Lanka president offers peace talks with LTTE

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, on a personal visit to Tirupati temple shrine on Saturday made a fresh peace talk's offer to the LTTE. Rajapaksa also denied that LTTE gets help from India. Fighting between Sri Lanka's armed forces and the LTTE has intensified since the government formally pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact in January. An estimated 70,000 people have died since the civil war began in 1983.