Wednesday, July 28, 2010

What Does Love Mean..............???

From: Bas Baskaran .....chelvadurai@gmail.com..
Date: Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 12:52 PM
Subject: *What Does Love Mean?*
To: chelvadurai@gmail.com


**What Does Love Mean?***

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8
year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and
deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:


"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her
toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all even when his hands
got arthritis, too. That's Love. Rebecca - age 8

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just
know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and
they go out and smell each other." Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French Fries
without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired." Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before
giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you
still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like
that. They look gross when they kiss" Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening
presents and listen." Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you
hate." Nikka - age 6

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it
everyday." Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends
even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6

**"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at
all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

What will take to bring about justice in Sri Lanka?

25th July, 2010

Good Day, Ladies and Gentlemen,

My name is Subramanian Masilamany, I am a Tamil, and my mission is to bring about justice in Sri Lanka.

Today my subject is going to be what will take to bring about justice in Sri Lanka? Will it be economic sanctions against Sri Lanka or will it take a Tamil president to bring about justice in Sri Lanka?

After 60 years of experiencing violence against my people, I decided that I should do my duty to bring about awareness among the people of world . Tamils are a numerical minority in Sri Lanka, only about 12% of the population. Then why should the Singhalese unleash violence and atrocities against a minority population? Why should the Singhalese politicians and religious establishment force the Singhalese to terrorize the Tamils? Can the world come to grip with what I am saying? How can a minority of people be a threat to a majority of people? The government is Singhalese, The people are Singhalese, the economy and natural wealth are in the singhalese areas, then why there is violence against the Tamils?. When asked the Singhalese why do you fear and hate Tamils? There is no answer.

I think the reason is to drive all Tamils out and make Sri Lanka a secular Buddhist state. The religious establishment is the cause of this Diaspora, Destitution and Death of Tamils. The Mahavamsa, an agenda similar to Hitler’s Mein Kampf is the fundamental cause of this calculated holocaust. Mahasangha an organization with Mahanayake as the head was set up to implement the agenda of the Mahavamsa. The governments are chosen by the Mahasangha and the Mahanayakes and are voted in by the people. It is suspected that by the year 2020 the non singhalese people will have no representation in the parliament. Colonization of Tamil areas are undertaken in massive scale to increase the singhalese population to more than 50%. In the last 60 years this has been the major theme of Sri Lankan ideology. Sri Lanka is not ready for modern politics.

On the other side the world nations are not willing to support the Tamils for an armed resistance. Therefore the only avenue opened to us is in the socio-political and socio- economic arena unless we pursue an agenda similar to Israel. South Africa was able to liberate it self through economic sanctions. There are at least three ways we Tamils can impose economic sanctions.

Number one, as Tamils we must boycott Sri Lankan foods and goods. As I walk through the Tamil owned retail outlets I see Sri Lankan products made with Tamil blood. We are not asking you to starve but to change your taste buds. My dear friend every thing has a price and freedom is the most expensive, are you ready to pay the price?

We request our Tamils, who love our motherland; please do a small favour, kindly do one or more the following

1. Do no import goods from Sri Lanka2. Do not send money more than what is required
3. Boycott Sri Lankan products
4. Do not export to Sri Lanka5. Do not travel to Sri Lanka unless it is urgent and unavoidable.
6. Produce Sri Lankan goods locally
7. Educate your co-workers, friends and neighbours about the atrocities in Sri Lanka8. Report all defective food products to the food inspection agency.
9. Do not purchase any of the financial instruments like Sri Lankan government
Sovereign bonds or share in Sri Lankan corporations.

If the Europeans and the United States are willing to impose sanctions why not the Tamils? We have to do our part. My friend lately what have you done to your community?

Number two creating awareness among world population.

1, Keep the other nations involved in your direct action, write to the foreign governments,
their UN mission in New York and Geneva. Every Tamil must become a campaigner,
ambassador and representative of the Tamil cause.

2. Request representation in the United Nations

3. Send out emails, letters, faxes to multinational corporations to stop doing business with
Sri Lanka.

4. Prepare handouts and distribute them at various retail stores like Marks and Spencer,
Wal-Mart, Sears, liquor stores, ethnic retail stores etc.

5. Do not hire Sri Lankan Singhalese in Tamil businesses and corporations. You may be
hiring a Sri Lankan spy or informant or agent. Beware whom you hire.


If we have to stop our direct action to impose economic sanctions. Sri Lankan Singhalese must guarantee the following conditions


1. No colonization of traditional Tamil home lands

2. High security zones must be reduced and military confined to the barracks

3. Administration handed over to civilian authority

4. Judiciary must be free of government and Para-military interventions

5. All war heroes’ landmarks must be preserved

6. Tamils must be allowed to raise funds to for investment and development any where in
the nation.

7. No standardization to the universities

8. All state appointments to be on merit not on race and religion

9. All murders and other atrocities must be investigated

10. All IDP camps must be removed and people go where they want to go.

11. Introduce Educational programs not to dividee people but to understand and unite them.

12, State and the Religion must be separated. Religion has its place but not in the
Government.
13. Stop building military cities in the Tamil areas.

A simple advice to our Singhalese friends, do not foster and fuel racism, fanaticism, state terrorism and discrimination based on external feature such as race, religion, appearance, language, caste, sex and age but you look deep inside for a internal diversity of intellect such as sensuality, empathy, wealth, knowledge, creativity, morality, That is the difference between modern democracies and some third world nation. The Singhalese people must compare their socio-economic standard with the rest of the world. They lost 60 years of good living misguided by Singhalese politicians. Your politician and religious establishment have forced you to terrorize the Tamil people. Isn’t it time for a Tamil President in Sri Lanka, Why not? THINK ABOUT IT!

Thank you

I am Subramanian Masilamany, A world-class Tamil powered by Conscience, Convictions and Commitments

Saturday, July 24, 2010

LEGEND: Sri Lanka spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan





Muttiah Muralitharan

July 24, 2010, 12:00 pm



Sri Lanka spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan, the eldest of a family of four, was born on the 17th of April 1972 in Kandy and attended St. Anthony’s College, a school run by Benedictine Monks where he started playing cricket.



Muralitharan’s grand parents were from India and settled in Kandy where his father started a confectionary business. Muralitharan was initially a fast bowler, but took up bowling off-spin on the instruction of his school coach Sunil Fernando.



He was first selected to the Sri Lankan side when the national team toured England in the year 1991. The next year he made his debut, in a Test Match at R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo against the Australians.



The arrival of Muralitharan gave the Sri Lankans a match winning bowler, something they lacked for years and the team’s winning ratio, especially in Test Matches, improved drastically since his arrival. A year after his debut, Sri Lanka went onto record their first Test win against New Zealand and England. In 1995, the Sri Lankans won their first Test Match overseas when they beat New Zealand in Napier, Muralitharan played crucial roles in all these wins. The same year, he was also instrumental in helping Sri Lanka to win a Test Match in Pakistan.



But soon he was in trouble as he was called for chucking in 1995 in Australia in the Boxing Day Test Match in Melbourne by umpire Darrel Hair. Muralitharan was subjected to extensive medical research in Hong Kong and Perth to check the legality of his action and the International Cricket Council, the governing body of the sport accepted that a deformity by birth prevented him from straightening his elbow.



Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga stood firmly by him during the height of controversy and despite the national selection committee being reluctant to include Muralitharan in the squad for the 1996 World Cup in the sub-continent; the captain insisted he wanted the off-spinner in the squad. Muralitharan went onto play all matches of that World Cup and was a key member of the side as Sri Lanka went onto beat Australia in the final in Lahore in 1996.



The bowler played a key role in Sri Lanka’s first Test win in England as well when he picked up 17 wickets, including nine wickets in the second innings as Sri Lanka won by ten wickets in 1998 at the London Oval.



There was trouble again later that year as Muralitharan was called for throwing again in Australia during a One-Day International in Adelaide by Australian umpire Ross Emerson. Captain Ranatunga briefly withdrew the team from the playing field and only returned after consulting board officials in Colombo.



Muralitharan underwent further tests and it was proved that his suspect bowling action was an optical illusion.



His peak years were form 2001 to 2004 where he claimed a rich haul of wickets. In the year 2000 he had claimed his 300th Test wicket in South Africa. In 2001 he played a key role as Sri Lanka won ten consecutive Test Matches, a Sri Lankan record.



In 2004, he broke the World Record for most wickets when he went pass Courtney Walsh’s record of 519 in Harare.



Muralitharan by this stage developed a new delivery, called the doosra, meaning second one as the ball went away from the right-handed batsman after pitching contrary to coming into the batsman. The delivery was ruled to be suspect by ICC Match Referee Chris Broad; later further study revealed that most bowlers bent their arms while bowling and the ICC allowed all bowlers a flex of 15 degrees while bowling.



In 2004, Muralitharan refused to tour Australia after then Australian Prime Minister called him ‘a chucker’.



Australia’s Shane Warne went pass his record as Muralitharan sustained injuries in the same year limiting his participation in Test Matches.



In 2005, he married Madhimalar, the daughter of a South Indian businessman. His only son, Naren, was born a year later.



In 2007, Muralitharan again became the highest wicket taker in Test cricket when he claimed his 709th victim, England’s Paul Collingwood at his hometown in Kandy going pass Shane Warne.He also claimed the World Record for most wickets in One-Day cricket in the year 2009 when he went pass Wasim Akram’s record.



Muralitharan, a perennial number 11 batsman, never took his batting seriously. For him batting was all fun and tried to entertain the crowd with his big hits. He did, however, score a Test half-century in 2001 against India in Kandy.



He was also named in the ICC World XI when they played a six day Test Match in Sydney against reigning World Champions Australia.



Muralitharan was named as one of the Wisden’s five cricketers of the Century in the year 2000.



Apart from wining the 1996 World Cup, Muralitharan was part of the Sri Lankan team that played the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, where Sri Lanka lost to Australia in the final and in the 2009 T-20 World Cup final where Sri Lanka were beaten by Pakistan at Lord’s.



At the start of the year 2010, there were speculations that Muralitharan would retire from cricket. Initially it was thought the two Test series against West Indies at home in November would be his last, but he brought his retirement forward when Sri Lanka Cricket arranged a series with India in July. He announced that the first Test against India in Galle would be his last.



Muralitharan played a crucial role in Sri Lanka’s win in the Test Match by picking up a five wicket haul in the first innings and claimed the last wicket in the Indian second innings to finish with 800 Test wickets. He claimed eight wickets in his last Test.

President Mahinda Rajapakse was present on the last day of the first Test in Galle when Muralitharan retired.

island.lk

Friday, July 16, 2010

Prof Shanmugaratnam: I would like to raise some questions about Norway’s role in SL-peace process! We want to assess Norway’s role/learn the lessons.!

India was not happy about Norwegian peace: Prof Shanmugaratnam
[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 June 2010, 10:40 GMT]

India was not happy about Norway being given a role in peace brokering in Sri Lanka. Japan was keen to be the broker, but India was more against Japan than Norway, said Dr. N. Shanmugaratnam, Professor of Development Studies and Head of Research of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, while addressing a session on the failed peace process and Norway’s role in Sri Lanka, at a conference held in Nansen Peace Centre in Norway last Friday. The Norwegian Tamil academic also said that in his view the key challenges to the peace process were internal than international and the internal has always been decisive. Post mortem of the peace process has become a hot topic in Norwegian circles nowadays since the failed envoys of Sri Lankan process have embarked upon fresh peace initiatives elsewhere.

The 5-day conference titled ‘Norway in Peace’, held between 11-15 June was organized by the Norwegian Peace Centre and Nansen Dialog. Both the organizations have merged recently, forming Nansen Peace Centre.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs is hosting this week Oslo Forum, an annual event acknowledged as the leading international network of ‘armed conflict mediation practitioners’ consisting of conflict mediators, high level decision makers and key actors from across the globe in a series of informal, confidential and discreet retreats.

Post mortem studies on failed peace processes may help the world to learn where it failed or may help to acquit the brokers who failed in their neutral responsibility of loudly telling the truth to the world at the right time to check the peace process ending up in genocide. But what Tamils have to learn internally from the peace process ending up in genocide is the futility of any of them still continuing to harp on ‘united Sri Lanka,’ commented Tamil circles in Norway.

When sections of articulating Tamils fail at such a time as this in justifying the need for Tamil independence and in independently demanding the powers to recognize Tamil liberation, some world leftist circles currently misinterpret it as pro-imperialist tendency inherent to the Tamil struggle. Colombo is now capitalizing on it for justifying its genocide as its struggle against an imperialist plot and thus painting a sympathetic picture to the naive third world that it is a state standing up to the powers. The Tamil struggle is doubly penalized by the internal failure of its elite, Tamil circles pointed out, adding that some of the best Tamil minds should come forward in arguing for the due status of the struggle in the international arena, leading to Eezham Tamil independence.

The fundamental flaw of the peace process is that it approached a chronic national question with the ‘development’ agendas of corporate colonialism that have no ‘appetite’ for national questions. As a result, instead of coming out with logical-end solutions it got bogged down into the terrorist paradigm, Tamil circles said.

The outcome of the failure of the peace process now not only affects the national liberation of peoples suffering from prolonged genocide but also affects even struggles dear to Marxist minds, Tamil circles pointed out.

The ‘Sri Lankan’ model of crushing ‘terrorism’ makes some countries with civil wars adopting the ‘model’ to end their wars. More recently, Sri Lanka has offered to assist India to militarily defeat the Naxalites. India assisted Sri Lanka to defeat the Tamil Tigers and now Sri Lanka reciprocates, says Shanmugaratnam. A couple of days back even the US extended its help to India’s Sri Lankan style civil war.

In his presentation Prof Shanmugaratnam said: “I would like to raise some questions about Norway’s role, questions to which I may not have complete, definitive answers but questions that need to be asked and gone into in-depth if one wants to assess Norway’s role and learn the lessons.”

The following were his questions for discussion:


•How well informed was Norway of the history, asymmetries & complexity of the Sri Lankan conflict to play the role of a mediator/ ‘facilitator’?
•What was Norway’s understanding of the larger context and the highly fluid political conjuncture/s of 2001-2004?
•Was there strong professional backstopping?
•How did Norway view and assess the political rivalry/irreconcilability & the resultant problem of cohabitation between the Executive (the all powerful President) and the legislature (the less powerful Prime Minister and his party)?
•How well placed was Norway as an international actor in terms of political clout/ influence and diplomacy to play its role at the national (Lankan parties: GOSL, LTTE &others), global and geopolitical levels? (Geopolitics: India in particular)
•What was the role of the International Community (IC)?
•How helpful were the key players (USA, EU, India, Japan) to Norway’s endeavour to facilitate a negotiated settlement? More specifically the Role of the co-chairs (US, EU, Japan, Norway)?
•How important was Sri Lanka to the US and its allies, (compared to Sudan for example)?
•Was Norway able to anticipate the rise of strong anti-Norwegian feelings and campaigns among the Sinhalese people? How did Norway handle this situation?
•Was the Lankan armed conflict too intractable for a negotiated settlement and hence the war could only be terminated by military means?
•What went wrong?


Prof Shanmugaratnam ended his questions by citing Eric Solheim saying to reporters, "Even if Jesus Christ or Buddha came, they will not be able to do this easily," soon after meeting the Tigers' political head S. P. Thamilchelvan at LTTE’s Peace Secretariat in Ki’linochchi, in September 25, 2004.

What Shanmugaratnam has not asked, but many a Tamil mind ask within, is whether the whole peace process was in fact a deception designed primarily to deviate and finally to devastate the Tamil national cause in the island, Tamil circles in Oslo said.

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