The TNA yesterday urged the government to immediately release all persons detained without charges.

TNA Parliamentary Group leader R. Sampanthan, making a special statement in Parliament, said that a distinction should be drawn between the persons against whom there was no evidence or whose involvement in the LTTE was purely peripheral and those against whom there was evidence that they were involved in terrorist activities.

"We urge that the government take all possible action to release people who were being held without charges being pressed against them. The government could grant a general amnesty to others as had been done in the past. The fate of the missing persons should be revealed and if they were dead, death certificates should be issued and their families duly compensated. War affected families widows and orphans needed to be looked after, he said.(Read More)

SLFP (M) Leader Mangala Samaraweera told Parliament yesterday that the proposed second chamber would be another white elephant.

Speaking during the Emergency Debate in the House yesterday, Samaraweera said the proposed Senate is something that is being designed to satisfy those who are not given National List slots in the Parliament.

“This would not be an effective solution to the national issue,” he said stressing the need for a wider devolution of power.

He said recommendations made by the Parliamentary select committee on the 17th Amendment of the Constitution headed by Minister D.E.W. Gunasekera should be implemented instead of the government proposal of selecting members to the commissions by the President, Prime Minister and the Speaker. “Minister Gunasekera had done a good job coming up with some effective solution to resolve the crisis pertaining to the 17th Amendment. (Read More)

CHENNAI: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram today met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi here and discussed the issue of rehabilitation of Sri Lankan Tamils living in transit camps there.

The meeting came on a day when Karunanidhi wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh requesting him to take up the issue with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse during his upcoming visit to India.

After the 15-minute meeting at Karunanidhi’s residence tonight, Chidambaram told reporters that the DMK chief asked him to take up the Sri Lankan Tamils issue with the Prime Minister.(Read More)

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa with an open mind and priority will be given to the post-conflict humanitarian issues according to TNA parliamentarian and spokesman Suresh Premachandran.

Commenting on the much anticipated talks between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Tamil National Alliance tomorrow Suresh Premachandran told the Sunday Observer that the TNA has nothing to hide.

“We will meet President Rajapaksa with an open mind. The TNA is not anybody’s proxy. The people in the North and the East have placed confidence in us.(Read More)

The constituent parties of the UPFA expressed differing opinions on the proposed constitutional amendments which were discussed at the meeting of the party leaders yesterday.

Informed sources told Daily Mirror that the left parties had briefed the President on their stand regarding the Executive Presidency. The left parties had called for the abolishing of the presidency after President Rajapaksa completed his terms, and to limit the number of times a person could hold the presidency to two. It was reported that the President had listened attentively to all the different views expressed by the party leaders. (Read More)

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) says it will contest the Northern Provincial Council election and capture power in that council in order to bring an end to the woes of the people who have been recently resettled in the Wanni.

Economic Development Minister and Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa while speaking at a gathering of security forces personnel on Friday said the election for the Northern Provincial Council would be held soon followed by the Local Government elections in the province. Responding to a question put to him by a journalist in this regard, the TNA parliamentarian, P. Ariyaneththiran said his party had to capture power in the Northern Provincial Council if the woes of the Wanni people are to be brought to an end.“We toured various parts of the Wanni and visited the resettled people last week and saw for ourselves the difficulties faced by those people” he said.He alleged that the picture that was given by the Government to the international community in the name of resettlement was rosy but the situation was totally different. (Read More)

The Democratic Peoples Front (DPF) which has carried out a survey revealed that only 150,000 Tamil voters in the Colombo District had registered with the Department of Elections out of some 225,000 who are eligible to vote in the district.

In addition the research had also revealed that there were a large number of Tamil people in the districts of Gampaha, Kalutara, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Matale, Ratnapura, Kegalle and Puttalam who were not registered
The survey has revealed that only 68% of the total Tamil population was currently registered. Therefore nearly 300,000 eligible Tamil citizens have not been registered as voters in the electoral registers according to the survey.

DPF leader Mano Ganesan in a recent letter addressed to the Elections Commissioner said no reforms would be complete unless it incorporated a free fair voter registration process “The Elections department should take additional efforts to correct this under registration before any Electoral reforms,” he said. (Read More)

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), after a fact finding mission in the resettled areas, said yesterday that people appear to be using the monies given by the government to purchase , first due to the transport problems.

For a resettled family, the government gives Rs. 25,000. Of this amount, Rs 5000 is given in cash, and the rest as a bank deposit.

TNA National List MP   M. A. Sumanthiran told Daily Mirror that he observed, in one or two villages, that people had used these deposits mainly to buy bicycles. Mr. Sumanthiram said that the public transport is a major issue confronting the resettled families in most areas. Also, he noted that, in some areas, people had not received these monies from the government authorities. (Read More)

Mohamed Ismail - commonly known as ‘Ismail Haji’ of Valaichcheni and Mohamed Furkan of Meeraodai from the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) will hold the vacant provincial council position of the party in the Eastern Provincial Council taking turns, SLMC General Secretary Hassan Ali said.

They would hold this position in turns with Ismail Haji holding the councillor post for the first 15 months and Furkan for the next 15 .(Read More)