Jaffna

Jaffna (Tamil: யாழ்ப்பாணம் Yalpanam, Sinhalese: යාපනය Yāpanaya) is the capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. With a population of 88,138, Jaffna is Sri Lanka's 12th largest city. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical antiquity. Jaffna's suburb, Nallur served as the capital of the four centuries-long medieval Jaffna kingdom. Prior to the Sri Lankan civil war, it was Sri Lanka's second most populated city after the commercial capital Colombo. The 1980s insurgent uprising led to extensive damage, expulsion of part of the population, and military occupation. Since the end of civil war in 2009, refugees and internally displaced people have started to return to their homes and government and private sector reconstruction has begun.

Historically, Jaffna has been a contested city. It was made into a colonial port town during the Portuguese occupation of the Jaffna peninsula in 1619. The Dutch, took it from the Portuguese, only to lose it to the British in 1796. After Sri Lanka gained independence 1948, the political relationship between the minority Sri Lankan Tamils and majority Sinhalese worsened and after the Black July pogrom, civil war erupted in 1983. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) occupied Jaffna in 1986. and from 1989 until 1995. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) briefly occupied the city in 1987. The LTTE again occupied the city from 1989 until 1995, when the Sri Lankan military gained control.

Madras Cafe

Madras Cafe is a 2013 Indian political espionage thriller film directed by Shoojit Sircar and starring John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri, Rashi Khanna and Leena Paul in lead roles. The film is set in the late 1980s and early '90s, during the time of Indian intervention in the Sri Lankan civil war and assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Madras Cafe was released on 23 August 2013. Box Office India stated the film did above average business. The film won the National Film Award for Best Audiography for Nihar Ranjan Samal (location sound recording) and Bishwadeep Chatterjee (sound design) at the 61st National Film Awards.

Background

As per John Abraham, "Madras Cafe brings us closer to what changed the political history of India." The film, set in India and Sri Lanka, is a political spy thriller with the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Major Vikram Singh (John Abraham) is an Indian Army special officer who is appointed by the intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing to head covert operations in Jaffna shortly after Indian peace-keeping force was forced to withdraw. As he journeys to Sri Lanka with the intention of disrupting the LTTE rebels, he becomes entangled in rebel and military politics. There he meets a British journalist Jaya Sahni (Nargis Fakhri) who wants to reveal the truth about the civil war, and in the process he uncovers a conspiracy to assassinate "a former Indian prime minister", Rajiv Gandhi, through the use of plastic explosives. Although Vikram tries, at 10:10 pm, an LTTE suicide bomber kills Gandhi while bowing down to put a garland on his neck.

Jaffna (disambiguation)

Jaffna most often refers to Jaffna city, the capital of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka.

Jaffna may also refer to: