Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) said it was told by the Central government to go ahead with its initiative to send a delegation of MPs to Sri Lanka as it “might be counter-productive to cancel the visit taking into account the feelings of the all-party parliamentary members”.
Following requests from her Tamil Nadu chapter as well as Union minister Jayanthi Natarajan seeking cancellation of the trip considering Tamil sentiments, Ficci president Naina Lal Kidwai had got in touch with the Prime Minister’s Office and the ministry of external affairs on Monday. She was clearly told by the Prime Minister’s Office and MEA that since it was not a government-to-government initiative but one undertaken by an association, it might be counter-productive to abort it at this late stage.
“We made a forceful representation to Ficci president to cancel this trip, but she was told by the PMO and MEA not to do so,” Ficci adviser P. Murari told this newspaper.
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European group might sue Lanka
Narayan Bareth
Jaipur, April 9
Human rights lawyer and Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights general secretary Wolfgang Kaleck said his group is working on suing Sri Lanka for war crimes.
“Since Sri Lanka never signed the international statue of the criminal court, we are contemplating filing cases on the basis of universal jurisdiction. The ECCHR is also working on taking some legal action on drone strikes in Pakistan,” Mr Kaleck said. The group is also active in helping the victims of a devastating fire at a textile unit in Karachi that claimed more than 270 lives. Mr Kaleck, on a personal visit to Jaipur recently, said there were a lot of obstacles in suing Sri Lanka. “But we have been exploring one possibility of bringing war crimes cases to European courts,” he said. “This an idea we have been pursuing in order to file war crimes cases against the island nation. Our idea is to bring such cases under the principle of universal jurisdiction against Sri Lankan officials involved in war crimes,” Mr Kaleck said.