New Delhi:A Sri Lankan Tamilminister is here urging Indiato play a greater role to help his country resolve the ethnic crisis

 

"India has to take a more active role to support theSri Lankan government," K.N. Douglas Devananda, the minister for socialservice and social welfare, said ahead of a conference here Saturday on thesituation in the island.

"The government is ready to grant Tamil rights. Theycan solve this problem politically. But they need external help, and only Indiacan provide that help," he added.

 "Let us leave itat that," he said.

Devananda, who heads the Eelam People's Democratic Party(EPDP), is one of only three Tamils in President Mahinda Rajapakse's jumbocabinet. This is his second visit to India since he came here inNovember with the president.

Devananda said asking Indiato take more interest in Sri Lanka would be the theme of his keynoteaddress at the Saturday conference organised by the Indian Council forInternational Cooperation.

 

Among others who will take part in the meeting are formerexternal affairs ministers Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha, former foreignsecretary Shashank, Janata Party leader Subramaniam Swamy, former diplomat N.N.Jha, and S.C. Chandrahasan, who heads a NGO looking after the welfare of SriLankan Tamil refugees in India.

An official of the Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat is also toaddress the gathering.

Shashank said the conference had been called to try tounderstand and have a better idea of what is going on in Sri Lanka, what India is doing and whether therecan be meeting of ideas.

"We cannot (tell Sri Lanka) this is the solution tothe conflict. But after the deliberations we can certainly say what can be done.After all the conflict does impact India," he said.

T.N. Malhotra, coordinator of the Council that is holdingthe conference, said the speakers would appraise the intelligentsia and mediaabout the events taking place in Sri Lanka.

 

Malhotra said the Council was a 30-year-old NGO and itsprimary aim was to look after the interests of people of Indian origin livingin other countries. But in recent times it had also been taking interest incountries adjoining India.

He said the Council last held a discussion on Sri Lanka in 2002, and one on Fiji last week.He said there was also a proposal to bring together MPs from India and Sri Lanka under one umbrella.

The conference is taking place amid relentless violence in Sri Lanka, with both Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of TamilEelam (LTTE) determined to outdo each other. In the process over 3,000 peoplehave been killed since the start of 2006 and hundreds of thousands displaced.

 

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake andForeign Minister Rohitha Bogollegama were here earlier this week. Both metPrime Minister Manmohan Singh. While Wickremanayake left for Singapore, Bogollegama flew to Germany.