08/03/2010
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Agence France-Presse
COLOMBO — A group of global statesmen, founded by Nelson Mandela, Tuesday criticised the Sri Lankan government for failing to build on peace brought to the island by the end of the civil war last year.
07/28/2010
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Asia News
In July 1983, up to 3,000 Tamil civilians died in Sinhalese-initiated riots that set off the country’s civil war. Today, there are 81,000 widows in Sri Lanka and the military occupies two thirds of the country, CSM member says. Christians are in favour of a multi-ethnic state.
07/01/2010
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Seminar (India)
Sri Lanka’s current political predica-
ment extends back to the late colonial
period, decolonization and the forma-
tion of the postcolonial state. The
Soulbury Commission, which pre-
pared the ground for decolonization
and was responsible for Sri Lanka’s
Constitution at independence, empha-
sized British concerns at that time as
‘interests of the British Empire’ and
the ‘protection of minorities.’
04/01/2010
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Himal Southasian
The title of this piece purposely uses the word Lanka and not Sri Lanka. The name and concept of ‘Sri Lanka’ was reified in the country’s republican Constitution of 1972, at a time when the prefix Sri was problematic for the minority communities because it symbolised Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism. Indeed only a decade earlier, there had been a major ‘anti-Sri campaign’ in the North in effacing the number plates of vehicles with the Sinhala character ‘Sri’, particularly since it came soon after the ‘Sinhala Only’ language polices of 1956. During the much-needed shift from the colonial legacy, the colonial name Ceylon was abandoned as was the Soulbury Constitution in 1948 when a republican Constitution was created.
03/28/2010
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Tamil Week
by D.B.S. Jeyaraj
The single –largest Sri Lankan Tamil political group in the dissolved Parliament was the conglomerate known as the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The TNA which contested the April 2004 general elections under the “Veedu”(House) symbol of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) obtained twenty-two seats including two nominated under the national list.
03/25/2010
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Groundviews
The main thrust of this article is an attempt to understand the workings of Sinhala nationalism and why it has undermined the Sri Lankan nationhood in order to survive as a nationalist ideology, depriving democratic rights for the ethnic minorities. This in turn has undermined the democratic rights of all communities, including the Sinhala community.
03/16/2010
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Open Democracy
Rejected by the rest of the Tamil population and ignored by the Sinhalese authorities, tea workers who migrated from Tamil Nadu centuries ago are exploited in the plantations of the Sri Lankan highlands
02/04/2010
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Reuters
KANDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's newly re-elected president vowed on Thursday to regain the progress lost in a quarter-century war with the Tamil Tigers separatists by boosting the country's economy and unifying its people.
02/03/2010
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Himal Southasian
Up-country Tamil plantation workers remain a subjugated community, treated as little more than bonded labour. The current political foment includes opportunities for change.
01/27/2010
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CNN
Colombo, Sri Lanka (CNN) -- Sri Lanka has held its first presidential election since government forces put down a 26-year insurgency by Tamil Tiger rebels.
CNN's Sara Sidner looks at the election, claims of vote rigging from political rivals who were war-time allies, and what the future may hold for Sri Lanka.