127-403: Jaffna International Airport ( Tamil : யாழ்ப்பாணம் சர்வதேச விமான நிலையம் , romanized: Yāḻppāṇam Carvatēca Vimāṉa Nilaiyam ; Sinhala : යාපනය ජාත්යන්තර ගුවන්තොටුපළ , romanized: Yāpanaya Jātyantara Guvantoṭupaḷa ) ( IATA : JAF , ICAO : VCCJ ), formerly known as Palaly Airport and Jaffna Airport , is an international airport serving northern Sri Lanka . It was also
254-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or
381-416: A military airbase known as Sri Lanka Air Force Palaly or SLAF Palaly . The airport is located in the town of Palaly near Kankesanthurai , 7 nautical miles (13 km ; 8 mi ) north of the city of Jaffna . It is at an elevation of 10 m (34 ft ) and has one runway designated 05/23 with an asphalt surface measuring 1,400 by 30 metres (4,593 ft × 98 ft). The airport
508-484: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without
635-759: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and
762-470: A budget of 229.9 billion rupees ($ 2.1 billion) in 2012, the largest of any government ministry. In early 2011, as food prices soared, the Army bought vegetables from farmers and then sold them to the public at below market prices. Some of the vegetables came from military farms. The Army also runs a travel agency called Air Travel Services (Pvt) Ltd selling air-tickets and foreign package holidays. In
889-505: A conventional war taking place in the northern and eastern provinces of the island and LTTE attacks in other parts of the country, which included several largescale suicide bombings . The Sri Lankan Army began deploying full divisions in offensive operations and the Navy and Air Force increased their inventories to support the Army. In 2002, a new Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA) was established with Norwegian mediation and peace talks began. The SLMM
1016-519: A family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of
1143-756: A member of the Advisory Committee and offered a peacekeeping contingent. First peacekeeping deployment of the island's armed forces took place in 1960, when Ceylon held the Commonwealth Seat as a Non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council . Six peacekeepers were dispatch to the United Nations Operation in the Congo which was the first major peacekeeping operation undertaken by
1270-607: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil
1397-671: A number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
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#17327758758161524-518: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with
1651-630: A paper drafted by the Committee was inadvertently made public, concerns were raised that the Committee's recommendations for restructuring Higher Defence Organisation might be constitutionally flawed in relation to the role of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Although the work of the Committee thereafter proceeded apace, the DRC itself became a political football amidst
1778-782: A regular military. The Army Act No. 17 of 1949 was passed by Parliament on 11 April 1949 and formalized in the Gazette Extraordinary No. 10028 of 10 October 1949. This marked the creation of the Ceylon Army , and the CDF and the CRNVR were disbanded to make way for a regular navy. On 9 December 1950 the Royal Ceylon Navy (RCyN) was established. Finally, in 1951 the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF)
1905-620: A sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes : போக pōka go முடி muṭi accomplish Sri Lankan military The Sri Lanka Armed Forces is the overall unified military of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka encompassing the Sri Lanka Army ,
2032-657: A significant milestone. Subsequently, scheduled flights connecting Jaffna and Chennai commenced in November of the same year. These ventures and cooperative efforts work in tandem to reinforce the well-established people-to-people connections that exist between India and Sri Lanka. During World War II the British Royal Air Force built an airfield on 145 ha (359 acres ) of land in Palaly near Kankesanthurai in northern Ceylon . The airfield's runway
2159-647: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of
2286-610: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who
2413-506: A suitable standard for passenger aircraft. Redevelopment of the airport began in July 2019 with the extension of the runway from 950 metres to 1,400 metres (phase 1), allowing it to handle aircraft with a seating capacity of up to 75. The Road Development Authority was given the task of constructing the new apron , taxiway and roads and overlaying the runway. The state-owned Airport and Aviation Services (AAS) were responsible for constructing
2540-686: A terrorist organisation by the Sri Lanka. This led to India intervening by entering Sri Lankan air space to carry out food drops. Shortly afterward the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord was signed and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was sent to Sri Lanka to establish peace. The military was redistricted to its bases but was soon involved in another insurrection by the JVP in the south of the island from 1987 to 1989. In
2667-406: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on
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#17327758758162794-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to
2921-522: A whale and dolphin watching service for tourists. The Navy also provides a canal-boat service in Colombo from Wellawatta to Nawala , a boat service to Adam's Bridge for tourists and a vegetable shop. Helitours is the commercial arm of the Air Force established in the 1970s. It was inactive during the civil war but after its end the business has started functioning again, taking advantage of
3048-635: Is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia . It is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil
3175-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel
3302-401: Is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages ,
3429-794: Is expected to be extended to 2,300 metres in phase 2. This will allow the airport to handle 150-seater aircraft such as the Airbus A320 and Airbus A321 , enabling flights to other parts of Asia and Europe. Phase 3 will see the runway extended to 3,200 metres, capable of accommodating 200-seater aircraft. Flights were suspended after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka , but resumed in December 2022 between Jaffna and Chennai. Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] )
3556-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of
3683-511: Is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela , the Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that
3810-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change
3937-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,
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4064-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard
4191-456: Is involved in everything from large-scale property developments to the running of roadside cafes. The military has built roads, bridges, houses and stadiums. The Urban Development Authority, which spends hundreds billions of rupees a year, was taken over by the Ministry of Defence in 2010. A year later the ministry was renamed Ministry of Defence and Urban Development. The ministry will have
4318-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,
4445-592: Is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate
4572-680: Is responsible for the management of the forces, while the planning and execution of combined operations is the responsibility of the Joint Operations Command (JOC). The JOC is headed by the Chief of the Defence Staff who is the most senior officer in the Armed Forces and is an appointment that can be held by a General , Admiral , or Air Chief Marshal . The three services have their own respective professional chiefs:
4699-643: Is responsible for the production of armoured vehicles and other equipment to the armed forces and have produced several MRAP-type vehicles such as the Unibuffel. Naval Boat Building Yard (NBBY) of the Navy is responsible for the production of small boats such as the Cedric and Wave Rider classes alongside other private companies such as Solas Marine Lanka while the Colombo Dockyard supplies larger vessels. Centre for Research & Development (CRD)
4826-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which
4953-901: Is the Ambassador to Indonesia; Major General Udaya Perera is the Deputy High Commissioner to Malaysia; Major General Jagath Dias is the Deputy Ambassador to Germany, Switzerland and the Vatican; Major General Shavendra Silva is the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN; Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda is the Ambassador to Japan; Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe is the High Commissioner to Australia; Major General Amal Karunasekara
5080-674: Is the Research and Development organisation of the Ministry of Defence and has developed UAVs, electronic warfare equipment, weapon systems, various simulators and network-centric warfare systems for the military. The tri-forces have their own R&D organisations with the Army Research Analysis Projection & Development Branch (RAP&D) of the Sri Lanka Army, Research and Development Unit of
5207-635: Is the aerial defense division and the youngest of the Sri Lankan Tri Forces. Founded in 1951 as the Royal Ceylon Air Force, it relied on the British Royal Air Force for its earliest equipment, training, and leadership. The Air Force played a major role in the war against Tamil separatists. Although Sri Lanka is only a small island state, its Air Force has proven highly capable and efficient. In recent times
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5334-793: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only
5461-751: The Commander of the Army , the Commander of the Navy and the Commander of the Air Force , who have much autonomy. Ceylon's first involvement in United Nations peacekeeping took place in 1957 in the wake of the Suez Crisis as the United Nations General Assembly moved to form an Advisory Committee to plan the deployment of what was going to be the United Nations Emergency Force . Ceylon was
5588-534: The Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front escaped to Colombo via Palaly airport. They were each charged Rs. 5,000 by the SLAF - a standard return flight cost only Rs. 3,000 at that time. During the early 1990s the airport and surrounding areas were declared a High Security Zone and all the residents were expelled. Between 1990 and 1995 this High Security Zone was the only government controlled territory on
5715-646: The Hambantota Cricket Stadium , the Navy Pallekele Cricket Stadium and the Air Force Premadasa Stadium . Many senior military commanders have been appointed to senior positions in the diplomatic and civil services: Air Chief Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody is the High Commissioner to Pakistan; Air Chief Marshal Donald Perera is the Ambassador to Israel; Major General Nanda Mallawaarachchi
5842-402: The Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name
5969-406: The President of Sri Lanka , is nominally the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces . The National Security Council , chaired by the President is the authority charged with formulating and executing defence policy for the nation. The highest level of military headquarters is the Ministry of Defence , since 1978 except for a few rare occasions the President retained the portfolio defence, thus being
6096-414: The Sri Lanka Navy , and the Sri Lanka Air Force ; they are governed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The three services have around 346,700 active personnel; conscription has never been imposed in Sri Lanka. As of 2021 it is the 14th largest military in the world, with 1.46% of the Sri Lankan population actively serving. Sri Lanka has a military history going back to more than 2000 years. The roots of
6223-403: The Sri Lankan military during the civil war . The army forcibly seized 261 ha (646 acres ) of neighbouring land in 1985. Following the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in July 1987 the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) used Palaly to transport troops between India and Sri Lanka. On 5 October 1987 around a dozen members of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), whom
6350-446: The Sri Lankan military were going to fly to Colombo to face criminal charges related to killing rival Tamil militants , committed suicide on the tarmac at Palaly airport by consuming cyanide capsules . Among the dead were two senior LTTE commanders - Kumarappa (Jaffna commander) and Pulendran (Trincomalee commander). In 1989, as the IPKF were preparing to withdraw from Sri Lanka, paramilitaries belonging to Indian backed groups such as
6477-404: The United Kingdom , Israel , the United States , India , and South Africa . Referring to the overseas military training given to Sri Lanka, the U.S. government's contribution at a higher level. The Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and International Military Education and Training (IMET) programs helping to standardizing and strengthening the country's military greatly. Although much of
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#17327758758166604-425: The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). Sri Lanka has sent staff officers to serve in the UN Headquarters in New York. The Institute of Peacekeeping Support Operations Training Sri Lanka (IPSOTSL) was established to train UN peacekeepers in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka Army is the oldest and largest of Sri Lanka's three armed services. Established as the Royal Ceylon Army in 1949, it
6731-471: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to
6858-499: The Valikamam region. After the Valikamam was recaptured by the Sri Lankan military in 1995 the airport served as a vital link to the rest of the country as the land route was controlled by the LTTE. The SLAF then started a regular service between Palaly and Colombo. The SLAF's Helitours arm provided civilian flights using aircraft and crew leased from the former Soviet Union . Lionair started operating flights for civilians between Palaly and Ratmalana in August 1996, taking over from
6985-566: The control tower , terminal building, fire brigade facilities, office complex and air navigation systems. In early October 2019 the airport was made a regional airport, renamed Jaffna International Airport and placed under the jurisdiction of the CAA. AAS were appointed operator of the civilian side of the airport. The renovated airport was opened by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe on 17 October 2019. The arrival of an Alliance Air ATR 72-600 aircraft from Chennai carrying airline officials and journalists signalled
7112-435: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak
7239-535: The Army) awards campaign medals for personnel that have taken part in successful, notable and high-risk operations: the first of these was the Vadamarachchi Operation Medal in 1983, while the latest (the Northern and Eastern Humanitarian Operations Medals ) were awarded in 2010, following the conclusion of the Eelam War. Since the end of the civil war in May 2009 Sri Lanka's 300,000 strong military has increased its non-military activities, leading to accusations of militarisation and even military rule. The military
7366-471: The British created a volunteer reserve on the island named the Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers . Created to supplement the British garrison in Ceylon in the event of an external threat, it gradually increased in size. In 1910 it was renamed the Ceylon Defence Force (CDF) and consisted of several regiments. The CDF mobilized for home defence in World War I and again in World War II when its units were deployed along with allied forces in Asia and Africa. At
7493-551: The CAA announced that the flights would begin on 10 November 2019. Alliance Air commenced thrice weekly flights from Chennai to Jaffna on 11 November 2019. FitsAir had said that they would operate charter flights to Chennai from 8 November 2019 and charter flights to Tiruchirappalli International Airport from 10 November 2019. The Sri Lankan government has stated that the airport would also have flights to other Indian destinations - Bangalore , Cochin , Hyderabad and Mumbai . Flights to Maldives have also been mooted. The runway
7620-427: The Indian consul in Jaffna to upgrade Palaly Airport. The appeal was forwarded to the Government of India , and after approval by the Prime Minister of India , negotiations began with the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). In late 2015 GoSL gave approval for an agreement between the two countries to upgrade the airport. The agreement met with resistance from civil servants in Colombo who feared that any development of
7747-427: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by
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#17327758758167874-420: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in
8001-412: The LTTE being blamed for using civilians as a human buffer. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights accused the Sri Lankan Armed Forces of committing widespread and often extremely brutal sexual violence against both Tamil females and males alike in a report in 2015. The posture of the military has been defensive due to the nature of the strategic threats to Sri Lanka. In
8128-442: The Minister of Defence. The ministry and the armed forces have been controlled during these periods by either a Minister of State , Deputy Minister for defence, and recently by the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Defence. Prior to 1978 the Prime Minister held the portfolio of Minister of Defence and External Affairs, and was supported by a Parliamentary Secretary for Defence and External Affairs. The Ministry of Defence
8255-458: The Naval Headquarters in Colombo . Established in 1950 as the Royal Ceylon Navy it was renamed as the Sri Lanka Navy in 1972. In recent years it had played a key role it the Sri Lankan civil war , conducting deep sea , coastal & inshore patrols, amphibious and supply operations. The navy has its own elite naval special forces unit, the Special Boat Squadron and Navy Marines . The Sri Lanka Air Force with approximately 28,700 personal
8382-422: The Prime Minister established the Defence Review Committee (DRC) which formulated extensive recommendations that encapsulate force modernization as well as the restructuring of command and control in ways that would make the army more responsive to civil control. The first task of the Committee was to assess the Higher Defence Organisation, given the decision by the President to relinquish the defense portfolio. When
8509-418: The SLAF, and doubled fares. Lionair had a profitable monopoly until March 1998 when Monara Airlines started flights on the same route. Monara suspended its services on 16 September 1998 after receiving threats from the LTTE for carrying military personnel. On 29 September 1998 Lionair Flight 602 left the airport around 1.48pm bound for Ratmalana Airport. At 2.10 pm it was reported missing. Locals reported seeing
8636-455: The Sri Lanka Navy and the Research and Development Wing of the Sri Lanka Air Force. The highest military decoration awarded by the tri-forces is the Parama Weera Vibhushanaya , awarded to all regular and volunteer officers and service personnel who display extraordinary individual bravery in combat; thus far, all PWVs have been posthumous. A related award is the Uththama Pooja Pranama Padakkama , an exclusively posthumous decoration awarded to
8763-495: The Sri Lankan Armed Forces were engaged in offensives on all fronts, with heavy fighting around Kilinochchi (where the LTTE had its headquarters) and close to Mullaitivu . In early 2009 the Armed Forces recaptured in quick succession Kilinochchi and the strategically important Elephant Pass . Thus establishing a land route to the government controlled Jaffna Peninsula which had been supplied by sea and air for over 10 years after its recapture in 1995. Shortly thereafter Mullaitivu
8890-444: The TNA demanded that Palaly be redeveloped into an international airport. In order to overcome communal objections from southern officials Wickremesinghe gave a commitment that Ratmalana Airport would become an international airport at the same time as Palaly Airport. The CAA agreed to give permission on condition that Palaly only serves as a regional airport (i.e. no long-haul flights) and that any Indian financial assistance would in
9017-535: The Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows a relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil)
9144-696: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as
9271-493: The United Nations peacekeeping operations. The Sri Lankan Navy with approximately 48,000 personal is the key maritime division of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and is classed as the most vital defence force of Sri Lanka. It conducts maritime operations at sea for the defence of the Sri Lankan nation and its interests. The professional head of the navy is the Commander of the navy , who exercises his command from
9398-652: The United Nations. This was followed by a second contingent in 1961. The Sri Lanka restarted contributing to UN peacekeeping missions with the deployment of an infantry battalion for the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) in 2004, deploying over 16,292 personal between 2004 and 2017. Sri Lankan peacekeepers have been embroiled in a child sex ring scandal in Haiti, with at least 134 soldiers being accused of sexually abusing nine children from 2004 to 2007. MINUSTAH
9525-664: The Valikamam North High Security Zone where the residents were forcibly expelled in the early 1990s and have not been allowed to resettle despite the end of the civil war. The Army also runs two other holiday resorts, one in Kukuleganga and the other in Wadduwa . In November 2011 it was announced that the Army would build a five star hotel in Colombo . During 2010-11, whilst local government
9652-519: The air force has expanded to specialize mainly in providing air-support to ground forces and landing troops and carrying airstrikes on rebel held areas in the Northern and Eastern provinces. There are two official paramilitary forces under the command of the Ministry of Defence , as well as another under the Minister of Justice : The following Units are known to conduct special operations: Today
9779-459: The airport provided domestic flights to Colombo (Ratmalana) and Trincomalee , and international flights to south India (Madras and Tiruchirappalli ). Locals used the airport when visiting south India for cultural, educational and religious reasons while local politicians and officials used the airport for travelling to Colombo. Each year government employees would request three railway warrants for journeys between Kankesanthurai and Galle ,
9906-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ
10033-797: The ceasefire officially ended on 16 January 2008, following several bombings in the capital. Along with the ceasefire operations of the SLMM also ended. During 2008 there was heavy fighting in the northern province where the Sri Lanka Armed Forces launched major offensives and succeeded in recapturing LTTE controlled areas of the Mannar District , the Vavuniya District and moving into the Mullaitivu District and Kilinochchi District . During December 2008,
10160-420: The country's booming tourism. From 2011 all undergraduates are required to take part in compulsory leadership training and the government has chosen the military to provide this training. In November 2011 it was announced that the military would take over the maintenance of the country's three international cricket stadiums from the financially troubled national cricket board . The Army has taken over
10287-689: The culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004,
10414-570: The current military hardware used by the Sri Lanka Armed Forces is acquired from China , Pakistan , Israel , India , Russia , and the United States . Indigenous weapon systems have been developed and produces within Sri Lanka to suit its requirements. Most of these have been produced by the armed forces. In 1992 the Ordnance Factory was established beginning the manufacture of artillery and ammunition including trip flares in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (SLEME)
10541-952: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of
10668-399: The differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from
10795-647: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in
10922-471: The eastern province during 2007. By then the LTTE had been proscribed as a terrorist organisation by 32 countries. In 2017 Sri Lanka Armed Forces deployed nearly 10,000 personnel and equipment for relief, help and rescue operations of 2017 Sri Lanka floods . This is the biggest military deployment of the peacetime. On 3 January 2008 the government informed Norway of its decision to quit the ceasefire, with it
11049-745: The end of the war it has grown in size to that of an independent brigade, but was de-mobilized in 1946 and disbanded in 1949. In 1937 the Ceylon Naval Volunteer Force was established (later renamed as the Ceylon Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (CRNVR)), it was mobilized for war in 1939 and was incorporated into the Royal Navy . Following the establishment of the Dominion of Ceylon with Britain granting independence in 1948, work began to establish
11176-642: The family or next-of-kin of service personnel confirmed to be killed - or missing in action . The highest civilian decoration awarded by the armed forces of Sri Lanka is the Weerodara Vibhushanaya , the military equivalent being the Weera Wickrama Vibhushanaya . The most recent commemorative decoration awarded was the Sri Lanka Air Force 50th Anniversary Medal , awarded in 2001. The armed forces (especially
11303-512: The form of grants rather than loans. In the meantime civil society groups from eastern Sri Lanka complained to the Indian consul in Jaffna that Indian development work was only focussed on the north and ignored the east. The Indian government agreed to redevelop Batticaloa Airport and the Sri Lankan government agreed to make it an international airport as well. Although Palaly Airport had a 2,300-metre runway only 950 metres had been refurbished to
11430-501: The government and the LTTE claimed that the ceasefire was still in place. The offensive by the Armed Forces was launched when the LTTE closed the sluice gates of the Mavil Aru reservoir on 21 July and cut the water supply to 15,000 villages in government controlled areas. This led to several major attacks by the LTTE in the eastern province and the north. The Armed Forces went on the offensive successfully recapturing LTTE control areas in
11557-604: The growing tension between the President and the Prime Minister. In 2003 the President took the decision to bring an end to the work of the DRC and, instead, assigned the task of SSR to the Joint Operations Headquarters, since when little progress has been evident. In April 2006 following a suicide bomb attack on the Commander of the Army, airstrikes began followed by skirmishes, however, both
11684-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil
11811-406: The inauguration of Sri Lanka's third international airport. This was also Alliance Air's first overseas flight. The renovations cost Rs 2.25 billion of which Rs 1.95 billion was funded by the Sri Lankan government and Rs 0.3 billion from the Indian government. Alliance Air was expected to run scheduled flights from Chennai to Jaffna three times a week from 1 November 2019. However, on 1 November 2019
11938-570: The insurgency of Tamil militant groups in the north of the island. This was the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War . The size of the Armed Forces grew rapidly in the 1980s. By the mid-1980s, the Armed Forces began launching operations in the like of conventional warfare against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which had by then became the most powerful of the Tamil militant groups and had been proscribed as
12065-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by
12192-449: The issue of accountability with regard to any alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the civil war found "credible allegations" which, if proven, indicated that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and the LTTE, with most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war being blamed on indiscriminate Sri Lankan Army shelling and
12319-461: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar
12446-512: The longest and costliest rail journey possible, and exchange these for air tickets between Palaly and Ratmalana. Air Ceylon's Douglas DC-3 , Avro HS-748 and Nord 262 planes operated out of the airport. The growth of Tamil militancy put an end to civilian flights at the airport. A Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) detachment moved onto the site around 1976. The site became an Air Field Unit in January 1982. The airport served as major facility for
12573-612: The modern Sri Lankan military lead back to the colonial era when the Portuguese , Dutch and British established local militias to support their wars against the local Kingdoms. The British created the Ceylon Rifle Regiment during the Kandyan wars . Although it had natives in its ranks, it was largely composed of Malays . It was disbanded in 1873. The lineage of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces dates back to 1881, when
12700-423: The name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having the connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this
12827-555: The north would be at the expense of the south. Some Tamil politicians also opposed the plans, claiming that any development of the airport would result in further acquisition of civilian land. However, with increasing pressure from the TNA, the Indian government decided to go ahead with the redevelopment. Officials from Chennai International Airport arrived at Palaly in March 2016 to carry out technical and feasibility studies and concluded that
12954-510: The north, tension increased with the LTTE and the IPKF leading to open war with the two suffering heavy casualties. In 1990 the IPKF pulled out and the war commenced with the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and the LTTE. In 1994, a brief ceasefire came into place and peace talks began. The ceasefire ended when the LTTE sack two SLN gunboats . The phase of the war that followed, known as Eelam War III , saw
13081-537: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows
13208-556: The plane plunge into the sea near Iranaitivu , 15 km (9 mi ) north of Mannar . All 55 on board were killed. The LTTE was accused of shooting down the flight. Lionair suspended flights to Palaly immediately. Following the Norwegian facilitated ceasefire, civilian flights resumed from Palaly in June 2002 when ExpoAir started operating flights between Palaly and Ratmalana. The flights became very popular and at its peak ExpoAir
13335-562: The police. There was an attempted coup in 1962 by a group of reservists, which led to cuts in military spending and the disbandment of several regiments. This, together with the lack of an intelligence agency , left it ill-prepared for the insurgency launched by the Marxist JVP in April 1971. The 1971 JVP Insurrection saw Ceylon Armed Forces mobilizing for combat operations. for the first time and its size grew rapidly. The insurrection
13462-532: The redevelopment could be carried out without any further acquisition of civilian land. Detailed plans were drawn up but the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAA), fearing that any direct international flights to Palaly would cause Bandaranaike International Airport 's income to fall, denied permission. By late 2018 Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe 's minority government had become reliant on TNA support to stay in power. In return,
13589-586: The short-term, internal security is considered the main threat to the nation's future. In the long-term, the threat is seen as primarily external from current and future superpowers in their rival quests for dominance of the Indian Ocean ; at one point these were the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or more commonly known as the Soviet Union As head of state ,
13716-470: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but
13843-434: The training of all armed services are carried out in Sri Lanka. With a Defence University, a Staff College , three Military Academies for the three armed services and many specialized training schools and centers members of the Sri Lanka armed forces have a high-level training and professionalism. The Sri Lankan military has received specialized training assistance from other nations such as China , Pakistan , Australia ,
13970-489: The war affected north of the country , where the military presence is significantly higher than the rest of the country even after the end of the conflict, the military operates numerous small restaurants and shops catering mainly for tourists from the south. Most of the roadside cafes along the A9 highway are owned and operated by the Army. The Army runs a luxurious holiday resort called Thalsevana near Kankesanthurai inside
14097-526: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in
14224-534: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,
14351-485: Was around 2,000 m (6,562 ft ) long. A number of RAF squadrons ( 160 , 203 , 292 , 354 ) and air-sea rescue units were stationed at the airfield during and immediately after the war. The airfield was abandoned after the war and taken over by the Department of Civil Aviation . The inaugural flight by Air Ceylon on 10 December 1947 was from Ratmalana Airport to Madras via Palaly. After independence
14478-466: Was attempting to flee. On 22 May 2009, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa confirmed that 6,261 personnel of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces had lost their lives and 29,551 were wounded during Eelam War IV since July 2006. The Armed Forces along with the LTTE have been accused of committing war crimes during the war, particularly during the final stages. A panel of experts appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advise him on
14605-751: Was brought under control in a few months. In 1972, Ceylon became the independent socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, with it the Ceylon Armed Forces became known as the Sri Lanka Armed Forces as the Ceylon Army became the Sri Lanka Army, the Royal Ceylon Navy became the Sri Lanka Navy and the Royal Ceylon Air Force became the Sri Lanka Air Force. By the early 1980s, the Sri Lanka Armed Forces mobilized against
14732-600: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are
14859-540: Was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of
14986-475: Was established as the youngest of the three forces. From the outset Britain played a significant role in helping the Ceylon government in developing its armed forces. The growth of the Ceylon Armed Forces was slow due to lack of foreign threat, since Ceylon maintained cordial relations with its neighbor India and had a defence treaty with Britain. In the 1950s it was mainly employed in internal security assisting
15113-565: Was established to monitor the ceasefire and certain progress archived until the LTTE withdrew from the peace talks in 2003. Although the ceasefire continued no peace talks took place till 2005. In 2006, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) reported that the LTTE had violated the CFA 3,471 times and the Sri Lankan security forces 162 times since the signing of the ceasefire. Some defense reforms also commenced in 2002 when
15240-993: Was followed by deployments of a mechanized infantry company in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL); field hospital and helicopter flight in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS); a combat convoy company in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA); a helicopter flight in the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA); and military observers for
15367-441: Was operating four flights a day using two 52-seater Fokker F27-500 planes. ExpoAir suspended services in 2010 due to a drop in demand but services resumed again in January 2012. The airline operated two return flights a day using a 12-seater Cessna Grand Caravan . A new passenger terminal was opened on 4 January 2013. In 2014 Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Mavai Senathirajah , who is from nearby Maviddapuram , appealed to
15494-546: Was originally built by the Royal Air Force during World War II , after which it functioned as the country's second international airport. It was taken over by the Sri Lanka Air Force during the Sri Lankan Civil War . Domestic civilian flights resumed in the mid-1990s and in 2019 it became Sri Lanka's third international airport. The inauguration of the Jaffna International Airport marked
15621-456: Was recaptured by the 59th Division of the SLA. Boxed into a small land area north of Mullaitivu, the LTTE with its remaining cadres and leadership was effectively trapped, with this land mass being slowly reduced until May 2009. On 19 May 2009, the Sri Lanka Armed Forces won its final battle against the LTTE with the death of several LTTE leaders, including its head Velupillai Prabhakaran while he
15748-510: Was renamed when Sri Lanka became a republic in 1972. The Army of approximately 255,000 regular and reserve personnel including 90,000 National Guardsmen and is responsible for overseeing land-based military and humanitarian operations. At present the army has deployed 12 divisions and forming 4 more in while carrying out combat operations. Since 2004 the Sri Lankan Army maintains a battalion and support units of around 1000 personnel in
15875-557: Was suspended in Colombo using emergency regulations, the Army took over many of the functions of the Colombo Municipal Council such as supervision of the collection of rubbish, demolition of low income housing and even decoration of the streets during festivals. The Navy's Jetliner (A542) passenger ship is used as a recreational cruise ship providing onboard weddings, receptions, corporate events, parties and other social functions. The Navy's A543 vessel provides
16002-504: Was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has a well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil
16129-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined
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