New Delhi minister cancels press conference

New Delhi minister cancels press conference in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 17:44 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid, visiting Jaffna on Tuesday, cancelled the ‘press conference’ he had scheduled at a hotel room in Jaffna exclusively for the Indian media accompanying him, after protest by local media about its exclusion. Eight journalists from Indian mainstream media, including The Hindu, accompanied the minister to set opinion orchestration in India. New Delhi official in Jaffna, Suresh Menon, had earlier announced that the press conference was for Indian journalists. The minister responded to the local media protest by cancelling media meet with all, and thus he also escaped answering questions from the local media, news circles in Jaffna said.

Whatever the media in Jaffna was able to cover was what the minister had said in a meeting that was organized for distributing money to some war-affected families of Vanni.

In that meeting, the Indian officials who were found seated with the public, set the ‘lead’ for clapping, and the beneficiaries who had come were made to follow the ‘clapping’.

The Indian official ‘lead’ for clapping was particularly set when the minister was talking about the 13th Amendment.

Other than the beneficiaries, the general public in Jaffna ignored the New Delhi minister and his visit.

Salman Khurshid [middle] in Jaffna

Chronology:

08.10.13  New Delhi minister cancels press conference in Jaf..

08.10.13  Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united,..

08.10.13  TNA members boycotted oath-taking, Wigneswaran-tri..

06.10.13  Indian EA minister to lunch with SL governor, meet..

03.10.13  TNA should learn from history: Poonkuzhali Nedumar..

27.09.13  ‘Tamils vote in NPC not a legitimation of unitary ..

25.09.13  Tamil Nadu answering Wigneswaran is answering New ..

23.09.13  Sampanthan, Sumanthiran find TNA victory supersedi..

21.09.13  Wigneswaran becomes chosen mouthpiece of imperiali..

16.09.13  The Justice fails as lawyer of Tamils too

13.09.13  Wigneswaran bares agenda of his sponsors

Cancel CHOGM, appeals Prof. Lynch

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 April 2013, 00:31 GMT]
Prof. Jake Lynch, director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, in an opinion column in the ABC website, called for cancellation of the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting (CHOGM), pointing to 'serious allegations of violations of international human rights law' in Sri Lanka "including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and violations of the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, as well as intimidation of and reprisals against human rights defenders, members of civil society and journalists, threats to judicial independence and the rule of law, and discrimination on the basis of religion or belief," which prompted UNHCR voting to send its own investigators to Sri Lanka.

Prof. Jake Lynch

Diplomacy should send a clear signal to Sri Lanka that it is on the wrong track, after Sri Lanka's civil war, in which government forces are accused of killing tens of thousands of Tamil civilians, Lynch wrote.

Lynch criticized Australian diplomacy for sending wrong signals, and adds, "Carr visited Colombo in December and pronounced it safe for the return of Tamil asylum seekers - flatly contradicting every independent assessment."

On Sri Lanka's path towards autocracy, Lynch points out that "[t]he Commonwealth summit would be hosted by president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has been removing political and judicial constraints on his ability to wield despotic power. Two of his brothers also hold cabinet posts. The constitutional limit restricting presidents to two terms in office was removed, and the High Court chief justice was dismissed, after she stood up to him."

Lynch asks "why has Canberra never backed demands for an independent international investigation of the alleged killing of civilians? Why has it not added its voice to calls for CHOGM to be moved?"

The answer may lie not in Sri Lanka at all but in one of the grimmest places in Australia: the MITA Detention Centre in Melbourne, Lynch answers:

There, a group of 30 asylum seekers, most Sri Lankan Tamils, are on hunger strike because, they say in a statement by the Tamil Refugee Council:
We left Sri Lanka because we fear to die. We came to Australia to live, not die. But death would be better than the life we have.
Their refugee claims have been granted, but they cannot leave detention - after three or four years in most cases - because of adverse security assessments by ASIO. The implication is that they are associated with the Tamil Tigers.

Not only is it fanciful to suppose that - even if they were - they would pose any threat to Australians, it is also difficult to imagine how such assessments could be made without collaboration with the Sri Lankan authorities: a source that is inevitably biased, because party to an unresolved conflict, and tainted by credible allegations of torture and abuse.

Is Australian diplomacy being distorted to avoid upsetting Colombo, for fear of an increase in the passage of boats carrying desperate people to our shores?, Lynch asks.

Chronology:

17.04.13  Cancel CHOGM, appeals Prof. Lynch

10.04.13  CHOGM heats up, Rae calls Sri Lanka a "Rogue Membe..

26.03.13  Queen to skip CHOGM - paper

16.03.13  Commonwealth's quandary over CHOGM in Sri Lanka

12.03.13  Commonwealth day brings to focus war crimes, Sri L..

11.03.13  Tutu, Robinson call for shift of CHOGM venue

03.03.13  Sri Lanka CHOGM boycott calls multiply

28.02.13  Australia should withdraw from CHOGM in Sri Lanka:..

10.02.13  CHOGM boycott calls for renewed action on Sri Lank..

External Links:

ABC:

Time for action on Colombo Commonwealth summit

Maldives cancels airport agreement with Indian corporate

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2012, 00:13 GMT]
The Republic of Maldives announced on Monday that it would take back the operations of the international airport at Male from the Indian corporate GMR Group with effect from Saturday, cancelling its agreement for a US $ 511 million project. According to media reports, New Delhi threatens that it would consider freezing aid to Maldives, especially a US $ 25 million loan immediately needed by the Maldives for the payment of salaries to its civil servants. But the general public and businessmen in the Maldives feel that it is a big victory for their efforts in freeing their airport from the clutches of the Indian corporate. The agreement with GMR Group was signed in the times of the earlier president, Mohamed Nasheed.

GMR Group (Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao Group) is headquartered in Bangalore. Its chairman Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao is a Telugu entrepreneur coming from Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh.

New Delhi was long handling Maldivian affairs, including job opportunities in the archipelago, through Andhra connections.

Besides the Male International Airport, the GMR Group in engaged in running the operations of Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad and Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Turkey.

Immediately after vested with the operations rights of the Male airport, the GMR Group increased the airport tax and took over the duty free trade, including the alcohol trade, from local businessmen, who view the Indian trade approaches as unsophisticated, arrogant and naked in greed.

The ways of business were too obvious to invite local resistance.

A booklet in Dhivehi, appearing a couple of months ago and widely circulated among the local people narrated the native efforts and labour of the Maldivian people in building the international airport from a World War II airstrip of the British.

At a time when no one believed that a passenger aircraft could land in the atolls of tiny islets, the first president of the second republic of the country, Mr Ibrahim Nasir proved in the 1960s that it could land.

Two adjacent islets were joined together by the labour of the Maldivian people. The president sat next to the pilot in the first flight that came from Colombo and landed at the airport to cast fears aside. The airport is today named after him, as Ibrahim Nasir International Airport.

The booklet questioned the wisdom of the Maldivian government today in handing over the airport to the corporate of a country that had never contributed anything in opening up the archipelago to the outside world.

The nexus between the Indian High Commission, especially the Indian High Commissioner in Male and the GMR Group was another irritant widely debated in the country.

In early November, the Spokesperson of the President’s Office of the Maldives, Abbas Adil Riza described the Indian High Commissioner D.M. Mulay as a “traitor and enemy of the Maldives and the Maldivian people.”

After the announcement of the Maldives government last Tuesday of its intention of cancelling the agreement with GMR Group, New Delhi was quick in considering the transfer (or promotion) of the present High Commissioner to New York as Consul General and the appointment of Rajiv Shahare as the new High Commissioner for the Maldives.

The GMR Group, as a Multinational Corporate of Singapore connection, has filed a case in the High Court of Singapore against the cancellation of the agreement and the Singapore High Court on Monday issued an injunction against the Maldivian government decision.

The injunction prompted President Mohamed Waheed’s Special Advisor Dr Hassan Saeed, Defense and acting Transport Minister Mohamed Nazim and Home Minister Dr Mohamed Jameel to call a press conference on Monday shortly after midday, reported Minivannews of Maldives.

“The government remains firm and committed towards implementing its decision to terminate the agreement. We will not reconsider it,” said Maldivian Defence Minister Nazim, adding that the government would re-take the airport on Saturday and would give it to Maldives Airport Company Limited (MACL) to run the operations.

“This is a sovereign country. We have given them a sovereign guarantee. That means the government will compensate for their damages. An injunction cannot be issued like this to a sovereign state,” said presidential advisor Saeed, commenting on the Singapore High Court injunction.

According to spokesperson of the International Aviation Transport Authority (IATA), it was the organization’s understanding that the airport owner “remains unchanged–it is still the Maldives government. What is changing is the operator of the airport.”

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of Maldives has informed GMR that it would withdraw the operator’s aerodrome certificate at 23:59 on December 7 (Friday) and Maldives immigration has halted the work permit renewal of people associated with GMR project.

Opponents of the government move, including the former president Naseem, say that this is a breech of international law on the part of Maldives and this will affect direct foreign investment in future.

Like the affairs of the island of Sri Lanka, the Maldivian affairs too are entangled amidst the contentions of the West, India and China. In addition, Maldives also has connections with the forces of the Islamic world. The local entrepreneurship of the Maldives too has many shady connections.

On the part of India, it has lost its credibility and moral leadership of the region with the role it played and continues to play in the genocide of Eezham Tamils. This subconsciously operates and will continue to operate against Indian interests in the region, commented political observers in the region.

The Indian media reacting to the developments in the Maldives, fail to tell the Indian public that to what extent the sentiments unfolding in the Maldives are a latent result of the policy followed by India in grooming Rajapaka regime and coupling the Maldivian regime along with it, the observers commented further.

Related Articles:
11.09.12   Blake visits Maldives as the country threatens to leave Comm..
24.04.12   Militarisation of southern South Asia centres-around Sri Lan..
16.02.12   Self-denial of heritage in Maldives sends message to Establi..
13.12.11   China announces Indian Ocean naval base in Seychelles
17.11.11   China timed SAARC summit to open embassy in Maldives
28.09.11   Regimes in Sri Lanka, Maldives, forge questionable alliance
22.09.11   Discussions in Geneva show world plunging into ‘State Anarch..
22.08.11   It is not mere corruption, but militarisation of corruption ..
23.06.11   Eezham question gets entangled in competition of SCO and NAT..
07.05.11   Blake’s visit follows Maldives ditching UN panel report