is 936, according to the Resettlement Ministry The Sri Lanka government will complete the resettlement of landless internally-displaced persons (IDP) in the Jaffna district by year-end. According to an earlier plan, the process was to be completed this month. A release issued by the Resettlement Ministry on Thursday put the number of landless IDP families in Jaffna at 936 whereas, at the time of the Cabinet approval last month for housing, the figure mentioned was 971. With army support One hundred houses,…