(Some) Indian MPs Pull Out Of Sri Lanka Visit
Stalin and Karunanidhi. Photo by Feroze Khan
My general impression is that Tamil Nadu parties like the DMK are fundamentally unserious about reconciliation in Sri Lanka. Like Karunanidhi’s six hour fast between meals to end the war, his party is now taking a farcical stance to not even visit Sri Lanka on a Parliamentary tour. A lot of opposition MPs have pulled out, with Vaiko (who wasn’t even coming) saying, essentially, that they shouldn’t visit till Eelam, Karunanidhi’s ‘unrealized dream‘.
At some point you have to accept that Sri Lanka exists if you want to make a difference to the people here. Everything else is just vain posturing. You can tell this is a political football cause the Congress (government) MPs are coming and the opposition guys are not. They honestly don’t seem to care enough to even see what’s going on. They’ve drawn they’re conclusions and they seem quite content to kick the same tired old ball around.
It just does a disservice to Tamil people and Sri Lankan people in general who would benefit from a good relationship with our neighbor and friend India. Average Indian people are not so intransigent, they’re happy to visit and they generally make an attempt to respect and understand us as neighbors. As somewhat usual, Indian politicians put the Indian people to shame.
Not to quote Ice Cube, but the Sri Lankan police are hardly beloved. A 
I just gave a talk at the University Of Sri Jayawardenapura along with Reeza Zarook of Anything.lk and Rohan Jayaweera of Google. These are my notes: Devin Jayasundara asked me for a subject for this talk and I told him Internet property. But I talked to my fiancé Shru and she had a better idea. Startups aren’t about creating property at all, not really. They’re about creating territory, about creating land.
I haven’t been blogging much, I know. It’s partly because we’ve been doing a lot of work on YAMU, especially shipping 1.0.1 of the Android app today. It’s on the 
I met an old-timer who said they used to drop acid and sleep atop Sigiriya, but the place has taken on a more commercial and quasi-spiritual role now. It was built by a king as a sort of retreat and used as a monastery. Now it’s a prime tourist and cultural destination. Hence it’s a bit odd to see a Japanese beer commercial shot up there. There’s a bunch of people eating, um, deep fried cream filled coconuts and then drinking some bracing beer. I hear the whole thing cost Rs. 25,000 (I’m presuming they used stock images).
GoSL should have the guts to ask Indians to quit the double standards. either support or depart. WTF is this? they pretend to be kith and kin and they just back up whenever there is a protest of somekind from some joker somewhere!! Who do they think we are to accept them when they walk in and accept when walk out!!?
The strange thing is that the idea of an “all party delegation” was mooted by the same Tamil Nadu political parties who have now backed out. I don’t think it is a loss for Sri Lanka though because by pulling out they have only caused the Congress Party major embarassment and this action will not be lost on the leader of the Indian opposition Sushma Swaraj as well. A good lesson on what happens when the whims and fancies of Tamil Nadu politicians are pandered to.
Just as most politicians in this country, DMK is playing to the gallery.
Tamil Nadu Fishermen have been complaining for some time about Sri Lanka Navy … So, this could be a factor
[...] As I said before, the Indian parliamentarians who boycotted the visit of Sri Lanka are fundamentally unserious about reconciliation here. They actually reject the basic premise, that we are one people capable of unity, prefering vengeance and division instead. It’s bullshit. [...]
[...] As I said before, the Indian parliamentarians who boycotted the visit of Sri Lanka are fundamentally unserious about reconciliation here. They actually reject the basic premise, that we are one people capable of unity, prefering vengeance and division instead. It’s bullshit. [...]