Word: tamil
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Lankan army pays out a lifetime's salary to the families of its slain soldiers - and right now that policy may be set to place new strains on the defense budget. Tamil Tiger rebel forces reportedly broke through government lines near the town of Jaffna Wednesday, two days after President Chandrika Kumaratunga rejected a rebel truce offer allowing her troops safe passage out of the beleaguered Jaffna peninsula, vowing instead to defend the territory to the last man. The secessionist fighters, who regard Jaffna as the capital of their desired homeland of Tamil Eelam, last week delivered a crushing blow...
...always hard to beat a guerrilla army fighting for independence on home ground, but even more so when the insurgents are better armed than the government forces. Sri Lanka found itself forced to declare martial law Thursday following another dramatic defeat at the hands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who last week took control of the gateway to the disputed Jaffna province, leaving some 40,000 government troops trapped and surrounded. And to make matters worse, India - whose government includes parties from India's Tamil province, and which was eventually asked by Sri Lanka to withdraw the last...
...Kumaratunga, which has made taking a hard line against the guerrillas the centerpiece of its tenure, faces the humiliating prospect of having to negotiate a cease-fire with the LTTE in order to save thousands of its soldiers. And the rebels, who are fighting for independence for the mostly Tamil northern provinces they refer to as Eelam (the Hindu Tamil form about 20 percent of Sri Lanka's population, with the majority Sinhalese, who are largely Buddhist, making up about 75 percent) are likely to demand de facto control over the Jaffna peninsula as their price. In acceding to such...
...India finally has a more humane--and effective--population policy, much of the credit goes to people like Nirmala, 32, who heads the Village Health Nurse Association in Tamil Nadu. The typical nurse in the group zips around on a moped to visit 5,000 or more people under her care. Treating all sorts of ills and offering contraceptive tips, she leaves smiles on the faces of patients like Mallai...
Long before the Cairo conference, Nirmala complained about the birth-control numbers game, but superiors told her she would be "suspended" if she challenged policy. Only in 1992 did she get a real hearing, when S. Ramasundaram took over Tamil Nadu's family-welfare program. Nirmala told him that birth-control targets made mothers distrust nurses and resist the policy. Later, she said nurses would forgo the sterilization bonuses if allowed to do their jobs without so much government interference...