Only Congress interested in Tamils' welfare -Narayanasamy

2013-05-21  Union Minister V Narayanasamy today said that only the Congress party is "genuinely" interested in ensuring welfare of the Tamils in Sri Lanka while other political parties in Tamil Naduwere shedding "crocodile tears" on the issue. "It is indeed shocking that the political parties who have not done anything for welfare of the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees staying in Tamil Nadu are feigning to be their champions and making criticisms against Congress and the party-led UPA government at the Centre on theTamils issue," he said. Both ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and former Congress ally DMK have frequently expressed concern over attacks on fishermen from the state, allegedly by Lankan Navy, besides flaying Centre for failing to put pressure on Colombo on the issue.  "Only the Congress party is sincerely and genuinely interested in ensuring welfare of the Tamils in Sri Lanka while other political parties in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are doing only lip service and shed crocodile tears merely for their political survival," Narayanasamy said. Addressing a Congress Workers Meeting on the occasion of the 22nd death anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi here, Narayanasamy referred to the UPA government's initiatives towards rehabilitation of Tamils in Lanka, besides approval of railway and power projects in the island republic. Narayansamy also recalled the concern the late Rajiv Gandhi had shown for the Sri Lankan Tamils and described as historic measure his step to deploy the Indian Peace Keeping Force for their protection. He welcomed the Tamil Nadu government's ban on a public meeting at Cuddalore, organised by a pro-Tamil Eelam outfit, 'Naam Tamilar', in which JKLF leader Yasin Malikwas to participate, on Saturday last. "The Tamil Nadu government intervened in time and banned the meeting in the larger interest of law and order," he said. (PTI)

India second largest development aid giver to Sri Lanka By PTI | 20 May, 2013 COLOMBO: India was the second largest development aid giver to Sri Lanka last year behind China, providing over $700 million to the island nation, according to latest official figures.  This was contained in the Ministry of Financeand Planning's External Resources Department's 2012 'Global Partnership Towards Development' report issued recently.  The Chinese commitment stood at $1.05 billion. "The total assistance extended by India during the last 5 year period was $1.45 billion of which $1.12 billion was loan assistance and $326 million was grant assistance," the report said.  The total assistance extended by China during the period between 1971 and 2012 was $5.05 billion of which $4.76 billion, representing around 94 per cent, was extended during the last 8-year period from 2005 to 2012, the report said.  Provision of grant assistance by India has substantially increased during the last few years mainly for social infrastructure development, emergency rehabilitation and reconstruction activities.  The Indian government committed grant assistance of around $260 million for construction of 49,000 housing units in 2012.  In addition, construction of 1,000 pilot houses with grant assistance of $10 million was completed this year.  Rehabilitation of Kankesanthurai harbor in the north at a cost of Rs 2.2 billion and construction of Dickoya hospital in the central hill districts at a cost of Rs 1.2 billion are some of the projects being implemented under Special Development Projects.  The annual foreign financing commitments from development partners and lending agencies have gradually increased at an annual average rate of 24 per cent from 2006 to 2010.  As most of the large scale infrastructure development projects were initiated during 2010, the foreign financing commitments slightly decreased to $2.07 billion in 2011 compared with the corresponding value of $3.28 billion in 2010 which have increased to $3.31 billion in 2012.  After Sri Lanka was classified as a country with middle income economy the availability of concessional foreign financing has gradually declined over the last few years.  The non-concessional and commercial financing has increased by 25 per cent from $855.8 million to $1.07 billion.  The total external debt obtained for development projects at end of September 2012 was $20.38 billion which has grown at an annual rate of 11 per cent over the last 10 years.  About 77 per cent of foreign debt represent concessional loans and the remaining 23 per cent from non-concessional loans including commercial loans.  The total external debt at end of September 2012 stood at $20.4 billion which was 31.9 per cent of the GDP.