India provided arms and logistical support to Colombo in the Vanni war. It didn’t take any effort to stop the war. Even after one year of the war, India didn’t act on rehabilitating the incarcerated people, accused members of the confederation of citizens’ forums in Jaffna while meeting the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao on Tuesday. Resettlement is a hoodwink in Vanni, said retired Senior Professor S.K. Sitrampalam of the University of Jaffna, expressing the strong sentiments of Eezham Tamils. Army has occupied the Tamil lands and people have strong doubts whether India would be of any help in Tamils getting a political solution, the civil society representatives told the visiting Indian diplomat. [ Full Report ]

    More than three dozen Tamil migrants have been segregated from 492 others who arrived by boat for questioning by police on suspicion of being linked to the Tamil Tigers, or other inadmissible groups, including war criminals. Those held in “segregation” at Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, in B.C., include the skipper of the MV Sun Sea, Kamalraj Kandasamy, a.k.a “Captain Vinod,” his 24-man crew and about a dozen migrants who arrived Aug. 13 off the coast of B.C. after a 90-day trip from Thailand. [ Full Report ]

    India today assured Sri Lanka's war-displaced Tamils of all kind of assistance, as foreign secretary Nirupama Rao visited the IDP camps in the country's north to get an overview of the process of their resettlement. "We are prepared to assist to the best of our capacity and do whatever we can," Rao, who arrived in Colombo last night, told the locals in Vavuniya. She visited the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Vavuniya this morning and asked about their welfare. Rao flew this morning to the Wanni security forces headquarters and travelled by road to the IDP camps. [ Full Report ]

    At last count, doctors had extracted some 15 nails, four pins and a piece of metal from Ariyawathy’s body. Reports of torture and ill-treatment of Sri Lankan housemaids working abroad were treated as routine till a reluctant Ariyawathy’s family took her to a doctor after finding multiple cuts and bruises on her. The subsequent diagnosis triggered a national outrage and detected a fairly well-spread infection set off by nails and pins inside her hands, feet and forehead. [ Full Report ]

    Sri Lanka's Supreme Court on Tuesday began assessing a draft bill that would amend the island's constitution to allow President Mahinda Rajapakse to run for office for a third term. Registrar of the Supreme Court said the five-judge bench would give their decision to the president and speaker of parliament within 24 hours. On Monday, the cabinet approved a proposal to scrap the two-term limit for presidents, which would enable Rajapakse to strengthen his grip on power by standing again in November 2016. [ Full Report ]

    For some in Sri Lanka, including sections of the Sinhala polity and population alike, India can help solve the ethnic issue, post-war, and also help the country claim great heights in economic recovery and social re-engineering. For some others, India is the ‘bad boy’ in the neighbourhood, spoiling for a fight. For a few others, their continued political relevance on the home front will have no meaning without India-bashing! It is another matter that their own vote-bank may have moved away from their traditional political posturing and philosophy very long ago. Neither can any one of them ignore India, nor can India, overlook any one of them! [ Full Report ]

    Sri Lankan Tamils in need of protection should not have to hide out for days in Bangkok safe houses, and pay $50,000 to smugglers to board a dilapidated fishing trawler to Canada. There are better ways for Tamils to find a safe haven than a dangerous, costly voyage across the Pacific, with its risk of disease, promise of indebtedness and, ultimately, uncertainty in their asylum cases, even if they do reach Canadian shores. [ Full Report ]

    Sri Lanka's cabinet on Monday backed constitutional amendments including one that would allow President Mahinda Rajapaksa to contest a third term, if approved by a parliament in which he has the necessary votes. Rajapaksa has moved the proposed amendments rapidly even before taking the oath for his second term, scheduled in mid-November. He secured the two-thirds majority in parliament on Friday required to change the constitution, drafted in 1978 and widely criticised for giving the president almost total control of the Indian Ocean island nation's government. [ Full Report ]

    The highlight of foreign secretary Nirupama Rao’s three-day visit to Sri Lanka beginning on Monday would be her trip to Jaffna — the first ever by an Indian foreign secretary in decades. In Jaffna, the heartland of Sri Lankan Tamils, Rao is expected to meet both government officials including the governor and mayor and members of the civil society and academics. On her way back, Rao would be visiting Kilinochchi, where the administrative headquarters of the Tamil Tigers was located, and Mullaitivu, once the rebels’ military nerve centre. It was near Mullaitivu, on the north-east coast where the final battle between the LTTE and government troops was fought. Her visit would be rounded of witha trip to the east coast town of Trincomalee. [ Full Report ]

    A prominent political scientist with ties to Alberta has backed a leading pollster's observation that Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has dropped from sight since Prime Minister Stephen Harper ruled the government would scrap the long form of the national census—which for the past 40 years has gathered crucial information for minority populations in Canada. University of Ottawa professor Michael Behiels told The Hill Times there is little doubt Mr. Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Alta.) is "fuming" over the decision, which, combined with the Conservative government's inflammatory statements about Tamil migrants on the MV Sun Sea, could undermine the four years of work Mr. Kenney has devoted to cultivating party contacts and support within the immigrant and visible minority community. [ Full Report ]