title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: It is also suggested in RFC 2439 (under "Design Choices -> Stability Sensitive Suppression of Route Advertisement") that route flap damping is a feature more desirable if implemented to Exterior Border Gateway Protocol Sessions (eBGP sessions or simply called exterior peers) and not on Interior Border Gateway Protocol Sessions (iBGP sessions or simply called internal peers); With this approach when a route flaps inside an autonomous system, it is not propagated to the external ASs flapping a route to an eBGP will have a chain of flapping for the particular route throughout the backbone. This method also successfully avoids the overhead of route flap damping for iBGP sessions.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: Subsequent research has shown that flap damping can actually lengthen convergence times in some cases, and can cause interruptions in connectivity even when links are not flapping. Moreover, as backbone links and router processors have become faster, some network architects have suggested that flap damping may not be as important as it used to be, since changes to the routing table can be handled much faster by routers. This has led the RIPE Routing Working Group to write that "with the current implementations of BGP flap damping, the application of flap damping in ISP networks is NOT recommended. ... If flap damping is implemented, the ISP operating that network will cause side-effects to their customers and the Internet users of their customers' content and services ... . These side-effects would quite likely be worse than the impact caused by simply not running flap damping at all." Improving stability without the problems of flap damping is the subject of current research.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: One of the largest problems faced by BGP, and indeed the Internet infrastructure as a whole, is the growth of the Internet routing table. If the global routing table grows to the point where some older, less capable routers cannot cope with the memory requirements or the CPU load of maintaining the table, these routers will cease to be effective gateways between the parts of the Internet they connect. In addition, and perhaps even more importantly, larger routing tables take longer to stabilize (see above) after a major connectivity change, leaving network service unreliable, or even unavailable, in the interim.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: Until late 2001, the global routing table was growing exponentially, threatening an eventual widespread breakdown of connectivity. In an attempt to prevent this, ISPs cooperated in keeping the global routing table as small as possible, by using Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) and route aggregation. While this slowed the growth of the routing table to a linear process for several years, with the expanded demand for multihoming by end user networks the growth was once again superlinear by the middle of 2004.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: While a full IPv4 BGP table (512k day) was in excess of 512,000 prefixes, many older routers had a limit of 512k (512,000–524,288) routing table entries. On August 12, 2014, outages resulting from full tables hit eBay, LastPass and Microsoft Azure among others. A number of Cisco routers commonly in use had TCAM, a form of high-speed content-addressable memory, for storing BGP advertised routes. On impacted routers, the TCAM was default allocated as 512k IPv4 routes and 256k IPv6 routes. While the reported number of IPv6 advertised routes was only about 20k, the number of advertised IPv4 routes reached the default limit, causing a spillover effect as routers attempted to compensate for the issue by using slow software routing (as opposed to fast hardware routing via TCAM). The main method for dealing with this issue involves operators changing the TCAM allocation to allow more IPv4 entries, by reallocating some of the TCAM reserved for IPv6 routes, which requires a reboot on most routers. The 512k problem was predicted by a number of IT professionals.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: The actual allocations which pushed the number of routes above 512k was the announcement of about 15,000 new routes in short order, starting at 07:48 UTC. Almost all of these routes were to Verizon Autonomous Systems 701 and 705, created as a result of deaggregation of larger blocks, introducing thousands of new routes, and making the routing table reach 515,000 entries. The new routes appear to have been reaggregated within 5 minutes, but instability across the Internet apparently continued for a number of hours. Even if Verizon had not caused the routing table to exceed 512k entries in the short spike, it would have happened soon anyway through natural growth.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: Route summarization is often used to improve aggregation of the BGP global routing table, thereby reducing the necessary table size in routers of an AS. Consider AS1 has been allocated the big address space of , this would be counted as one route in the table, but due to customer requirement or traffic engineering purposes, AS1 wants to announce smaller, more specific routes of , , and . The prefix does not have any hosts so AS1 does not announce a specific route . This all counts as AS1 announcing four routes.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: AS2 will see the four routes from AS1 (, , , and ) and it is up to the routing policy of AS2 to decide whether or not to take a copy of the four routes or, as overlaps all the other specific routes, to just store the summary, .


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: If AS2 wants to send data to prefix , it will be sent to the routers of AS1 on route . At AS1's router, it will either be dropped or a destination unreachable ICMP message will be sent back, depending on the configuration of AS1's routers.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: If AS1 later decides to drop the route , leaving , , and , AS1 will drop the number of routes it announces to three. AS2 will see the three routes, and depending on the routing policy of AS2, it will store a copy of the three routes, or aggregate the prefix's and to , thereby reducing the number of routes AS2 stores to only two: and .


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: If AS2 wants to send data to prefix , it will be dropped or a destination unreachable ICMP message will be sent back at the routers of AS2 (not AS1 as before), because would not be in the routing table.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: The RFC 1771 ("A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)") planned the coding of AS numbers on 16 bits, for 64510 possible public AS, since ASN 64512 to 65534 were reserved for private use (0 and 65535 being forbidden). In 2011, only 15000 AS numbers were still available, and projections were envisioning a complete depletion of available AS numbers in September 2013.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: RFC 6793 extends AS coding from 16 to 32 bits (keeping the 16 bits AS range 0 to 65535, and its reserved AS numbers), which now allows up to 4 billion available AS. An additional private AS range is also defined in RFC 6996 (from 4200000000 to 4294967294, 4294967295 being forbidden by RFC 7300).


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: To allow the traversal of router groups not able to manage those new ASNs, the new attribute OT AS4_PATH is used.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: Another factor causing this growth of the routing table is the need for load balancing of multi-homed networks. It is not a trivial task to balance the inbound traffic to a multi-homed network across its multiple inbound paths, due to limitation of the BGP route selection process. For a multi-homed network, if it announces the same network blocks across all of its BGP peers, the result may be that one or several of its inbound links become congested while the other links remain under-utilized, because external networks all picked that set of congested paths as optimal. Like most other routing protocols, BGP does not detect congestion.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: To work around this problem, BGP administrators of that multihomed network may divide a large contiguous IP address block into smaller blocks and tweak the route announcement to make different blocks look optimal on different paths, so that external networks will choose a different path to reach different blocks of that multi-homed network. Such cases will increase the number of routes as seen on the global BGP table.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: One method growing in popularity to address the load balancing issue is to deploy BGP/LISP (Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol) gateways within an Internet exchange point to allow ingress traffic engineering across multiple links. This technique does not increase the number of routes seen on the global BGP table.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: By design, routers running BGP accept advertised routes from other BGP routers by default. This allows for automatic and decentralized routing of traffic across the Internet, but it also leaves the Internet potentially vulnerable to accidental or malicious disruption, known as BGP hijacking. Due to the extent to which BGP is embedded in the core systems of the Internet, and the number of different networks operated by many different organizations which collectively make up the Internet, correcting this vulnerability (such as by introducing the use of cryptographic keys to verify the identity of BGP routers) is a technically and economically challenging problem.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: An extension to BGP is the use of multipathing this typically requires identical MED, weight, origin, and AS-path although some implementations provide the ability to relax the AS-path checking to only expect an equal path length rather than the actual AS numbers in the path being expected to match too. This can then be extended further with features like Cisco's dmzlink-bw which enables a ratio of traffic sharing based on bandwidth values configured on individual links.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP (MBGP), sometimes referred to as Multiprotocol BGP or Multicast BGP and defined in IETF <nowiki>RFC 4760</nowiki>, is an extension to (BGP) that allows different types of addresses (known as address families) to be distributed in parallel. Whereas standard BGP supports only IPv4 unicast addresses, Multiprotocol BGP supports IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and it supports unicast and multicast variants of each. Multiprotocol BGP allows information about the topology of IP multicast-capable routers to be exchanged separately from the topology of normal IPv4 unicast routers. Thus, it allows a multicast routing topology different from the unicast routing topology. Although MBGP enables the exchange of inter-domain multicast routing information, other protocols such as the Protocol Independent Multicast family are needed to build trees and forward multicast traffic.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: Multiprotocol BGP is also widely deployed in case of MPLS L3 VPN, to exchange VPN labels learned for the routes from the customer sites over the MPLS network, in order to distinguish between different customer sites when the traffic from the other customer sites comes to the Provider Edge router (PE router) for routing.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: BGP4 is standard for Internet routing and required of most Internet service providers (ISPs) to establish routing between one another. Very large private IP networks use BGP internally. An example is the joining of a number of large Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) networks, when OSPF by itself does not scale to the size required. Another reason to use BGP is multihoming a network for better redundancy, either to multiple access points of a single ISP or to multiple ISPs.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: Routers, especially small ones intended for small office/home office (SOHO) use, may not include BGP software. Some SOHO routers simply are not capable of running BGP or using BGP routing tables of any size. Other commercial routers may need a specific software executable image that contains BGP, or a license that enables it. Devices marketed as Layer 3 switches are less likely to support BGP than devices marketed as routers, but high-end Layer 3 switches usually can run BGP.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: Products marketed as switches may or may not have a size limitation on BGP tables, such as 20,000 routes, far smaller than a full Internet table plus internal routes. These devices may be perfectly reasonable and useful when used for BGP routing of some smaller part of the network, such as a confederation-AS representing one of several smaller enterprises that are linked, by a BGP backbone of backbones, or a small enterprise that announces routes to an ISP but only accepts a default route and perhaps a small number of aggregated routes.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: A BGP router used only for a network with a single point of entry to the Internet may have a much smaller routing table size (and hence RAM and CPU requirement) than a multihomed network. Even simple multihoming can have modest routing table size. See RFC 4098 for vendor-independent performance parameters for single-BGP-router convergence in the control plane. The actual amount of memory required in a BGP router depends on the amount of BGP information exchanged with other BGP speakers and the way in which the particular router stores BGP information. The router may have to keep more than one copy of a route, so it can manage different policies for route advertising and acceptance to a specific neighboring AS. The term "view" is often used for these different policy relationships on a running router.


title: Border Gateway Protocol

text: If one router implementation takes more memory per route than another implementation, this may be a legitimate design choice, trading processing speed against memory. A full IPv4 BGP table is in excess of 590,000 prefixes. Large ISPs may add another 50% for internal and customer routes. Again depending on implementation, separate tables may be kept for each view of a different peer AS.


title: Gigolo

text: A gigolo () is a male escort or social companion who is supported by a person in a continuing relationship, often living in her residence or having to be present at her beck and call.


title: Gigolo

text: The term "gigolo" usually implies a man who adopts a lifestyle consisting of a number of such relationships serially rather than having other means of support.


title: Gigolo

text: The gigolo is expected to provide companionship, to serve as a consistent escort with good manners and social skills, and often to serve as a dancing partner as required by the woman in exchange for the support. Many gifts, such as expensive clothing and an automobile to drive, may be lavished upon him. The relationship may include sexual services as well, and he also can be referred to as a "kept man."


title: Gigolo

text: The word "gigolo" may be traced to a first usage in English as a neologism during the 1920s as a back-formation from "gigolette", a French word for a woman hired as a dancing partner. Both "gigolo" and "gigolette" were first recorded in French in the middle part of the 19th century, referring to dance club denizens in Montmartre paid to dance with, and sometimes have sex with, unaccompanied male visitors. In the latter part of the 19th century, particularly after the scandalous murder case known in Paris as the Pranzini Affair, the term "gigolo" took on connotations of the exotic, foreign male whose company and affections could be purchased by well-to-do French women.


title: Computer data storage

text: Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers.


title: Computer data storage

text: The central processing unit (CPU) of a computer is what manipulates data by performing computations. In practice, almost all computers use a storage hierarchy, which puts fast but expensive and small storage options close to the CPU and slower but less expensive and larger options further away. Generally, the fast volatile technologies (which lose data when off power) are referred to as "memory", while slower persistent technologies are referred to as "storage".


title: Computer data storage

text: Even the first computer designs, Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine and Percy Ludgate's Analytical Machine, clearly distinguished between processing and memory (Babbage stored numbers as rotations of gears, while Ludgate stored numbers as displacements of rods in shuttles). This distinction was extended in the Von Neumann architecture, where the CPU consists of two main parts: The control unit and the arithmetic logic unit (ALU). The former controls the flow of data between the CPU and memory, while the latter performs arithmetic and logical operations on data.


title: Computer data storage

text: Without a significant amount of memory, a computer would merely be able to perform fixed operations and immediately output the result. It would have to be reconfigured to change its behavior. This is acceptable for devices such as desk calculators, digital signal processors, and other specialized devices. Von Neumann machines differ in having a memory in which they store their operating instructions and data. Such computers are more versatile in that they do not need to have their hardware reconfigured for each new program, but can simply be reprogrammed with new in-memory instructions; they also tend to be simpler to design, in that a relatively simple processor may keep state between successive computations to build up complex procedural results. Most modern computers are von Neumann machines.


title: Computer data storage

text: A modern digital computer represents data using the binary numeral system. Text, numbers, pictures, audio, and nearly any other form of information can be converted into a string of bits, or binary digits, each of which has a value of 0 or 1. The most common unit of storage is the byte, equal to 8 bits. A piece of information can be handled by any computer or device whose storage space is large enough to accommodate "the binary representation of the piece of information", or simply data. For example, the complete works of Shakespeare, about 1250 pages in print, can be stored in about five megabytes (40 million bits) with one byte per character.


title: Computer data storage

text: Data are encoded by assigning a bit pattern to each character, digit, or multimedia object. Many standards exist for encoding (e.g. character encodings like ASCII, image encodings like JPEG, and video encodings like MPEG-4).


title: Computer data storage

text: By adding bits to each encoded unit, redundancy allows the computer to both detect errors in coded data and correct them based on mathematical algorithms. Errors generally occur in low probabilities due to random bit value flipping, or "physical bit fatigue", loss of the physical bit in the storage of its ability to maintain a distinguishable value (0 or 1), or due to errors in inter or intra-computer communication. A random bit flip (e.g. due to random radiation) is typically corrected upon detection. A bit or a group of malfunctioning physical bits (the specific defective bit is not always known; group definition depends on the specific storage device) is typically automatically fenced out, taken out of use by the device, and replaced with another functioning equivalent group in the device, where the corrected bit values are restored (if possible). The cyclic redundancy check (CRC) method is typically used in communications and storage for error detection. A detected error is then retried.


title: Computer data storage

text: Data compression methods allow in many cases (such as a database) to represent a string of bits by a shorter bit string ("compress") and reconstruct the original string ("decompress") when needed. This utilizes substantially less storage (tens of percents) for many types of data at the cost of more computation (compress and decompress when needed). Analysis of the trade-off between storage cost saving and costs of related computations and possible delays in data availability is done before deciding whether to keep certain data compressed or not.


title: Computer data storage

text: For security reasons, certain types of data (e.g. credit card information) may be kept encrypted in storage to prevent the possibility of unauthorized information reconstruction from chunks of storage snapshots.


title: Computer data storage

text: Generally, the lower a storage is in the hierarchy, the lesser its bandwidth and the greater its access latency is from the CPU. This traditional division of storage to primary, secondary, tertiary, and off-line storage is also guided by cost per bit.


title: Computer data storage

text: In contemporary usage, "memory" is usually semiconductor storage read-write random-access memory, typically DRAM (dynamic RAM) or other forms of fast but temporary storage. "Storage" consists of storage devices and their media not directly accessible by the CPU (secondary or tertiary storage), typically hard disk drives, optical disc drives, and other devices slower than RAM but non-volatile (retaining contents when powered down).


title: Computer data storage

text: Historically, "memory" has been called "core memory", "main memory", "real storage", or "internal memory". Meanwhile, non-volatile storage devices have been referred to as "secondary storage", "external memory", or "auxiliary/peripheral storage".


title: Computer data storage

text: "Primary storage" (also known as "main memory", "internal memory", or "prime memory"), often referred to simply as "memory", is the only one directly accessible to the CPU. The CPU continuously reads instructions stored there and executes them as required. Any data actively operated on is also stored there in uniform manner.


title: Computer data storage

text: Historically, early computers used delay lines, Williams tubes, or rotating magnetic drums as primary storage. By 1954, those unreliable methods were mostly replaced by magnetic-core memory. Core memory remained dominant until the 1970s, when advances in integrated circuit technology allowed semiconductor memory to become economically competitive.


title: Computer data storage

text: This led to modern random-access memory (RAM). It is small-sized, light, but quite expensive at the same time. The particular types of RAM used for primary storage are volatile, meaning that they lose the information when not powered. Besides storing opened programs, it serves as disk cache and write buffer to improve both reading and writing performance. Operating systems borrow RAM capacity for caching so long as not needed by running software. Spare memory can be utilized as RAM drive for temporary high-speed data storage.


title: Computer data storage

text: As shown in the diagram, traditionally there are two more sub-layers of the primary storage, besides main large-capacity RAM:


title: Computer data storage

text: Main memory is directly or indirectly connected to the central processing unit via a "memory bus". It is actually two buses (not on the diagram): an address bus and a data bus. The CPU firstly sends a number through an address bus, a number called memory address, that indicates the desired location of data. Then it reads or writes the data in the memory cells using the data bus. Additionally, a memory management unit (MMU) is a small device between CPU and RAM recalculating the actual memory address, for example to provide an abstraction of virtual memory or other tasks.


title: Computer data storage

text: As the RAM types used for primary storage are volatile (uninitialized at start up), a computer containing only such storage would not have a source to read instructions from, in order to start the computer. Hence, non-volatile primary storage containing a small startup program (BIOS) is used to bootstrap the computer, that is, to read a larger program from non-volatile "secondary" storage to RAM and start to execute it. A non-volatile technology used for this purpose is called ROM, for read-only memory (the terminology may be somewhat confusing as most ROM types are also capable of "random access").


title: Computer data storage

text: Many types of "ROM" are not literally "read only", as updates to them are possible; however it is slow and memory must be erased in large portions before it can be re-written. Some embedded systems run programs directly from ROM (or similar), because such programs are rarely changed. Standard computers do not store non-rudimentary programs in ROM, and rather, use large capacities of secondary storage, which is non-volatile as well, and not as costly.


title: Computer data storage

text: Recently, "primary storage" and "secondary storage" in some uses refer to what was historically called, respectively, "secondary storage" and "tertiary storage".


title: Computer data storage

text: "Secondary storage" (also known as "external memory" or "auxiliary storage") differs from primary storage in that it is not directly accessible by the CPU. The computer usually uses its input/output channels to access secondary storage and transfer the desired data to primary storage. Secondary storage is non-volatile (retaining data when its power is shut off). Modern computer systems typically have two orders of magnitude more secondary storage than primary storage because secondary storage is less expensive.


title: Computer data storage

text: In modern computers, hard disk drives (HDDs) or solid-state drives (SSDs) are usually used as secondary storage. The access time per byte for HDDs or SSDs is typically measured in milliseconds (thousandths of a second), while the access time per byte for primary storage is measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second). Thus, secondary storage is significantly slower than primary storage. Rotating optical storage devices, such as CD and DVD drives, have even longer access times. Other examples of secondary storage technologies include USB flash drives, floppy disks, magnetic tape, paper tape, punched cards, and RAM disks.


title: Computer data storage

text: Once the disk read/write head on HDDs reaches the proper placement and the data, subsequent data on the track are very fast to access. To reduce the seek time and rotational latency, data are transferred to and from disks in large contiguous blocks. Sequential or block access on disks is orders of magnitude faster than random access, and many sophisticated paradigms have been developed to design efficient algorithms based upon sequential and block access. Another way to reduce the I/O bottleneck is to use multiple disks in parallel in order to increase the bandwidth between primary and secondary memory.


title: Computer data storage

text: Secondary storage is often formatted according to a file system format, which provides the abstraction necessary to organize data into files and directories, while also providing metadata describing the owner of a certain file, the access time, the access permissions, and other information.


title: Computer data storage

text: Most computer operating systems use the concept of virtual memory, allowing utilization of more primary storage capacity than is physically available in the system. As the primary memory fills up, the system moves the least-used chunks (pages) to a swap file or page file on secondary storage, retrieving them later when needed. If a lot of pages are moved to slower secondary storage, the system performance is degraded.


title: Computer data storage

text: "Tertiary storage" or "tertiary memory" is a level below secondary storage. Typically, it involves a robotic mechanism which will "mount" (insert) and "dismount" removable mass storage media into a storage device according to the system's demands; such data are often copied to secondary storage before use. It is primarily used for archiving rarely accessed information since it is much slower than secondary storage (e.g. 5–60 seconds vs. 1–10 milliseconds). This is primarily useful for extraordinarily large data stores, accessed without human operators. Typical examples include tape libraries and optical jukeboxes.


title: Computer data storage

text: When a computer needs to read information from the tertiary storage, it will first consult a catalog database to determine which tape or disc contains the information. Next, the computer will instruct a robotic arm to fetch the medium and place it in a drive. When the computer has finished reading the information, the robotic arm will return the medium to its place in the library.


title: Computer data storage

text: Tertiary storage is also known as "nearline storage" because it is "near to online". The formal distinction between online, nearline, and offline storage is:


title: Computer data storage

text: For example, always-on spinning hard disk drives are online storage, while spinning drives that spin down automatically, such as in massive arrays of idle disks (MAID), are nearline storage. Removable media such as tape cartridges that can be automatically loaded, as in tape libraries, are nearline storage, while tape cartridges that must be manually loaded are offline storage.


title: Computer data storage

text: "Off-line storage" is a computer data storage on a medium or a device that is not under the control of a processing unit. The medium is recorded, usually in a secondary or tertiary storage device, and then physically removed or disconnected. It must be inserted or connected by a human operator before a computer can access it again. Unlike tertiary storage, it cannot be accessed without human interaction.


title: Computer data storage

text: Off-line storage is used to transfer information, since the detached medium can easily be physically transported. Additionally, it is useful for cases of disaster, where, for example, a fire destroys the original data, a medium in a remote location will be unaffected, enabling disaster recovery. Off-line storage increases general information security, since it is physically inaccessible from a computer, and data confidentiality or integrity cannot be affected by computer-based attack techniques. Also, if the information stored for archival purposes is rarely accessed, off-line storage is less expensive than tertiary storage.


title: Computer data storage

text: In modern personal computers, most secondary and tertiary storage media are also used for off-line storage. Optical discs and flash memory devices are most popular, and to much lesser extent removable hard disk drives. In enterprise uses, magnetic tape is predominant. Older examples are floppy disks, Zip disks, or punched cards.


title: Computer data storage

text: Storage technologies at all levels of the storage hierarchy can be differentiated by evaluating certain core characteristics as well as measuring characteristics specific to a particular implementation. These core characteristics are volatility, mutability, accessibility, and addressability. For any particular implementation of any storage technology, the characteristics worth measuring are capacity and performance.


title: Computer data storage

text: Non-volatile memory retains the stored information even if not constantly supplied with electric power. It is suitable for long-term storage of information. Volatile memory requires constant power to maintain the stored information. The fastest memory technologies are volatile ones, although that is not a universal rule. Since the primary storage is required to be very fast, it predominantly uses volatile memory.


title: Computer data storage

text: Dynamic random-access memory is a form of volatile memory that also requires the stored information to be periodically reread and rewritten, or refreshed, otherwise it would vanish. Static random-access memory is a form of volatile memory similar to DRAM with the exception that it never needs to be refreshed as long as power is applied; it loses its content when the power supply is lost.


title: Computer data storage

text: An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) can be used to give a computer a brief window of time to move information from primary volatile storage into non-volatile storage before the batteries are exhausted. Some systems, for example EMC Symmetrix, have integrated batteries that maintain volatile storage for several minutes.


title: Computer data storage

text: Full disk encryption, volume and virtual disk encryption, andor file/folder encryption is readily available for most storage devices.


title: Computer data storage

text: Hardware memory encryption is available in Intel Architecture, supporting Total Memory Encryption (TME) and page granular memory encryption with multiple keys (MKTME). and in SPARC M7 generation since October 2015.


title: Computer data storage

text: Distinct types of data storage have different points of failure and various methods of predictive failure analysis.


title: Computer data storage

text: Vulnerabilities that can instantly lead to total loss are head crashing on mechanical hard drives and failure of electronic components on flash storage.


title: Computer data storage

text: Impending failure on hard disk drives is estimable using S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic data that includes the hours of operation and the count of spin-ups, though its reliability is disputed.


title: Computer data storage

text: Flash storage may experience downspiking transfer rates as a result of accumulating errors, which the flash memory controller attempts to correct.


title: Computer data storage

text: The health of optical media can be determined by measuring correctable minor errors, of which high counts signify deteriorating and/or low-quality media. Too many consecutive minor errors can lead to data corruption. Not all vendors and models of optical drives support error scanning.


title: Computer data storage

text: , the most commonly used data storage media are semiconductor, magnetic, and optical, while paper still sees some limited usage. Some other fundamental storage technologies, such as all-flash arrays (AFAs) are proposed for development.


title: Computer data storage

text: Semiconductor memory uses semiconductor-based integrated circuit (IC) chips to store information. Data are typically stored in metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) memory cells. A semiconductor memory chip may contain millions of memory cells, consisting of tiny MOS field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) and/or MOS capacitors. Both "volatile" and "non-volatile" forms of semiconductor memory exist, the former using standard MOSFETs and the latter using floating-gate MOSFETs.


title: Computer data storage

text: In modern computers, primary storage almost exclusively consists of dynamic volatile semiconductor random-access memory (RAM), particularly dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). Since the turn of the century, a type of non-volatile floating-gate semiconductor memory known as flash memory has steadily gained share as off-line storage for home computers. Non-volatile semiconductor memory is also used for secondary storage in various advanced electronic devices and specialized computers that are designed for them.


title: Computer data storage

text: As early as 2006, notebook and desktop computer manufacturers started using flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) as default configuration options for the secondary storage either in addition to or instead of the more traditional HDD.


title: Computer data storage

text: Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetization on a magnetically coated surface to store information. Magnetic storage is "non-volatile". The information is accessed using one or more read/write heads which may contain one or more recording transducers. A read/write head only covers a part of the surface so that the head or medium or both must be moved relative to another in order to access data. In modern computers, magnetic storage will take these forms:


title: Computer data storage

text: Magnetic storage does not have a definite limit of rewriting cycles like flash storage and re-writeable optical media, as altering magnetic fields causes no physical wear. Rather, their life span is limited by mechanical parts.


title: Computer data storage

text: Optical storage, the typical optical disc, stores information in deformities on the surface of a circular disc and reads this information by illuminating the surface with a laser diode and observing the reflection. Optical disc storage is "non-volatile". The deformities may be permanent (read only media), formed once (write once media) or reversible (recordable or read/write media). The following forms are currently in common use:


title: Computer data storage

text: Magneto-optical disc storage is optical disc storage where the magnetic state on a ferromagnetic surface stores information. The information is read optically and written by combining magnetic and optical methods. Magneto-optical disc storage is "non-volatile", "sequential access", slow write, fast read storage used for tertiary and off-line storage.


title: Computer data storage

text: Light induced magnetization melting in magnetic photoconductors has also been proposed for high-speed low-energy consumption magneto-optical storage.


title: Computer data storage

text: Paper data storage, typically in the form of paper tape or punched cards, has long been used to store information for automatic processing, particularly before general-purpose computers existed. Information was recorded by punching holes into the paper or cardboard medium and was read mechanically (or later optically) to determine whether a particular location on the medium was solid or contained a hole. Barcodes make it possible for objects that are sold or transported to have some computer-readable information securely attached.


title: Computer data storage

text: Relatively small amounts of digital data (compared to other digital data storage) may be backed up on paper as a matrix barcode for very long-term storage, as the longevity of paper typically exceeds even magnetic data storage.


title: Computer data storage

text: While a group of bits malfunction may be resolved by error detection and correction mechanisms (see above), storage device malfunction requires different solutions. The following solutions are commonly used and valid for most storage devices:


title: Computer data storage

text: Device mirroring and typical RAID are designed to handle a single device failure in the RAID group of devices. However, if a second failure occurs before the RAID group is completely repaired from the first failure, then data can be lost. The probability of a single failure is typically small. Thus the probability of two failures in a same RAID group in time proximity is much smaller (approximately the probability squared, i.e., multiplied by itself). If a database cannot tolerate even such smaller probability of data loss, then the RAID group itself is replicated (mirrored). In many cases such mirroring is done geographically remotely, in a different storage array, to handle also recovery from disasters (see disaster recovery above).


title: Computer data storage

text: A secondary or tertiary storage may connect to a computer utilizing computer networks. This concept does not pertain to the primary storage, which is shared between multiple processors to a lesser degree.


title: Computer data storage

text: Large quantities of individual magnetic tapes, and optical or magneto-optical discs may be stored in robotic tertiary storage devices. In tape storage field they are known as tape libraries, and in optical storage field optical jukeboxes, or optical disk libraries per analogy. The smallest forms of either technology containing just one drive device are referred to as autoloaders or autochangers.


title: Computer data storage

text: Robotic-access storage devices may have a number of slots, each holding individual media, and usually one or more picking robots that traverse the slots and load media to built-in drives. The arrangement of the slots and picking devices affects performance. Important characteristics of such storage are possible expansion options: adding slots, modules, drives, robots. Tape libraries may have from 10 to more than 100,000 slots, and provide terabytes or petabytes of near-line information. Optical jukeboxes are somewhat smaller solutions, up to 1,000 slots.


title: Computer data storage

text: Robotic storage is used for backups, and for high-capacity archives in imaging, medical, and video industries. Hierarchical storage management is a most known archiving strategy of automatically "migrating" long-unused files from fast hard disk storage to libraries or jukeboxes. If the files are needed, they are "retrieved" back to disk.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Sri Lankan Tamils ( or ), also known as Ceylon Tamils or Eelam Tamils, are Tamils native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. Today, they constitute a majority in the Northern Province, live in significant numbers in the Eastern Province and are in the minority throughout the rest of the country. 70% of Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka live in the Northern and Eastern provinces.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Modern Sri Lankan Tamils descend from residents of the Jaffna Kingdom, a former kingdom in the north of Sri Lanka and Vannimai chieftaincies from the east. According to the anthropological and archaeological evidence, Sri Lankan Tamils have a very long history in Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since at least around the 2nd century BCE.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Sri Lankan Tamils are mostly Hindus with a significant Christian population. Sri Lankan Tamil literature on topics including religion and the sciences flourished during the medieval period in the court of the Jaffna Kingdom. Since the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War in the 1980s, it is distinguished by an emphasis on themes relating to the conflict. Sri Lankan Tamil dialects are noted for their archaism and retention of words not in everyday use in Tamil Nadu, India.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Since Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948, relations between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities have been strained. Rising ethnic and political tensions following the Sinhala Only Act, along with ethnic pogroms carried out by Sinhalese mobs in 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983, led to the formation and strengthening of militant groups advocating independence for Tamils. The ensuing civil war resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the forced disappearance and rape of thousands of others. The civil war ended in 2009 but there are continuing allegations of atrocities being committed by the Sri Lankan military. A United Nations panel found that as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed in the final months of the civil war. In January 2020, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that the estimated 20,000+ disappeared Sri Lankan Tamils were dead. The end of the civil war has not fully improved conditions in Sri Lanka, with press freedom not being restored and the judiciary coming under political control.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: One-third of Sri Lankan Tamils now live outside Sri Lanka. While there was significant migration during the British colonial to Singapore and Malaysia, the civil war led to more than 800,000 Tamils leaving Sri Lanka, and many have left the country for destinations such as Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and India as refugees or emigrants. According to the pro-rebel TamilNet, the persecution and discrimination that Sri Lankan Tamils faced has resulted in some Tamils today not identifying themselves as Sri Lankans but instead identifying themselves as either Eelam Tamils, Ceylon Tamils, or simply Tamils. Many still support the idea of Tamil Eelam, a proposed independent state that Sri Lankan Tamils aspired to create in the North-East of Sri Lanka. Inspired by the Tamil Eelam flag, the tiger also used by the LTTE, has become a symbol of Tamil nationalism for some Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: There is little scholarly consensus over the presence of the Sri Lankan Tamil people in Sri Lanka, also known as Eelam in Sangam literature. One older theory states that there were no large Tamil settlements in Sri Lanka until the 10th century CE. According to the anthropological and archaeological evidence, Sri Lankan Tamils have a very long history in Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since at least around the 2nd century BCE.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Indigenous Veddhas are ethnically related to people in South India and early populations of Southeast Asia. It is not possible to ascertain what languages that they originally spoke as Vedda language is considered diverged from its original source (due to Sinhalese language influence).


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: According to K. Indrapala, cultural diffusion, rather than migration of people, spread the Prakrit and Tamil languages from peninsular India into an existing mesolithic population, centuries before the common era. Tamil Brahmi and Tamil-Prakrit scripts were used to write the Tamil language during this period on the island.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: During the protohistoric period (1000-500 BCE) Sri Lanka was culturally united with southern India, and shared the same megalithic burials, pottery, iron technology, farming techniques and megalithic graffiti. This cultural complex spread from southern India along with Dravidian clans such as the Velir, prior to the migration of Prakrit speakers.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Settlements of culturally similar early populations of ancient Sri Lanka and ancient Tamil Nadu in India were excavated at megalithic burial sites at Pomparippu on the west coast and in Kathiraveli on the east coast of the island. Bearing a remarkable resemblance to burials in the Early Pandyan Kingdom, these sites were established between the 5th century BCE and 2nd century CE.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Excavated ceramic sequences similar to that of Arikamedu were found in Kandarodai (Kadiramalai) on the north coast, dated to 1300 BCE. Cultural similarities in burial practices in South India and Sri Lanka were dated by archaeologists to 10th century BCE. However, Indian history and archaeology have pushed the date back to 15th century BCE. In Sri Lanka, there is radiometric evidence from Anuradhapura that the non-Brahmi symbol-bearing black and red ware occur in the 10th century BCE.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The skeletal remains of an Early Iron Age chief were excavated in Anaikoddai, Jaffna District. The name "Ko Veta" is engraved in Brahmi script on a seal buried with the skeleton and is assigned by the excavators to the 3rd century BCE. Ko, meaning "King" in Tamil, is comparable to such names as Ko Atan, Ko Putivira and Ko Ra-pumaan occurring in contemporary Tamil Brahmi inscriptions of ancient South India and Egypt.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Potsherds with early Tamil writing from the 2nd century BCE have been found from the north in Poonagari, Kilinochchi District to the south in Tissamaharama. They bore several inscriptions, including a clan name—"veḷ", a name related to "velir" from ancient Tamil country.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Once Prakrit speakers had attained dominance on the island, the Mahavamsa further recounts the later migration of royal brides and service castes from the Tamil Pandya Kingdom to the Anuradhapura Kingdom in the early historic period.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Epigraphic evidence shows people identifying themselves as Damelas or Damedas (the Prakrit word for Tamil people) in Anuradhapura, the capital city of Rajarata the middle kingdom, and other areas of Sri Lanka as early as the 2nd century BCE. Excavations in the area of Tissamaharama in southern Sri Lanka have unearthed locally issued coins, produced between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE, some of which carry local Tamil personal names written in early Tamil characters, which suggest that local Tamil merchants were present and actively involved in trade along the southern coast of Sri Lanka by the late classical period.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Other ancient inscriptions from the period reference a Tamil merchant, the Tamil householder residing in Iḷabharata and a Tamil sailor named Karava. Two of the six ancient inscriptions referring to the Damedas (Tamils) are in Periya Pullyakulam in the Vavuniya District, one is in Seruvavila in Trincomalee District, one is in Kuduvil in Ampara District, one is in Anuradhapura and one is in Matale District.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Mention is made in literary sources of Tamil rulers bringing horses to the island in water craft in the second century BCE, most likely arriving at Kudiramalai. Historical records establish that Tamil kingdoms in modern India were closely involved in the island's affairs from about the 2nd century BCE. Kudiramalai, Kandarodai and Vallipuram served as great northern Tamil capitals and emporiums of trade with these kingdoms and the Romans from the 6th–2nd centuries BCE. The archaeological discoveries in these towns and the "Manimekhalai", a historical poem, detail how Nāka-Tivu of Nāka-Nadu on the Jaffna Peninsula was a lucrative international market for pearl and conch trading for the Tamil fishermen.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In "Mahavamsa", a historical poem, ethnic Tamil adventurers such as Ellalan invaded the island around 145 BCE. Early Chola king Karikalan, son of Eelamcetcenni utilised superior Chola naval power to conquer Ceylon in the first century CE. Hindu Saivism, Tamil Buddhism and Jainism were popular amongst the Tamils at this time, as was the proliferation of village deity worship.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Amaravati school was influential in the region when the Telugu Satavahana dynasty established the Andhra empire and its 17th monarch Hāla (20–24 CE) married a princess from the island. Ancient Vanniars settled in the east of the island in the first few centuries of the common era to cultivate and maintain the area. The Vanni region flourished.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In the 6th century CE, a special coastal route by boat was established from the Jaffna peninsula southwards to Saivite religious centres in Trincomalee (Koneswaram) and further south to Batticaloa (Thirukkovil), passed a few small Tamil trading settlements in Mullaitivu on the north coast.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The conquests and rule of the island by Pallava king Narasimhavarman I (630–668 CE) and his grandfather King Simhavishnu (537–590 CE) saw the erection and structural development of several "Kovils" around the island, particularly in the north-east—these Pallava Dravidian rock temples remained a popular and highly influential style of architecture in the region over the next few centuries. Tamil soldiers from what is now South India were brought to Anuradhapura between the 7th and 11th centuries CE in such large numbers that local chiefs and kings trying to establish legitimacy came to rely on them. By the 8th century CE Tamil villages were collectively known as "Demel-kaballa" (Tamil allotment), "Demelat-valademin" (Tamil villages), and "Demel-gam-bim" (Tamil villages and lands).


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In the 9th and 10th centuries CE, Pandya and Chola incursions into Sri Lanka culminated in the Chola annexation of the island, which lasted until the latter half of the 11th century CE. Raja Raja Chola I renamed the northern throne "Mummudi Chola Mandalam" after his conquest of the northeast country to protect Tamil traders being looted, imprisoned and killed for years on the island. Rajadhiraja Chola's conquest of the island led to the fall of four kings there, one of whom, Madavarajah, the king of Jaffna, was a usurper from the Rashtrakuta Dynasty. These dynasties oversaw the development of several Kovils that administered services to communities of land assigned to the temples through royal grants. Their rule also saw the benefaction of other faiths. Recent excavations have led to the discovery of a limestone Kovil of Raja Raja Chola I's era on Delft island, found with Chola coins from this period. The decline of Chola power in Sri Lanka was followed by the restoration of the Polonnaruwa monarchy in the late 11th century CE.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In 1215, following Pandya invasions, the Tamil-dominant Arya Chakaravarthi dynasty established an independent Jaffna kingdom on the Jaffna peninsula and other parts of the north. The Arya Chakaravarthi expansion into the south was halted by Alagakkonara, a man descended from a family of merchants from Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu. He was the chief minister of the Sinhalese king Parakramabahu V (1344–59 CE). Vira Alakeshwara, a descendant of Alagakkonara, later became king of the Sinhalese, but he was overthrown by the Ming admiral Zheng He in 1409 CE. The next year, the Chinese admiral Zheng He erected a trilingual stone tablet in Galle in the south of the island, written in Chinese, Persian and Tamil that recorded offerings he made to Buddha, Allah and the God of Tamils Tenavarai Nayanar. The admiral invoked the blessings of Hindu deities at Temple of Perimpanayagam Tenavaram, Tevanthurai for a peaceful world built on trade.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The 1502 map "Cantino" represents three Tamil cities on the east coast of the island - Mullaitivu, Trincomalee and Panama, where the residents grow cinnamon and other spices, fish for pearls and seed pearls and worship idols, trading heavily with Kozhikode of Kerala. The Arya Chakaravarthi dynasty ruled large parts of northeast Sri Lanka until the Portuguese conquest of the Jaffna kingdom in 1619 CE. The coastal areas of the island were conquered by the Dutch and then became part of the British Empire in 1796 CE.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Sinhalese "Nampota" dated in its present form to the 14th or 15th century CE suggests that the whole of the Tamil Kingdom, including parts of the modern Trincomalee District, was recognised as a Tamil region by the name Demala-pattana (Tamil city). In this work, a number of villages that are now situated in the Jaffna, Mullaitivu and Trincomalee districts are mentioned as places in Demala-pattana.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The English sailor Robert Knox described walking into the island's Tamil country in the publication "An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon", referencing some aspects of their royal, rural and economic life and annotating some kingdoms within it on a map in 1681 CE. Upon arrival of European powers from the 17th century CE, the Tamils' separate nation was described in their areas of habitation in the northeast of the island.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The caste structure of the majority Sinhalese has also accommodated Tamil and Kerala immigrants from South India since the 13th century CE. This led to the emergence of three new Sinhalese caste groups: the "Salagama", the "Durava" and the "Karava". The Tamil migration and assimilation continued until the 18th century CE.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: According to the 2012 census there were 2,270,924 Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka, 11.2% of the population. Sri Lankan Tamils constitute an overwhelming majority of the population in the Northern Province and are the largest ethnic group in the Eastern Province. They are minority in other provinces. 70% of Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka live in the Northern and Eastern provinces.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: There are no accurate figures for the number of Sri Lankan Tamils living in the diaspora. Estimates range from 450,000 to one million.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The two groups of Tamils located in Sri Lanka are the Sri Lankan Tamils and the Indian Tamils. There also exists a significant population in Sri Lanka who are native speakers of Tamil language and are of Islamic faith. Though a significant amount of evidence points towards these Muslims being ethnic Tamils, they are controversially listed as a separate ethnic group by the Sri Lankan government.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Sri Lankan Tamils (also called Ceylon Tamils) are descendants of the Tamils of the old Jaffna Kingdom and east coast chieftaincies called Vannimais. The Indian Tamils (or Hill Country Tamils) are descendants of bonded labourers sent from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka in the 19th century to work on tea plantations.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Most Sri Lankan Tamils live in the Northern and Eastern provinces and in the capital Colombo, and most Indian Tamils live in the central highlands. Historically, both groups have seen themselves as separate communities, although there has been a greater sense of unity since the 1980s. In 1948, the United National Party government stripped the Indian Tamils of their citizenship. Under the terms of an agreement reached between the Sri Lankan and Indian governments in the 1960s, about forty percent of the Indian Tamils were granted Sri Lankan citizenship, and most of the remainder were repatriated to India. By the 1990s, most Indian Tamils had received Sri Lankan citizenship.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Sri Lankan Tamils are categorised into three subgroups based on regional distribution, dialects, and culture: Negombo Tamils from the western part of the island, Eastern Tamils from the eastern part, and Jaffna or Northern Tamils from the north.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Eastern Tamils inhabit a region that spans the Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Ampara districts. Their history and traditions are inspired by local legends, native literature, and colonial documents.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In the 16th century the area came under the nominal control of the Kingdom of Kandy, but there was scattered leadership under Vannimai chiefs in Batticaloa District who came with Magha's army in 1215. From that time on, Eastern Tamil social development diverged from that of the Northern Tamils.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Eastern Tamils are an agrarian-based society. They follow a caste system similar to the South Indian or Dravidian kinship system. The Eastern Tamil caste hierarchy is dominated by the Mukkuvar, Vellalar and Karaiyar. The main feature of their society is the "kudi" system. Although the Tamil word "kudi" means a house or settlement, in eastern Sri Lanka it is related to matrimonial alliances. It refers to the exogamous matrilineal clans and is found amongst most caste groups. Men or women remain members of the "kudi" of their birth and be brother or sister by relation. No man can marry in the same "kudi" because woman is always become sister to him. But, a man can only marry in one of his "sampantha" "kudi"s not in the "sakothara" "kudi"s. By custom, children born in a family belong to mother's "kudi". "Kudi" also collectively own places of worship such as Hindu temples. Each caste contains a number of "kudis", with varying names. Aside from castes with an internal "kudi" system, there are seventeen caste groups, called "Ciraikudis", or imprisoned "kudis", whose members were considered to be in captivity, confined to specific services such as washing, weaving, and toddy tapping. However, such restrictions no longer apply.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Tamils of the Trincomalee district have different social customs from their southern neighbours due to the influence of the Jaffna kingdom to the north. The indigenous Veddha people of the east coast also speak Tamil and have become assimilated into the Eastern Tamil caste structure. Most Eastern Tamils follow customary laws called Mukkuva laws codified during the Dutch colonial period.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Jaffna's history of being an independent kingdom lends legitimacy to the political claims of the Sri Lankan Tamils, and has provided a focus for their constitutional demands. Northern Tamil society is generally categorised into two groups: those who are from the Jaffna peninsula in the north, and those who are residents of the Vanni to the immediate south. The Jaffna society is separated by castes. Historically, the Sri Lankan Vellalar were in northern region dominant and were traditionally husbandman involved in agriculture and cattle cultivation. They constitute half of the population and enjoyed dominance under Dutch rule, from which community the colonial political elites also were drawn from. The maritime communities existed outside the agriculture-based caste system and is dominated by the Karaiyars. The dominant castes (e.g. the Vellalar or Karaiyar) traditionally use the service of those collectively known as "Kudimakkal". The Panchamars, who serve as Kudimakkal, consists of the "Nalavar, Pallar, Parayar, Vannar" and "Ambattar". The castes of temple priests known as the Kurukkals and the "Iyers" are also held in high esteem. The artisans who are known as "Kammalar" also serve as Kudimakkal, and consists of the "Kannar" (brass-workers), "Kollar" (blacksmiths), "Tattar" (goldsmiths), "Tatchar" (carpenters) and "Kartatchar" (sculptor). The "Kudimakkal" were domestic servants who also gave ritual importance to the dominant castes.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: People in the Vanni districts considered themselves separate from Tamils of the Jaffna peninsula but the two groups did intermarry. Most of these married couples moved into the Vanni districts where land was available. Vanni consists of a number of highland settlements within forested lands using irrigation tank-based cultivation. An 1890 census listed 711 such tanks in this area. Hunting and raising livestock such as water buffalo and cattle is a necessary adjunct to the agriculture. The Tamil-inhabited Vanni consists of the Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, and eastern Mannar districts. Historically, the Vanni area has been in contact with what is now South India, including during the medieval period and was ruled by the Vanniar Chieftains. Northern Tamils follow customary laws called Thesavalamai, codified during the Dutch colonial period.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Western Tamils, also known as Negombo Tamils or Puttalam Tamils, are native Sri Lankan Tamils who live in the western Gampaha and Puttalam districts. The term does not apply to Tamil immigrants in these areas. They are distinguished from other Tamils by their dialects, one of which is known as the Negombo Tamil dialect, and by aspects of their culture such as customary laws. Most Negombo Tamils have assimilated into the Sinhalese ethnic group through a process known as Sinhalisation. Sinhalisation has been facilitated by caste myths and legends. The Western Tamils caste hierarchy is principally dominated by the maritime Karaiyars, along with other dominant groups such as the Paravars.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In Gampaha District, Tamils have historically inhabited the coastal region. In the Puttalam District, there was a substantial ethnic Tamil population until the first two decades of the 20th century. Most of those who identify as ethnic Tamils live in villages such as Udappu and Maradankulam. The coastal strip from Jaffna to Chilaw is also known as the "Catholic belt". The Tamil Christians, chiefly Roman Catholics, have preserved their heritage in the major cities such as Negombo, Chilaw, Puttalam, and also in villages such as Mampuri.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Some residents of these two districts, especially the Karaiyars, are bilingual, ensuring that the Tamil language survives as a lingua franca among migrating maritime communities across the island. Negombo Tamil dialect is spoken by about 50,000 people. This number does not include others, outside of Negombo city, who speak local varieties of the Tamil language. The bilingual catholic Karavas are also found in the western coastal regions, who trace their origins to the Tamil Karaiyar however identify themselves as Sinhalese.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Negombo Tamil is the fact that the Karavas immigrated to Sri Lanka much later than Tamils immigrated to Jaffna. This would suggest that the Negombo dialect continued to evolve in the Coromandel Coast before it arrived in Sri Lanka and began to get influenced by Sinhala. So, in some ways, the dialect is closer to those spoken in Tamil Nadu than is Jaffna Tamil.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Some Tamil place names have been retained in these districts. Outside the Tamil-dominated northeast, the Puttalam District has the highest percentage of place names of Tamil origin in Sri Lanka. Composite or hybrid place names are also present in these districts.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Although Sri Lankan Tamils are culturally and linguistically distinct, genetic studies indicate that they are closely related to other ethnic groups in the island while being related to the Indian Tamils from South India as well. There are various studies that indicate varying degrees of connections between Sri Lankan Tamils, Sinhalese, and Indian ethnic groups.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: A study conducted by Kshatriya in 1995 found that both ethnolinguistic groups of Sri Lanka, including the Tamils, were closest to the Tamil population of India and also the Muslim population of South India. They were found to be the most distant group from the Veddahs, and quite distant from both North-West Indians (Punjabis and Gujratis) and North-East Indians (Bengalis).


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In comparison to Indian Tamils, the Tamils of Sri Lanka had a higher admixture with the Sinhalese, though the Sinhalese themselves share a 69.86% (+/- 0.61) genetic admixture with the Indian Tamils. However, the study was carried out using Sinhalese from regions where Sinhala–-Tamil interactions were higher and older methods compared to other modern and accurate studies. The study stated that any admixture from migrations several thousand years ago must have been erased through millennia of admixture among geographically local peoples.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: An Alu polymorphism analysis of Sinhalese from Colombo by Dr Sarabjit Mastanain in 2007 using Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati (Patel), and Punjabi as parental populations found that Sinhalese share 11-30% of their genes with the Tamils.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In 1981, about eighty percent of Sri Lankan Tamils were Hindus who followed the Shaiva sect. The rest were mostly Roman Catholics who converted after the Portuguese conquest of Jaffna Kingdom. There is also a small minority of Protestants due to missionary efforts in the 18th century by organisations such as the American Ceylon Mission. Most Tamils who inhabit the Western Province are Roman Catholics, while those of the Northern and Eastern Provinces are mainly Hindu. Pentecostal and other churches, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, are active among the internally displaced and refugee populations. The 2012 Sri Lanka Census revealed a Buddhist population of 22,254 amongst Sri Lankan Tamils, i.e. roughly 1% of all Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Hindu elite, especially the Vellalar, follow the religious ideology of Shaiva Siddhanta (Shaiva school) while the masses practice folk Hinduism, upholding their faith in local village deities not found in formal Hindu scriptures. The place of worship depends on the object of worship and how it is housed. It could be a proper Hindu temple known as a "Koyil", constructed according to the "Agamic" scripts (a set of scriptures regulating the temple cult). More often, however, the temple is not completed in accordance with "Agamic" scriptures but consists of the barest essential structure housing a local deity. These temples observe daily "Puja" (prayers) hours and are attended by locals. Both types of temples have a resident ritualist or priest known as a "Kurukkal". A "Kurukkal" may belong to someone from a prominent local lineage like "Pandaram" or Iyer community. In the Eastern Province, a "Kurukkal" usually belongs to "Lingayat" sect. Other places of worship do not have icons for their deities. The sanctum could house a trident ("culam"), a stone, or a large tree. Temples of this type are common in the Northern and Eastern Provinces; a typical village has up to 150 such structures. The offering would be done by an elder of the family who owns the site. A coconut oil lamp would be lit on Fridays, and a special rice dish known as "pongal" would be cooked either on a day considered auspicious by the family or on the Thai Pongal day, and possibly on Tamil New Year Day.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: There are several worshipped deities: Ayyanar, Annamar, Vairavar, Kali, Pillaiyar, Murukan, Kannaki Amman and Mariamman. Villages have more Pillaiyar temples, which are patronised by local farmers. Kannaki Amman is mostly patronised by maritime communities. Tamil Roman Catholics, along with members of other faiths, worship at the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu. Hindus have several temples with historic importance such as those at Ketheeswaram, Koneswaram, Naguleswaram, Munneswaram, Tondeswaram, and Nallur Kandaswamy. Kataragama temple and Adam's Peak are attended by all religious communities.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Sri Lankan Tamils predominantly speak Tamil and its Sri Lankan dialects. These dialects are differentiated by the phonological changes and sound shifts in their evolution from classical or old Tamil (3rd century BCE–7th century CE). The Sri Lankan Tamil dialects form a group that is distinct from the dialects of the modern Tamil Nadu and Kerala states of India. They are classified into three subgroups: the Jaffna Tamil, the Batticaloa Tamil, and the Negombo Tamil dialects. These dialects are also used by ethnic groups other than Tamils such as the Sinhalese, Moors and Veddhas. Tamil loan words in Sinhala also follow the characteristics of Sri Lankan Tamil dialects. Sri Lankan Tamils, depending on where they live in Sri Lanka, may also additionally speak Sinhala and or English. According to the 2012 Census 32.8% or 614,169 Sri Lankan Tamils also spoke Sinhala and 20.9% or 390,676 Sri Lankan Tamils also spoke English.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Negombo Tamil dialect is used by bilingual fishermen in the Negombo area, who otherwise identify themselves as Sinhalese. This dialect has undergone considerable convergence with spoken Sinhala. The Batticaloa Tamil dialect is shared between Tamils, Muslims, Veddhas and Portuguese Burghers in the Eastern Province. Batticaloa Tamil dialect is the most literary of all the spoken dialects of Tamil. It has preserved several ancient features, remaining more consistent with the literary norm, while at the same time developing a few innovations. It also has its own distinctive vocabulary and retains words that are unique to present-day Malayalam, a Dravidian language from Kerala that originated as a dialect of old Tamil around 9th century CE. The Tamil dialect used by residents of the Trincomalee District has many similarities with the Jaffna Tamil dialect.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The dialect used in Jaffna is the oldest and closest to old Tamil. The long physical isolation of the Tamils of Jaffna has enabled their dialect to preserve ancient features of old Tamil that predate "Tolkappiyam", the grammatical treatise on Tamil dated from 3rd century BCE to 10th century CE. Also, a large component of the settlers were from the Coromandel Coast and Malabar Coast which may have helped with the preservation of the dialect. Their ordinary speech is closely related to classical Tamil. Conservational Jaffna Tamil dialect and Indian Tamil dialects are to an extent not mutually intelligible, and the former is frequently mistaken for Malayalam by native Indian Tamil speakers. The closest Tamil Nadu Tamil variant to Jaffna Tamil is literary Tamil, used in formal speeches and news reading. There are also Prakrit loan words that are unique to Jaffna Tamil.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Sri Lankan Tamil society values education highly, for its own sake as well as for the opportunities it provides. The kings of the Aryacakravarti dynasty were historically patrons of literature and education. Temple schools and traditional "gurukulam" classes on verandahs (known as "Thinnai Pallikoodam" in Tamil) spread basic education in religion and in languages such as Tamil and Sanskrit to the upper classes. The Portuguese introduced western-style education after their conquest of the Jaffna kingdom in 1619. The Jesuits opened churches and seminaries, but the Dutch destroyed them and opened their own schools attached to Dutch Reformed churches when they took over Tamil-speaking regions of Sri Lanka.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The primary impetus for educational opportunity came with the establishment of the American Ceylon Mission in Jaffna District, which started with the arrival in 1813 of missionaries sponsored by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The critical period of the missionaries' impact was from the 1820s to the early 20th century. During this time, they created Tamil translations of English texts, engaged in printing and publishing, established primary, secondary, and college-level schools, and provided health care for residents of the Jaffna Peninsula. American activities in Jaffna also had unintended consequences. The concentration of efficient Protestant mission schools in Jaffna produced a revival movement among local Hindus led by Arumuga Navalar, who responded by building many more schools within the Jaffna peninsula. Local Catholics also started their own schools in reaction, and the state had its share of primary and secondary schools. Tamil literacy greatly increased as a result of these changes. This prompted the British colonial government to hire Tamils as government servants in British-held Ceylon, India, Malaysia, and Singapore.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: By the time Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, about sixty percent of government jobs were held by Tamils, who formed barely fifteen percent of the population. The elected Sinhalese leaders of the country saw this as the result of a British stratagem to control the majority Sinhalese, and deemed it a situation that needed correction by implementation of the Policy of standardization.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: According to legends, the origin of Sri Lankan Tamil literature dates back to the Sangam period (3rd century BCE–6th century CE). These legends indicate that the Tamil poet Eelattu Poothanthevanar (Poothanthevanar from Sri Lanka) lived during this period.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Medieval period Tamil literature on the subjects of medicine, mathematics and history was produced in the courts of the Jaffna Kingdom.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: During Singai Pararasasekaran's rule, an academy for the propagation of the Tamil language, modelled on those of ancient Tamil Sangam, was established in Nallur. This academy collected manuscripts of ancient works and preserved them in the Saraswathy Mahal library.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: During the Portuguese and Dutch colonial periods (1619–1796), Muttukumara Kavirajar is the earliest known author who used literature to respond to Christian missionary activities. He was followed by Arumuga Navalar, who wrote and published a number of books. The period of joint missionary activities by the Anglican, American Ceylon, and Methodist Missions also saw the spread of modern education and the expansion of translation activities.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The modern period of Tamil literature began in the 1960s with the establishment of modern universities and a free education system in post-independence Sri Lanka. The 1960s also saw a social revolt against the caste system in Jaffna, which impacted Tamil literature: Dominic Jeeva, Senkai aazhiyaan, Thamizhmani Ahalangan are the products of this period.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: After the start of the civil war in 1983, a number of poets and fiction writers became active, focusing on subjects such as death, destruction, and rape. Such writings have no parallels in any previous Tamil literature. The war produced displaced Tamil writers around the globe who recorded their longing for their lost homes and the need for integration with mainstream communities in Europe and North America.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Jaffna Public Library which contained over 97,000 books and manuscripts was one of the biggest libraries in Asia, and through the Burning of the Jaffna Public Library much of Sri Lankan Tamil literature has been obliterated.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The cuisine of Sri Lankan Tamils draws influence from that of India, as well as from colonialists and foreign traders. Rice is usually consumed daily and can be found at any special occasion, while spicy curries are favourite dishes for lunch and dinner. Rice and curry is the name for a range of Sri Lankan Tamil dishes distinct from Indian Tamil cuisine, with regional variations between the island's northern and eastern areas. While rice with curries is the most popular lunch menu, combinations such as curd, tangy mango, and tomato rice are also commonly served.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: String hoppers, which are made of rice flour and look like knitted vermicelli neatly laid out in circular pieces about in diameter, are frequently combined with tomato "sothi" (a soup) and curries for breakfast and dinner. Another common item is "puttu", a granular, dry, but soft steamed rice powder cooked in a bamboo cylinder with the base wrapped in cloth so that the bamboo flute can be set upright over a clay pot of boiling water. This can be transformed into varieties such as "ragi", spinach, and tapioca puttu. There are also sweet and savoury puttus. Another popular breakfast or dinner dish is Appam, a thin crusty pancake made with rice flour, with a round soft crust in the middle. It has variations such as egg or milk Appam.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Jaffna, as a peninsula, has an abundance of seafood such as crab, shark, fish, prawn, and squid. Meat dishes such as mutton, chicken and pork also have their own niche. Vegetable curries use ingredients primarily from the home garden such as pumpkin, yam, jackfruit seed, hibiscus flower, and various green leaves. Coconut milk and hot chilli powder are also frequently used. Appetizers can consist of a range of "achars" (pickles) and "vadahams". Snacks and sweets are generally of the homemade "rustic" variety, relying on jaggery, sesame seed, coconut, and gingelly oil, to give them their distinct regional flavour. A popular alcoholic drink in rural areas is palm wine (toddy), made from palmyra tree sap. Snacks, savouries, sweets and porridge produced from the palmyra form a separate but unique category of foods; from the fan-shaped leaves to the root, the palmyra palm forms an intrinsic part of the life and cuisine of northern region.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Sri Lanka became an independent nation in 1948. Since independence, the political relationship between the Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamil communities has been strained. Sri Lanka has been unable to contain its ethnic violence as it escalated from sporadic terrorism to mob violence, and finally to civil war. The Sri Lankan Civil War has several underlying causes: the ways in which modern ethnic identities have been made and remade since the colonial period, rhetorical wars over archaeological sites and place name etymologies, and the political use of the national past. The civil war resulted in the death of at least 100,000 people and, according to human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, the forced disappearance of thousands of others ("see White van abductions in Sri Lanka"). Since 1983, Sri Lanka has also witnessed massive civilian displacements of more than a million people, with eighty percent of them being Sri Lankan Tamils.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The arrival of Protestant missionaries on a large scale beginning in 1814 was a primary contributor to the development of political awareness among Sri Lankan Tamils. Activities by missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and Methodist and Anglican churches led to a revival among Hindu Tamils who created their own social groups, built their own schools and temples, and published their own literature to counter the missionary activities. The success of this effort led to a new confidence for the Tamils, encouraging them to think of themselves as a community, and it paved the way for their emergence as a cultural, religious, and linguistic society in the mid-19th century.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Britain, which conquered the whole island by 1815, established a legislative council in 1833. During the 1833 Colebrooke-Cameron reforms the British centralised control to Colombo and amalgamated all administrative territories including the Tamil areas which had previously been administered separately. A form of modern central government was established for the first time in the island, followed by gradual decline of local form of feudalism including Rajakariya, which was abolished soon after.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In the legislative council the British assigned three European seats and one seat each for Sinhalese, Tamils and Burghers. This council's primary function was to act as advisor to the Governor, and the seats eventually became elected positions. There was initially little tension between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, when in 1913 Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Tamil, was elected representative of the Sinhalese as well as of the Tamils in the national legislative council. British Governor William Manning, who was appointed in 1918 however, actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation". Subsequently, the Donoughmore Commission in 1931 rejected communal representation and brought in universal franchise. This decision was opposed by the Tamil political leadership, who realised that they would be reduced to a minority in parliament according to their proportion of the overall population. In 1944, G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil community, suggested to the Soulbury Commission that a roughly equal number of seats be assigned to Sinhalese and minorities in an independent Ceylon (50:50)—a proposal that was rejected. But under section 29(2) of the constitution formulated by the commissioner, additional protection was provided to minority groups, such requiring a two-thirds majority for any amendments and a scheme of representation that provided more weight to the ethnic minorities.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Shortly after independence in 1948, G.G. Ponnambalam and his All Ceylon Tamil Congress joined D.S. Senanayake's moderate, western-oriented United National Party led government which led to a split in the Tamil Congress. S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, the leader of the splinter Federal Party (FP or Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi), contested the Ceylon Citizenship Act, which denied citizenship to Tamils of recent Indian origin, before the Supreme Court, and then in the Privy council in England, but failed to overturn it. The FP eventually became the dominant Tamil political party. In response to the Sinhala Only Act in 1956, which made Sinhala the sole official language, Federal Party Members of Parliament staged a nonviolent sit-in ("satyagraha") protest, but it was violently broken up by a mob. The FP was blamed and briefly banned after the riots of May–June 1958 targeting Tamils, in which many were killed and thousands forced to flee their homes. Another point of conflict between the communities was state sponsored colonisation schemes that effectively changed the demographic balance in the Eastern Province, an area Tamil nationalists considered to be their traditional homeland, in favour of the majority Sinhalese.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In 1972, a newly formulated constitution removed section 29(2) of the 1947 Soulbury constitution that was formulated to protect the interests of minorities. Also, in 1973, the Policy of standardization was implemented by the Sri Lankan government, supposedly to rectify disparities in university enrolment created under British colonial rule. The resultant benefits enjoyed by Sinhalese students also meant a significant decrease in the number of Tamil students within the Sri Lankan university student population.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Shortly thereafter, in 1973, the Federal Party decided to demand a separate Tamil state. In 1976 they merged with the other Tamil political parties to become the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). By 1977 most Tamils seemed to support the move for independence by electing the Tamil United Liberation Front overwhelmingly. The elections were followed by the 1977 riots, in which around 300 Tamils were killed. There was further violence in 1981 when an organised Sinhalese mob went on a rampage during the nights of 31 May to 2 June, burning down the Jaffna public library—at the time one of the largest libraries in Asia—containing more than 97,000 books and manuscripts.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Since 1948, successive governments have adopted policies that had the net effect of assisting the Sinhalese community in such areas as education and public employment. These policies made it difficult for middle class Tamil youth to enter university or secure employment.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The individuals belonging to this younger generation, often referred to by other Tamils as "the boys" ("Podiyangal" in Tamil), formed many militant organisations. The most important contributor to the strength of the militant groups was the Black July massacre, in which between 1,000 and 3,000 Tamils were killed, prompting many youths to choose the path of armed resistance.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: By the end of 1987, the militant youth groups had fought not only the Sri Lankan security forces and the Indian Peace Keeping Force also among each other, with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) eventually eliminating most of the others. Except for the LTTE, many of the remaining organisations transformed into either minor political parties within the Tamil National Alliance or standalone political parties. Some also function as paramilitary groups within the Sri Lankan military.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as the United States Department of State and the European Union, have expressed concern about the state of human rights in Sri Lanka, and both the government of Sri Lanka and the rebel LTTE have been accused of human rights violations. Although Amnesty International in 2003 found considerable improvement in the human rights situation, attributed to a ceasefire and peace talks between the government and the LTTE, by 2007 they reported an escalation in political killings, child recruitment, abductions, and armed clashes, which created a climate of fear in the north and east of the country.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: In August 2009, the civil war ended with total victory for the government forces. During the last phase of the war, many Tamil civilians and combatants were killed. The government estimated that over 22,000 LTTE cadres had died. The civilian death toll is estimated to be as high as 40,000 or more. This is in addition to the 70,000 Sri Lankans killed up to the beginning of the last phase of the civil war. Over 300,000 internally displaced Tamil civilians were interred in special camps and eventually released. As of 2011, there were still a few thousand alleged combatants in state prisons awaiting trials. The Sri Lankan government has released over 11,000 rehabilitated former LTTE cadres.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Bishop of Mannar (a northwestern town) Rayappu Joseph said that 146,679 people seemed to be unaccounted between 2008 October and at the end of the civil war.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The Tamil presence in Sri Lankan politics and society is facing a revival. In 2015 elections the Tamil national alliance got the third largest number of seats in the Parliament and as the largest parties UNP and SLFP created a unity government TNA leader R. Sampanthan was appointed as the opposition leader. K. Sripavan became the 44th Chief justice and the second Tamil to hold the position.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The earliest Tamil speakers from Sri Lanka known to have travelled to foreign lands were members of a merchant guild called "Tenilankai Valanciyar" (Valanciyar from Lanka of the South). They left behind inscriptions in South India dated to the 13th century. In the late 19th century, educated Tamils from the Jaffna peninsula migrated to the British colonies of Malaya (Malaysia and Singapore) and India to assist the colonial bureaucracy. They worked in almost every branch of public administration, as well as on plantations and in industrial sectors. Prominent Sri Lankan Tamils in the Forbes list of billionaire include: Ananda Krishnan, Raj Rajaratnam, and G. Gnanalingam, and Singapore's former foreign minister and deputy prime minister, S. Rajaratnam, are of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. C. W. Thamotharampillai, an Indian-based Tamil language revivalist, was born in the Jaffna peninsula.Before the Sri Lankan civil war, Sri Lankan Tamil communities were well established in Malaysia, Singapore, India and the UK.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: After the start of the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, there was a mass migration of Tamils trying to escape the hardships and perils of war. Initially, it was middle class professionals, such as doctors and engineers, who emigrated; they were followed by the poorer segments of the community. The fighting drove more than 800,000 Tamils from their homes to other places within Sri Lanka as internally displaced persons and also overseas, prompting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to identify them in 2004 as the largest asylum-seeking group.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: The country with the largest share of displaced Tamils is Canada, with more than 200,000 legal residents, found mostly within the Greater Toronto Area. and there are a number of prominent Canadians of Sri Lankan Tamil descent, such as author Shyam Selvadurai, and Indira Samarasekera, former president of the University of Alberta.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Sri Lankan Tamils in India are mostly refugees of about over 100,000 in special camps and another 50,000 outside of the camps. In western European countries, the refugees and immigrants have integrated themselves into society where permitted. Tamil British singer M.I.A (born Mathangi Arulpragasam) and BBC journalist George Alagiah are, among others, notable people of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus have built a number of prominent Hindu temples across North America and Europe, notably in Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, and the UK.


title: Sri Lankan Tamils

text: Sri Lankan Tamils continue to seek refuge in countries like Canada and Australia. The International Organization for Migration and the Australian government has declared some Sri Lankans including Tamils as economic migrants. A Canadian government survey found that over 70% of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have gone back to Sri Lanka for holidays raising concerns over the legitimacy of their refugee claims.However, the inability of Tamils to settle in their own lands indicate the ongoing hostilities and differential treatment of Tamils even after the end of armed war in May 2009.


title: Partition of Bengal (1905)

text: The first Partition of Bengal (1905) was a territorial reorganization of the Bengal Presidency implemented by the authorities of the British Raj. The reorganization separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas. Announced on 19 July 1905 by Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of India, and implemented on 16 October 1905, it was undone a mere six years later.


title: Partition of Bengal (1905)

text: The nationalists saw the partition as a challenge to Indian nationalism and that it was a deliberate attempt to divide Bengal on religious grounds, with a Muslim majority in the east and a Hindu majority in the west.


title: Partition of Bengal (1905)

text: The Hindus of West Bengal complained that the division would make them a minority in a province that would incorporate the province of Bihar and Orissa. Hindus were outraged at what they saw as a "divide and rule" policy, even though Curzon stressed it would produce administrative efficiency. The partition animated the Muslims to form their own national organization along communal lines. To appease Bengali sentiment, Bengal was reunited by Lord Hardinge in 1911, in response to the Swadeshi movement's riots in protest against the policy.


title: Partition of Bengal (1905)

text: The Bengal Presidency encompassed Bengal, Bihar, parts of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and Assam. With a population of 78.5 million it was British India's largest province. For decades British officials had maintained that the huge size created difficulties for effective management and had caused neglect of the poorer eastern region. The idea of the partition had been brought up only for administrative reasons. Therefore, Curzon planned to split Orissa and Bihar and join fifteen eastern districts of Bengal with Assam. The eastern province held a population of 31 million, most of which was Muslim, with its centre at Dhaka. Once the Partition was completed, Curzon pointed out that he thought of the new province as Muslim. Lord Curzon's intention was to specifically divide Hindus from Muslims, but not to divide Bengalis. The Western districts formed the other province with Orissa and Bihar. The union of western Bengal with Orissa and Bihar reduced the speakers of the Bengali language to a minority. Muslims led by the Nawab Sallimullah of Dhaka supported the partition and Hindus opposed it.


title: Partition of Bengal (1905)

text: The English-educated middle class of Bengal saw this as a vivisection of their motherland as well as a tactic to diminish their authority. In the six-month period before the partition was to be effected the Congress arranged meetings where petitions against the partition were collected and given to impassive authorities. Surendranath Banerjee had suggested that the non-Bengali states of Orissa and Bihar be separated from Bengal rather than dividing two parts of the Bengali-speaking community, but Lord Curzon did not agree to this. Banerjee admitted that the petitions were ineffective; as the date for the partition drew closer, he began advocating tougher approaches such as boycotting British goods. He preferred to label this move as "swadeshi" instead of a "boycott". The boycott was led by the moderates but minor rebel groups also sprouted under its cause.


title: Partition of Bengal (1905)

text: Banerjee believed on that other targets ought to be included. Government schools were spurned and on 16 October 1905, the day of partition, schools and shops were blockaded. The demonstrators were cleared off by units of the police and army. This was followed by violent confrontations, due to which the older leadership in the Congress became anxious and convinced the younger Congress members to stop boycotting the schools. The president of the Congress, G.K. Gokhale, Banerji and others stopped supporting the boycott when they found that John Morley had been appointed as Secretary of State for India. Believing that he would sympathise with the Indian middle class they trusted him and anticipated the reversal of the partition through his intervention.


title: Partition of Bengal (1905)

text: The day of partition (16 October 1905) also coincided with Raksha Bandhan day, which celebrates sibling relationships. In protest, renowned novelist Rabindranath Tagore made it compulsory for every individual to tie rakhi, especially to Muslims, to emphasize inter-religious bonds and that Bengal did not want partition.


title: Partition of Bengal (1905)

text: Nationalists all over India supported the Bengali cause, and were shocked at the British disregard for public opinion and what they perceived as a "divide and rule" policy. The protests spread to Bombay, Poona, and Punjab. Lord Curzon had believed that the Congress was no longer an effective force but provided it with a cause to rally the public around and gain fresh strength from. The partition also caused embarrassment to the Indian National Congress. Gokhale had earlier met prominent British liberals, hoping to obtain constitutional reforms for India. The radicalization of Indian nationalism because of the partition would drastically lower the chances for the reforms. However, Gokhale successfully steered the more moderate approach in a Congress meeting and gained support for continuing talks with the government. In 1906 Gokhale again went to London to hold talks with Morley about the potential constitutional reforms. While the anticipation of the liberal nationalists increased in 1906 so did tensions in India. The moderates were challenged by the Congress meeting in Calcutta, which was in the middle of the radicalised Bengal. The moderates countered this problem by bringing Dadabhai Naoroji to the meeting. He defended the moderates in the Calcutta session and thus the unity of the Congress was maintained. The 1907 Congress was to be held at Nagpur. The moderates were worried that the extremists would dominate the Nagpur session. The venue was shifted to the extremist free Surat. The resentful extremists flocked to the Surat meeting. There was an uproar and both factions held separate meetings. The extremists had Aurobindo and Tilak as leaders. They were isolated while the Congress was under the control of the moderates. The 1908 Congress Constitution formed the All-India Congress Committee, made up of elected members. Thronging the meetings would no longer work for the extremists.