Modi To “Wipe The Tears Of Sri Lankan Tamils”
Posted on May 11th, 2016
Sudath Gunasekara
Sunday Leader 8.5.2016
Modi To Wipe The Tears Of Sri Lankan Tamils”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured that his government will wipe the tears of Sri Lankan Tamils”.
Modi said this while addressing election rallies in Chennai and Hosur town in Tamil Nadu ahead of the Assembly polls.
Modi said he was the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Jaffna and added that his government would wipe the tears of Sri Lankan Tamils, The Tribune newspaper reported.
He also said that 30,000 of the 50,000 houses to be built with Indian assistance in Sri Lanka had been handed over to the Tamils.
Now look at this news. Politicians are the same all over. They will do anything and go down to any level to get the votes of people. This is how Modi woos the Tamil nadu Tamils at the ongoing elections.
I would advice Modi to first wipe the tears of Tamils in Tamilnadu before tries to do so in the eyes of Tamils of a foreign country by liberating them from that mad woman Jaya Lalitha and senile KarunanidiIsnt because there are more tears in the eyes of Tamils in India than those of Sri Lanka.
Isnt it a joke that a man who has miserably failed to wipe the tears of people in his own country trying to Wipe The Tears Of Sri Lankan Tamils” Rjiev also tried to do the same by training LTTE and by providing all what they wanted to establish EELAM here.
We warned him to stop that cracy blunder lest he is killed first. He did everything to destabilize Sri Lanka. He dropped Parippu . He gave even his bullet proof jacket to Prabhakaran.
He imposed the Rajiev/JR pact by force and the 13th amendment on us. What happened within two months of our warning he had to pay for his heinous crimes against this country with his life.
Of cause Prabhkaran is not there to kill Modi. But it is better for him also to keep in mind that none who wronged this country thrice blessed by Buddha has survived
He also should understand Sri Lanka is not yet apart of India. It is an independent sovereign country lying far beyond his command though it lies just 22 nautical mile form India.
May 11th, 2016 at 5:04 pm
I would also like to encourage Modi to wipe the tears of the Muslim Kashmiri’s, the Nadal and natives, the native Assamese, and the disposed millions of Dalits suffering oppression.
Any left over paper he should use in new toilets for wiping the you know what to make India a more sanitary homeland for its people.
Let India’s charitable wiping begin at home!
May 11th, 2016 at 5:48 pm
OH YES, ANANDA !!!
MODI MUST STAND ON THE RAILWAY LINE, AND WIPE THE * YOU KNOW WHAT* AFTER PEOPLE DEFECATE. HAPPY TO HEAR THAT MODI IS SO ENTHUSIASTIC IN **WIPING**, THE YKW, OF TAMILS.
May 11th, 2016 at 6:22 pm
Modi wants to wipe the Tears of Tamils. We want to wipe out the FEARS created by Tamils so that tears will not come out of Tamil eyes as well as eyes of millions of people affected by the Indian terror training institute RAW.
May 11th, 2016 at 8:09 pm
Indian Empire and Indian imperialists and Indian colonial parasites and vermin have brought tears to previous inhabitants of Guyana and Mauritius.
Bharath jadayas are doing the same to us since their arrival on the back of the British since 1792.
May 11th, 2016 at 10:50 pm
Why India’s Big Push for Economic Cooperation in Lanka May Backfire
Wed, May 11, 2016, 09:53 am SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
May 11 (Wire) New Delhi’s policy of hustling its smaller neighbour comes at a time when the Wickremesinghe government’s mismanagement of the economy is apparent and will end up helping the xenophobic political forces in the country.
New Delhi’s relations with Colombo may appear to be at a high point but ironically, anti-India sentiments are on the rise in Sri Lanka. This divergence in sentiments between the Sri Lankan government and its population is largely a consequence of moves to liberalise trade in services and investment between the two countries.
It is no secret that there was a major sigh of relief in India and the United States following the regime change in Colombo in January 2015. China’s inroads into the country with the Rajapaksa regime had polarised the region and raised the geopolitical stakes. However, Sri Lanka’s relationship China was built on an economic foundation of large investments in infrastructure. It also has a historical basis from the rubber rice deal during the Korean War to the massive Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall in Colombo, gifted by the Chinese in the early 1970s. Nevertheless, in India’s efforts to ensure its regional dominance and counter China’s influence, there has been a singular focus on trying to lock Sri Lanka into the Indian economic orbit.
Expanding trade and financial agreements
The India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement of 1998 was followed by efforts towards a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) to liberalise trade in services and investment starting in the mid-2000s.
However, the CEPA negotiations dragged on for nearly a decade in the face of increasing opposition within Sri Lanka, particularly by the business community and certain interest groups such as the medical lobby. With the new momentum in closer bilateral ties last year, India is pushing for a new trade pact called the Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA). The pro-liberalisation government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been actively championing the proposed trade pact.
Meanwhile, the deterioration of the Sri Lankan economy in recent months – including a major balance of payments problem – has forced Colombo to seek support from external actors. India has boosted Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves by US$ 1.1 billion with a Reserve Bank of India credit swap for six months drawn last September, followed by a further emergency credit swap in March to wade over the tough financial tide.
The credit swap is a temporary measure to increase Sri Lanka’s forex reserves, until the country receives an IMF loan. The IMF’s extended fund facility of US$ 1.5 billion coupled with US$ 650 million in multilateral and bilateral loans are to take effect in June this year. The government believes these loans will create momentum for further global financial flows into the country.
The ETCA, widely perceived by the Sri Lankan public to be advantageous to India, is likely to become a trade-off for economic and political support from India to the Wickremesinghe government. However, Wickremesinghe’s visit to Beijing last month has strengthened relations with China – a shift from the soured relations which followed the defeat of the Rajapaksa regime last year. The possibility of equity swaps, where Sri Lankan debt to China is traded for financial stakes in Sri Lankan enterprises, is now being considered. Sri Lanka has also initiated negotiations with China and the US on new free trade agreements. Seizing this opportunity, the IMF and the World Bank are also pushing to liberalise trade as part of a larger strategy of liberalising the Sri Lankan economy – from encouraging the privatisation of state owned enterprises to labour reforms.
Reactions to ETCA
Many of the Colombo-based neoliberal think tanks see the Wickremesinghe government in power and the crisis facing the economy as an opportunity to accelerate liberalisation, including in trade. However, the ETCA is coming under considerable fire from a range of interest groups and political parties – from the chauvinistic remnants of the Rajapaksa regime to the ‘left’ opposition Janatha Vimukthi Perumana.
So what fuels this tremendous reaction to the ETCA? After all, the agreement is only one part of this liberalisation push. To start with, the trade picture is not pretty. According to the Central Bank, Indian exports to Sri Lanka were US$ 4,268 million while Lankan exports to India stood at just US$ 643 million in 2015 – reflecting a massive trade deficit between the countries.
There have been various explanations put forward by Indian officials and pro-liberalisation advocates in Colombo on what has been gained with the previous free trade agreement, including claims that the high Indian exports to Sri Lanka are mostly independent of the free trade agreement. However, India’s eagerness for the trade pact and the stark trade deficit is difficult to miss.
In this context, the current economic crisis and the neoliberal economic policy trajectory have become the political ground for the mobilisation of forces opposed to the government. And this campaign has zeroes in on the ETCA as the catch-all word to describe any and all impending economic woes. Political forces and middle class interest groups such as doctors and IT professionals are opposing the agreement and mobilising broader sections of society. Furthermore, these forces have assumed a xenophobic character, propagating anti-Indian sentiments.
Recent economic crisis
Much of the current economic woes in Sri Lanka have been inherited from the Rajapaksa government’s economic development policies of construction-led growth on high interest debt. In addition, the deterioration in global economic conditions over the past year have created difficult financial conditions for Sri Lanka to roll over such debt. However, the Wickremesinghe government needs to take part of the blame for mismanagement and certainly for its flawed economic vision.
Having come to power over a year ago, and having crossed the milestone of the parliamentary election in August 2015, it nevertheless chose to continue on the path of further exposing the economy to international debt in its November 2015 budget. It ignored the warning bells about the increasing import bill and falling revenues, which have made the country far more susceptible to the current crisis conditions of capital flight from the emerging markets and increasing cost of capital in the global financial markets.
At the core of the Wickremesinghe government’s economic programme is the liberalisation of trade and capital flows; the trade agreements and the IMF facility reflect this economic vision. In other words, it is counting on enticing inward capital flows despite the winds of global capital blowing in the opposite direction. Worryingly, even trade agreements in services and investment are known to lead to further speculative investment flows into finance, insurance and real estate, rather than traditional forms of foreign direct investment leading to the building of factories for production and exports. However, the Sri Lankan establishment has been satisfied with such fickle policies that also lead to considerable rent-seeking by the financial elite.
Opposing xenophobia and liberalisation
Trade liberalisation is always contentious for its impact on society, but it is all the more so now in the context of the global downturn and a national economic crisis. It is likely to aggravate the rising inequalities and jobless growth in Sri Lanka – by pushing for lower wages to compete in international markets – and the inflow of cheaper commodities, wiping out local production.
With the ETCA debate polarised between the free trade elite and the anti-Indian forces, there has been little informed debate including critical analysis of trade liberalisation, broader neoliberal reforms and the deteriorating global economic situation. For those bothered by xenophobia and economic marginalisation, the challenge is to oppose both the reflexive anti-Indian campaign of the nationalists and the neoliberal policies of the liberalisers.
In this context, New Delhi’s policy of hustling its smaller neighbour cannot be more ill-timed and is likely to generate a political backlash. The hubris of the Indian and Sri Lankan establishments in pushing through this trade pact may well result in losing the great opportunity that emerged last year of rebuilding Indo-Lanka relations on a broader footing.
Ahilan Kadirgamar is a political economist and a member of the Collective for Economic Democratisation in Sri Lanka
Read More:: Wire (Source)
May 12th, 2016 at 10:11 am
India is responsible for the tears in the first place. They don’t like Tamils living in harmony with the majority community. They are the ones who are responsible for most of the misery of Sri Lankans. There are 1.2million infant deaths in India. Half of their population toilet by the roadside. Why is tea boy Modi poking his nose into our affairs?
May 12th, 2016 at 11:11 am
Dr. Sudath, Modi should watch what happened at French Cannes film festival. As you say Sudath, Mother Lanka is still not a province of Tamil Nadu. It will happen if Sinhala does not act right now. See what happens when money and position is put before dedication to mother.LANKA(Lalith and Ranjan Wijayaratne sacrificed their lives to eliminate Tamil Terrorists) Late Lalith Athulathmudali’s death annuasery oration! It was given by Srisane President. Oil lamp was lit by LTTE current chairman. What was in his brother’s mind! I will have to wait till I get replies to my e-mails.
May 12th, 2016 at 2:35 pm
If INDIA’s Leaders have an iota of compassion for Tamils and all Others of Lanka, do NOT bring back the INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM to Sri Lanka. Most of Lanka’s divisive plus terrorist troubles stem from that. Lanka cannot solve Tamil Nadu Caste/Poverty problems as TN prints Caste lines on the birth certificates there. Lanka does not.
#1 : INDIA must allow the withdrawal of the 13-A which INDIA imposed under Duress on the JRJ govt in 1987.
True and genuine Reconciliation will happen when the 13-A is removed. Mr Modi was not responsible for the 13-A, but he and the present day UNP led Yahapalanaya govt can do it.
#2 : Then there is the case of INDIAN FISHERMEN from Tamil Nadu who steal Fish from Lanka sea waters, after they have ruined the sea bed off the coast of Tamil Nadu due to bottom trawling for conch shells and over fishing. The stolen fish from Sri Lanka seas over the many years amount to perhaps billion of SL rupees. Where is the compensation for the stolen fish ? Shouldn’t Tamil Nadu or INDIA pay for that loss to Lanka ?
#3 : Where is the compenstion for loss of lives (27,000 soldiers so far, for nearly 30 yrs of war with the LTTE) plus costs of war for nearly 30 yrs ? What about loss of lives of thousands of innocent Civilians in Lanka ? All this was because INDIA TRAINED THE LTTE IN TAMIL NADU IN THE 1980s.
#4. : Where is the compensation for loss of reputation abroad for Lanka due to lies, cheat & deceit from the Tamil Diaspora to foreign govts and the UN etc ? The Tamil Diaspora which was formed after Tamils went abroad as REFUGEES, after the trumped up Riots of 1983 which event came about mainly with the push from INDIAN ENVOY, J.N. Dixit, during the JRJ govt. ?
Mr Dixit was a Chennai born Catholic. He was known as the Vice Roy of Lanka during that time. He died of a heart attack when the Tsunami struck in Dec 2004, destroying the Sea Tiger might as well as carry off P’karan and some others in the LTTE.
#5. : SRI LANKANS are quite aware of the Caste System in INDIA and the Caste discrimination that has gone on there for over 3,000 yrs. Please do NOT make Lanka a scapegoat for INDIA’S TAMIL NADU CASTE/POVERY PROBLEMS. We know the facts.
#6. : Please do not cause Lanka any more problems with INDIA. To this end –
– Remove the ETCA
– sea tunnel plans to Tamil Nadu
– Possible Fed State for Tamils in Lanka (through new Constitution)
– Not sure where the 5,000 acre lease for 99 yrs to foreigners part came from – but, if INDIA has influence over that too, please delete from list.
Another important point for INDIA to note : that about 80% of GoSL money given to the Northern PC for Development has not been spent. Why is that, we may ask ? Is it to create “beggars wounds” of sorts – to give a false impression as if GoSL does not take care of the North and has not spent money for that area, a false notion, cooked up like the 1983 Riots, to enable another Refugee intake into the west ?
May 12th, 2016 at 4:00 pm
more …
INDIA, please do take back all the illegal migrants in Sri Lanka that came from Tamil Nadu. They belong in TN, not in Lanka.
We wonder what the Buddha might have said of the present situation with INDIA,
and the wonderful motto on the INDIAN Flag : “Sathya meva Jayathe” (Truth Wins).
May 13th, 2016 at 3:08 am
Its going to be a sad dissappointment for Mr.Modi as, according to Dr.Rajan Hoole Tamils have no more tears to shed!
May 13th, 2016 at 5:35 am
Nak
Agreed with you we asked one TE but you gave us Two ( Siva TE(NP) & Muslim TE(EP) ).
Common….. Tamils what else you want !!!
May 13th, 2016 at 12:54 pm
Mr Modi must first wipe the tears of the Tamil Dalits in Tamil Nadu. Most of Sri Lanka’s problem are because of the unhappiness of many Millions of Tamil Dalits whose only goal is to somehow get out of Tamil Nadu. So they go anywhere possible such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Australia, Canada, Fiji and South Africa etc. Modi should know the problems since he is also a Dalit and was working as a street cleaner at one time.
He must:
1. Remove the designation of caste on the birth certificate in India. That would in one stroke eliminate caste in society of Tamil Nadu.
2. Provide proper toilets so that people do not have to defecate on the streets.
3. Stop employing Dalits as street sweepers and cleaners of fecal matter from streets. Mechanise this task.
4. Proper education and healthcare such as what Sri Lanka provides.
5. Ensure Tamil politicians stop making fabricated statements against Sri Lanka. It only creates more animosity among Tamils and Sinhalese. It is the Sinhalese who feel a minority next to a giant with 72 million Tamils across the Palk Strait. You must understand it and stop making aggressive take over bids towards Sri Lanka.
6. Take back all the Tamil Dalit illegal immigrants in Sri Lanka amounting to over 1.5 million who came over during the 30 year of war and also the Indian plantation workers and their children who were brought by the British for the Tea plantations. There was a pact signed (Shrima Shastri pact) which was not fully honored by India to date.
7. Instead of building houses for Tamil illegal immigrants in Sri Lanka India must build houses for the Tamil Dalits in India. Then they will stop migrating to other countries.
8. Compensate Sri Lanka for all the damage they did to Sri Lanka by training LTTE and deaths up to 100,000 people both in military and civilians. In addition, Tamil Nadu fishermen for the last 30 years they have been fishing in Sri Lanka waters and taking the catch which amounts to billions of Dollars each year.
10. Try to base your action on the motto on the Indian flag. “Satyameva Jayate” “Truth Alone Triumphs”. People may take you seriously if you do it without a lot of hypocrisy.