05/09/2011
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Eurasia Review
BY KUMAR DAVID Though unnoticed, commentaries on the Upcountry Tamils (UcT) or Mallai-naatu Thamilar, also referred to as Indian Tamils or Tamils of recent Indian origin, have been sparse in both media and scholarly periodicals in the recent decades. Focus on the war has hogged headlines and pushed everything else out of view; but this is not the only reason. Changes in the socio-economic fabric and the political landscape have contributed to the eclipse of the UcTs from the limelight. This essay will explore how an introversion of the Sinhalese political psyche induced by war and war victory, demographic changes, the very fact of some economic advancement in the 1980s and 1990s, and declining Indian interest, have worked to relegate the upcountry Tamils to the sidelines.
04/24/2011
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Eurasia Review
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have buffeted the Sri Lankan Government (GoSL) of President Mahinda Rajapakse with a suddenness and intensity that has left it reeling. A few weeks ago the US State Department released its Human Rights Report which was scathing in its findings of gross violations of both human and democratic rights in the Sinhalese South, the Tamil North and Vannie, and the ethnically mixed Eastern Province. Then came the real bombshell, the report of the UN Panel appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The most damning findings in the report are summarised in one sentence (the third) in the Executive Summary, viz:
04/23/2011
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Eurasia Review
Since day one the Rajapaksa regime has successfully manipulated the whole UN establishment including its Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, his chief of staff Nambiar and the UN Human Rights Council, and has in the process not only made a mockery of the UN system but made Ban him self look weak and not in control.
02/23/2010
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Eurasia Review
Sri Lanka's government expressed disappointment with the European Union's decision to temporarily remove the country's duty free export status, while at the same time said it will continue to implement measures to foster economic growth and improve the judicial system,