Demands for self-rule and independence stem not from isolationist tendencies, but a desperation to escape state repression.

Imagine a country whose greatest asset truly is its people. A country in which over a third of its citizens speak fluently one or more of English, French, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Creole, Zulu and many more, in addition to speaking the worlds oldest living classical language, Tamil.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi wrote to the central government February 10 urging it to negotiate with neighbouring Sri Lanka on behalf of Indian fishermen.

Drawing the union government's attention to the 'indiscriminate' firing by the Sri Lankan Navy that killed an Indian fisherman the day before, the chief minister asked the government 'to take up the matter with the Sri Lankan government,' a press statement said.

The Indian central government last Saturday gave a clean chit to the Dravida Munnetta Kazhakam (DMK) regime in Tamil Nadu, saying it had done “better than others” in curbing security threats to the nation and there was no LTTE infiltration in the state.

Tamil leaders of Sri Lanka have rejected the island nation government’s devolution package aimed at ending the 25-year-old ethnic conflict saying the move was ‘a joke played on Tamils’.

The All Party Representation Committee (APRC), formed by the Mahinda Rajapakse government to counter LTTE’s struggle for separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka, had submitted its report to the government last month.

Sporting red T-shirts, with an Eelam map Australian Tamil youth from Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne gathered on February 12 in the Australian capital, Canberra, to voice support for the Tamil struggle and to highlight the worsening humanitarian situation in the northeast of Sri Lanka.

The 200 fans arrived wearing red "Voice of Tamils" T-shirts bearing the slogan "Where is the Humanity", and set up a party outside the gates with drummers, dancers and whistles before play.

India has not only announced its continuing economic support for Sri Lanka this month, it has also put numbers, and signatures on the table.

During a business focussed visit to Colombo, an Indian Minister announced that over 2 billion dollars of investment was being lined up from businesses in his country who wished to invest in the island nation.

Western countries this month called for a political process as the only means to end the bloodshed in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's former colonial ruler Britain has called for a "political process" to end Sri Lanka's spiralling violence and condemned the latest wave of bombings against civilians.

Unless Sri Lanka’s hardline government abandons its militarist path, the EU should impose sanctions, Germany said this week, adding that an EU-Troika will travel to Sri Lanka in early March to assess the situation.

Constant reports of widespread thieving are circulating in Sri Lanka, particularly around suburban town centers. This has gone so far as to affect even the dressing habits of women travelling in buses or three-wheeled vehicles.

Based on field trip between 10 and 14 December 2007, the author continues to query the much heralded liberation of the East in this the second of a three part series.

Hundreds of journalists marched Thursday in Sri Lanka's capital to protest harassment and suppression of the media.

The march was organized by members of the Movement Against Media Suppression, who say media personnel have been killed, abducted and jailed by government-backed paramilitary groups.

The group says 14 journalists and media workers have been killed in Sri Lanka in the past two years, while eight have been abducted and four others imprisoned.

A high-level team of officers from the Sri Lanka military intelligence corps (MIC) and army were taken stealthily into Pune in early February for advanced intelligence training at Indian Army's various high-security institutions there.

The initial phase of the training at the National Defence Academy (NDA) finished on February 8, the Times of India newspaper reported.

As a raging civil war killed thousands in the country's northeast, Sri Lankans in Colombo and other southern cities shopped, held picnics and cheered their children at soccer matches.