Indian MPs head to Sri Lanka to study Tamil relief camps

October 9th, 2009 CHENNAI - Ten MPs belonging to India's ruling alliance will visit Sri Lanka for five days from Saturday to see the condition in camps where thousands of Tamils displaced by the war are housed. Nearly 300,000 men, women and children are housed in the fortified camps set up in the island's north after the military crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May.

October 8th, 2009 CHENNAI - Hundreds of Tamils and pro- Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) supporters staged a demonstration in Chennai on Thursday, demanding the Indian government to initiate steps to immediately send back Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner Vadivel Krishnamoorthy. Krishnamoorthy was recently involved in a controversy over his comment that the camps of displaced Tamils in Lanka were not zoos to be visited by outside people.

October 4th, 2009 CHENNAI - Pattali Makkal Katchi's founder S Ramadoss has demanded that the Indian Government should take steps to send back Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner Vadivel Krishnamoorthy. "The Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner here is functioning like Karuna and others there (in Sri Lanka).

September 18th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi Friday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to "exert diplomatic pressure at appropriate levels" on the Sri Lankan government to end the "untold sufferings" of the displaced Tamils living in relief camps there.

August 29th, 2009 CHENNAI - Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Saturday asked the Central Government to ensure more help for Sri Lankan Tamils. "The relief and rehabilitation steps being provided to Sri Lankan Tamils are not enough, many of the Tamilians in Sri Lanka are facing hardships and struggling with rain and therefore we demand more attention of the government towards this issue," Karunanidhi told reporters in Chennai.

August 6th, 2009 CHENNAI - Tamil Nadu Government on Thursday sent the fourth installment of relief material worth Rs 15 crores for Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka, who are confined to displacement camps. More than 2,80,000 civilians are held in sprawling camps in the north since May, when government troops crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to end a 25-year-old war.

July 8th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India Wednesday said it is still waiting for a formal response from Sri Lanka confirming the death of Tamil Tigers chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and promised continued assistance to Colombo to rehabilitate Tamils displaced by the conflict. "In connection with the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, a formal request for an official confirmation of the deaths of Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman, the chief of the intelligence wing of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), has been made to the government of Sri Lanka, External Affairs Minister S.M.

July 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Concerned over the plight of the displaced people in Sri Lanka's northeast, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Monday announced Rs.500 crore ($100 million) for the rehabilitation and relief of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the island nation. While expressing concern over the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka, Mukherjee announced an allocation of $100 million for the welfare of the around 300,000 Tamil civilians housed in various camps in Sri Lanka following the end of the decades-long insurgency.

June 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Sri Lanka has agreed to allow a ship to off-load its contents, relief material sent by Tamil diaspora, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said here Wednesday after meeting a delegation from the island.

June 19th, 2009 CHENNAI - Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has sought the central government's intervention after the Sri Lankan Navy turned away a ship carrying relief materials from Europe for the internally displaced Tamils in the island nation.

June 4th, 2009 NEW DELHI - With the Tamil Tigers decimated, India Thursday pledged to support initiatives aimed at finding a permanent political solution in Sri Lanka to ensure equal rights to the Tamil minority. "We will support initiatives in Sri Lanka which can lead to a permanent political solution of the conflict there, and ensure that all Sri Lankan communities, especially the Tamils, feel secure and enjoy equal rights so that they can lead a life of dignity and self-respect," President Pratibha Patil told a joint session of the Indian parliament.

May 21st, 2009 CHENNAI - In her first comment after the decimation of the Tamil Tigers, AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha Thursday asked Sri Lanka to address 'all the genuine grievances' of the Tamil community.

May 9th, 2009 CHENNAI - India is doing what it can to help the beleaguered Tamil community in Sri Lanka lead 'a life of dignity and honour', Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Saturday. The prime minister told journalists while on a campaign tour here that he was 'deeply concerned over the very difficult situation in Sri Lanka' where thousands have died in a military onslaught aimed at crushing the Tamil Tigers.

May 6th, 2009 CHENNAI - Reiterating her call for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha Wednesday said the Indian Army would be sent to the island nation to carve out Tamil Eelam state if her alliance wins all the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

April 25th, 2009 CHENNAI - At least 25 people were arrested Saturday in Tamil Nadu for attempting to burn the Indian flag while protesting the killing of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka, police said. The 18 people held in Chennai and seven in Thanjavur district, 300 km south of here, belonged to various Indian Tamil extremist factions associated with Tamil nationalist leader P.