As ever in Sri Lanka, after the initial blaze of publicity … the state ensures that nothing that might benefit Tamils can proceed.

Last June, the Indian government’s declared intention to build 50,000 houses in the war shattered Northeast sparked much media interest, hope (in the Northeast), and controversy (in South).

Then nothing happened.

With Tamil Nadu due to go to the polls within weeks, the issue of Indian fishermen being attacked in the waters between India and Sri Lanka has once again made the news.

The oceanic border between India and Sri Lanka has no visible demarcations and fishermen often find themselves on the wrong side.

While Sinhala fishermen (often seeking tuna) have been arrested in Indian waters and later released, there has also long been a history of the Sri Lankan navy attacking and killing Indian fishermen.

“In February, [Sri Lanka] Prime Minister DM Jayaratne argued in Parliament that it was important to extend the Emergency partly because remnants of the LTTE were active among the Tamil diaspora. This month, he brought LTTE cadres to Tamil Nadu, a lot closer. What could be the argument next month?”

Sri Lanka’s government Wednesday denounced the US-led air operation against the Libyan regime with a familiar refrain.

“These strikes are harming civilians and are also a violation of the territorial integrity of an independent country,” External Affairs Minister G.L.Peiris told Parliament.

The irony is incredible. Sri Lanka, whose governments over three decades murdered over a hundred thousand Tamil civilians throughout bombardment, blockade, extra-judicial killings and disappearances (and that was before the mass killings of forty thousand more in 2009), has something to say about Libya.

(From Reuters' report Wednesday)

Sri Lanka’s bourse is Asia's best performer so far in 2011 with an 8.6 percent gain, after a 96 percent rise last year.

The sixth annual Tamil Studies Conference, "Parimaanam: Images, Embodiments and Contestations" organized by the University of Toronto and the University of Windsor, will be held at the University of Toronto from May 13-14, 2011.

Registration to the public is open. Click here. 

Extracts from US Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake’s speech to the Asia Society on Monday:

This is one of the pictures at a recent exhibition in London billed as the “first international showcase of Sri Lanka's leading contemporary artists since the end of the civil war in 2009”:

President Mahinda Rajapaksa this week grumbled that Western countries were refusing visas to Sri Lankan minister, but were issuing them to ‘terrorists’ – his word for Tamils who seek refuge abroad from his militarized rule.

On International Women’s Day (March 8), the Global Tamil Women Forum (GTWF) appealed to international governments, parliamentarians, institutions and human rights defenders over the plight of Tamil women in Sri Lanka.

The appeal urged the international community to ensure: