It is unclear whether this item is from today in 2020 in the Daily Mirror online …. or …. from 23rd November 2012
TITLE = “LTTE Leader thwarted Oslo’s Moves for a Ceasefire in 2009”
Category Archives: Indian General Elections
By 
USA’s Political Programme in Sri Lanka and the Peace Corps Initiative
Daya Gamage, in response to the Thuppahi Invitation to Address Shenali Waduge’s Memorandum
This Pic does not relate to a Sri Lankan issue; but it captures the tone in which Hillary Clinton pilloried Sri Lanka on 22nd April 2009 when the GoSL government did not abide by USA’s direct orders and proceeded to penetrate the LTTE’s last redoubt beyond Nandhikadal Lagoon — see https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2610/stories/20090522261001600.htm
ONE: US Support for Tamil Separatism
In 1984, the CIA and the State Department produced a joint document – a highly classified one – solely on US foreign policy towards Sri Lanka after the LTTE started its terror campaign to bifurcate Sri Lanka followed by the JR Jayewardene administration seeking Washington’s help for military assistance.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, economic processes, education policy, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, Indian General Elections, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes
Revisiting Critical Issues in Eelam War IV: Summarizing Citizen Silva’s The NUMBERS GAME
Michael Roberts: “Introducing ‘Numbers Game’ – A Detailed Study of the Last Stages of Eelam War IV,” …….. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/introducing-numbers-game-a-detailed-study-of-the-last-stages-of-eelam-war-iv/…. on 1 May 2013 where 46 comments can be found …. while the version here has some highlighting that is not contained in the Col-Tel version
Citizen Silva’s THE NUMBERS GAME can be found at…. http://www.scribd.com/doc/132499266/The-Numbers-Game-Politics-of-Retributive-Justice OR http://www.margasrilanka.org/ [right panel at top—then click]
Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, disparagement, doctoring evidence, Eelam, gordon weiss, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, IDP camps, Indian General Elections, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, mass conscription, military strategy, NGOs, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, vengeance, war reportage
PK Balachandran on Overt and Covert Paths in Indian and American Policies towards the Sri Lankan War, 2008-09
I. Preamble:
I have met PK Balachandran on a couple of occasions in Sri Lanka in connection with its political developments at specific points of time. I have always found him a straightforward and earnest person. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and a Masters in Sociology, both from the University of Delhi. He has resided in Sri Lanka since 1997, working initially for The Hindustan Times before moving to the Indo-Asian News Service for a short while and then joining The New Indian Express. He therefore brings a depth of local experience that few foreign reporters will match. When I came across US Ambassador Robert Blake’s Address in Chennai in late October 2008 and decided to present a critical essay on its implications as one facet of a critique of Blake’s readings of the ongoing war in early 2009 that was already in the public realm (with a caustic title “Blake in Never-Neverland”), I sent that article as well as Blake’s Address to Bala. Typically and efficiently, Bala replied at once. The outcome has been a series of short and long ‘notes’ of immense value.
I reproduce them in full in temporal order, with my inquiries included where requisite, because of the empirical data in the form of Bala’s recollection of events and, last but not least, Bala’s assessment of the overarching political and foreign policy scenario. Indeed, they bring into question some facets of my own interpretation I conveyed in an article that appeared yesterday. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, devolution, gordon weiss, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian General Elections, Indian Ocean politics, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, prabhakaran, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, war reportage, world events & processes
Saving Talaivar Prabhākaran, 2009: Fr. Gaspar Raj’s Revelations in 2010
The title for this item is inspired by that riveting film from 1998 entitled Saving Private Ryan with Tom Hanks in the lead role.
KEY QUOTATION: “It is said that the LTTE was agreeable to USA’s direct involvement, but they were not agreeable to locking the weapons. The USA had also started preparing for the Mullivaikal operation. Accordingly, PACOM’s Naval unit, Marine Expediency Brigade, will land at the Mullaithivu shores; and the Navy and the Air Force of PACOM will also join in this operation” … being just one stick of dynamite in “Mullivaikal Last Stages: Facts Unknown to the Tamil-Speaking World,” by Fr. Gaspar Raj, an essay in Tamil translated by one “ M N” for Nakeeran and then presented to the world by Sri Lanka Guardian on 23rd June 2010.
Fr. Gaspar Raj 
Talaivar Pirapāharan in his guerrilla days
This essay was re-discovered by accident when I went through my computer files recently and becomes extremely important in the light of (A) the recent review article by Daya Gamage; (B) the startling facts and manoeuvres that are displayed in the raw within the US Embassy despatches of 2009 made available by Wikileaks;[1] and (C) by the veteran journalist[2] PK Balachandran’s information on Revd. Fr. Jegath Gaspar Raj’s role in 2009 and his endorsement of key facts in the Gaspar Raj essay…….inserted here at the end of the article by Gaspar Raj.[3] Michael Roberts.
Filed under american imperialism, atrocities, Eelam, historical interpretation, Indian General Elections, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power sharing, prabhakaran, Rajapaksa regime, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, truth as casualty of war, wikileaks, world events & processes
India rejects Cultivated English. Modi’s Gujarati and Hindi swamps the old school tie
Sanjay Subramanian, courtesy of the New York Review of Books, where the title reads “India after English?”
A scene at Calcutta in mid-May 2014 —Pic by Piyal Adhikary/epa/Corbis
In the days since the decisive victory of Narendra Modi and his conservative Bharatiya Janata Party in India’s national election, many Indian commentators have perceived a turning point in Indian politics. Modi’s critics sense, in his sweeping mandate, an ominous revival of Hindu nationalism; his supporters maintain that he won because of his robust economic record in Gujarat, where he was Chief Minister from 2001 to 2014. Few on either side, though, dispute that Modi’s political rise signals, in part, a rejection by voters of India’s traditional political elite. Continue reading
The Modi Phenomenon in Sri Lankan Eyes: Some Selections
A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY from May 2014
Sunday Leader: “Mixed Reactions To Modi,” in May
Sunday Leader Editorial: “Modi’s First Hurdle Over Sri Lanka,” Sunday Leader, 25 May 2014.
Malinda Seneviratne: “Modi as gonibilla and maverick’s plaything,” Nation, 25 May 2014.
Shenali D Waduge: “Modi’s balancing act: Hindu Nationalism vs. neo-colonial corporate agenda,” Daily News, 31 May 2014.
Lucien Rajakarunanayake: “Modi and the Aspirations of the Tamils,” Sunday Island, 1 June 2014,
Lucien Rajakarunanayake: “Modi’s comprehensive victory,” http://thuppahis.com/2014/05/17/modis-comprehensive-triumph-lucien-rajakarunayakes-review/ Continue reading
Ominous Facets of the Indian Elections: Modi and Beyond
Rajesh Venugopal, courtesy of http://groundviews.org/2014/05/23/brassed-off/ where the title is “Brassed Off. and where comments will be found.
In 2014, the year when Bollywood’s most popular ‘item’ song featured an Indo-Canadian porn star lip-syncing a song called ‘Baby Doll’, India elected a conservative Hindu chauvinist as its prime minister. Narendra Modi’s extraordinary ascent to power from humble party worker to a national icon of communal violence to hyper-efficient developmentalist leader is intriguing and revealing in itself, but let’s leave that aside for now.
The poll surveys and election data shows that the demographic most responsible for placing him in harm’s way came largely from young upper caste North Indian Hindus. Draw a line from Mangalore in the south-west to Darjeeling in the north-east – and with the exception of tiny pockets in Punjab and Kashmir, the saffron wave swept the vast majority of parliamentary seats to the north and west of that line. Continue reading
