Sri Lanka news columns

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said he had to ponder over whether his government should continue in power if attacks on Sri Lankan Tamils continued unabated in the island nation, even after the union government's stern warning to Sri Lanka on the issue, the Chennaionline said. Addressing a rally in Chennai to protest the attacks on Sri Lankan Tamils by the island nation's army, he said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had spoken to him on the issue this morning, after which National Security Advisor M K Narayanan summoned the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner at New Delhi to convey the country's protest over the attacks. If the attacks continued even after this, there was no point in his government continuing in power, he said. Though the Chief Minister had spoken vaguely on the subject, leading the media to interpret that his party might consider withdrawal of support to the UPA government, sources close to him clarified that Karunanidhi had only spoken about ...

Sukumari Surpana in Colombo September 18, 2008 The over two-year-old war between the Sri Lanka military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has by all accounts reached a decisive phase. It is crunch time for both sides though it would be hazardous to predict the next chapter. On the face of it the Sri Lankan military has an upper hand. The Tigers have been cornered like never before, the Indian Peace Keeping Force phase included, from within and without. With the military taking the battle right into the Tiger heartland in Wanni, the LTTE has little choice but to do or die. Even after providing a liberal allowance for the tendency on the part of the Sri Lanka military to exaggerate its triumphs, the relentless military campaign by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has substantially weakened the LTTE's military capabilities. This is evident in the inability of the Tigers to strike back in the east where they no longer count as a conventional force, its failure to mount any spectac...