Indian vessels to prevent ISI infiltration from Sri Lanka - report

May 9, 2014

Three Naval patrol vessels have arrived at the Navy jetty in Rameswaram today in the backdrop of information that Pakistan’s ISI could infiltrate India from Sri Lanka through the sea.

Officials who confirmed the arrival of the three vessels, however, refused to give any further information.

The ships could be meant for strengthening presence of navy in the region and prevent infiltration of ISI agents by sea from Sri Lanka, sources said.

Only two days ago, a senior official of Tamil Nadu Coastal Security Group (CSG) said a new security system had been put in place off this coastal town to prevent infiltration by sea.

“CSG has been deployed in the area after police received information that ISI agents could infiltrate India from Sri lanka via Palk Straits. A new security system has been put in place to totally prevent infiltration,” Jyoti Basu, in charge of CSG (Rameswaram) had said on May 6.

State police had on April 29 arrested Sri Lankan national Mohammed Zahir Hussain, suspected ISI agent, who has confessed that he was sent to India on a recce to target national assets and launch attacks in parts of south India.

He had also told police that he had gathered important details related to vital installations including topography of American and Israeli consulates in Chennai and Bangalore respectively besides naval establishments in Visakhapatnam and Kochi. 

Pak High Commission officials in Colombo figure in FIR 

In a significant move, names of two “officials” working in the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo have been included in an FIR filed against suspected ISI agent Mohammed Zahir Hussain, highly placed police sources said here today.

According to the sources, 37-year-old Hussain allegedly told the investigators of the Q Branch Police that he was sent by the Pakistani duo to India on a recce to target national assets and launch attacks in parts of south India.

Hussain was recently arrested on various charges including circulating counterfeit currency.

The names of the officials identified as Siddiq and Sha were included following the confession by Hussain, arrested on April 29 from an undisclosed location, they said.

Asked whether the officials had been charged for any “specific offences,”, a senior police official, declining to be quoted, told PTI that “the offence is waging war against India. It is true that their names are there on the FIR. There is absolutely no doubt that the two officials had a role.”

After three-day police custody, Hussain was today remanded to judicial custody and sent to Puzhal Central Prison here.

Investigations have revealed that Hussain was part of a larger ISI mission to target critical national assets and some foreign consulates.

Hussain was also convicted of offences related to human trafficking and imprisoned in Singapore, Thailand and in Sri Lanka. ISI handlers in Colombo decided to “use his services,” based on his “solid field work” in human trafficking, sources said.

He had also confessed to having gathered important details related to vital installations including topography of American and Israeli consulates in Chennai and Bangalore respectively besides naval establishments in Visakhapatnam and Kochi.

The sources said he had admitted to having assisted in procuring fake passports for two persons, also suspected to be ISI agents, to visit India. - PTI

More than eight patients per nurse 'increases risk'

SATURDAY 10 MAY 2014

An NHS watchdog recommends a ratio of no more than eight patients for every hospital nurse. But the target will not be mandatory.

More Than Eight Patients Per Nurse 'Increases Risk' by Thavam Ratna

Reactor Reax Top Stories - Media Calls Out Nuclear Industry Front Groups

Salem-News.com-May-09-2014 

"Reactor Reax" is featured on www.NuclearBailout.org, a Web site maintained by Physicians for Social Responsibility

Salem-News.com

(WASHINGTON DC) - Media calls out nuclear industry front groups, Green World, May 6, 2014. "Nuclear Matters, the Exelon-formed front group created earlier this year to try to prevent more reactor shutdowns, has been continuing its unprecedented public relations blitz in recent days. But now there's a difference: the media has caught on to who they are, and is beginning to reveal their self-serving bias. In the long run, that's going to substantially reduce their effectiveness. After all, astroturf groups like Nuclear Matters, with its stable of 'celebrity' spokespeople, like to pretend that they are independent and perhaps even have some popular support. But when the pretense is broken and their industry backing exposed, they might as well be issuing statements on utility letterhead."

Senators take stand on nuclear zones, The (Barre Montpelier, VT) Times Argus, May 4, 2014. "Five U.S. senators, including Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernard Sander of Vermont, have sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to protest what they called the 'unwise policy' of allowing decommissioning nuclear reactors to be exempt from emergency response regulations. Also signing the letter were Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who is the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Vermont Yankee is slated to shut down in December 2014, and after that time would be exempt from much of the emergency planning required of nuclear reactors by the NRC. It is one of five nuclear reactors that either have shut down this year or will do so in the near future. The senators noted that in most cases decades of high-level radioactive waste still remained in the spent fuel pool at the nuclear reactors, and posed a significant risk."

Group again knocks nuclear cost law as it seeks hearing on FPL's St. Lucie plant, The Florida Current, May 6, 2014. "The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is continuing to criticize the state's nuclear cost recovery law as it requests a hearing on design changes at Florida Power & Light Co.'s St. Lucie 2 nuclear reactor steam generator. The Nuclear Energy Institute and FPL are urging the NRC to reject the request. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy now saysNuclear Regulatory Commission staff secretly approved design changes that contributed to wear that could cost FPL customers hundreds of millions of dollars. And the group continues to accuse the Public Service Commission of rubber-stamping cost recovery for nuclear projects under a 2006 law. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in 2012 challenged the law, saying it was too vague to enforce in violation of the state constitution. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the group's arguments and instead sided with the PSC."

FPL St. Lucie nuclear reactor not run by the book, group alleges, Palm Beach Post, May 6, 2014. "Florida Power & Light is operating its St. Lucie Unit 2 nuclear reactor outside the bounds of its license because a replacement steam generator was not properly approved, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy asserted Tuesday. In a conference call with reporters, Stephen Smith, SACE's executive director, said, 'If Florida Power & Light is going to run a nuclear reactor, they must run it by the book. Nuclear technology is inherently unforgiving, and there are clear guidelines for how to run a nuclear reactor safely.'"

Toshiba writes down value of stake in Texas nuclear project, Reuters, May 7, 2014. "Toshiba Corp said on Wednesday it wrote down by more than $300 million the value of its stake in a company planning to extend a nuclear power plant in Texas, amid uncertainty over the award of licenses for reactors in the U.S. Toshiba had only last month scored a victory in a dispute with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission over foreign ownership rules, when the watchdog's judicial arm ruled in the Japanese company's favour. But the NRC also said it will not make any final reactor license decisions anywhere in the U.S. until late 2014 at the earliest due to issues surrounding the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel. Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 has forced a reassessment of atomic power, and cheap shale gas and coal has led to the closure of several older plants in the U.S."

"Reactor Reax" is featured on www.NuclearBailout.org, a Web site maintained by Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Nigerian army posts divisions to look for missing girls

1 of 1Full Size

By Matthew Mpoke Bigg-Sat May 10, 2014

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's Army has posted two divisions to hunt for 200 schoolgirls abducted last month by Islamist rebels in an attack condemned globally including by U.S. first lady Michelle Obama on Saturday.

The soldiers are stationed in the border region close to Chad, Cameroon and Niger to work with other security agencies, said General Chris Olukolade, spokesman for the Defence Headquarters.

The government of President Goodluck Jonathan has faced criticism for its slow response since Boko Haram militants stormed a secondary school in the village of Chibok, near the Cameroon border, on April 14, and kidnapped the girls, who were taking exams. Fifty have escaped but more than 200 remain with the insurgents.

"The facilities of the Nigerian Army signals as well as all the communication facilities of the Nigerian Police and all the services have been devoted into coordinating this search," Olukolade said in a statement.

"The major challenge remains the fact that some of the information given here turned out in many occasions to be misleading .... Nevertheless, this will not discourage the collaborative efforts that are on-going," he said.

The air force has flown more than 250 sorties, a signals unit and the police are involved and a multinational task force has also been activated and surveillance equipment is deployed in support of ten search teams, he said.

The United States, Britain, France, China and international police agency Interpol have all offered assistance.

Jonathan on Friday said he believed the schoolgirls remained in Nigeria and had not been transported into Cameroon. It was the first indication he has given of their whereabouts.

The attackers were based in the Sambisa area of Borno state, a Boko Haram stronghold near the school from where the girls were abducted, he said.

RARE STEP

Michelle Obama took the rare step of delivering her husband President Barack Obama's weekly radio address on Saturday to express outrage over the kidnapping.

"Like millions of people across the globe, my husband and I are outraged and heartbroken over the kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls from their school dormitory in the middle of the night," she said in the address.

"This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group determined to keep these girls from getting an education - grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls," she said.

Boko Haram's fight for an Islamic state has killed thousands since it erupted in mid-2009 and has destabilized swathes of the northeast of Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer, as well as neighbors Cameroon and Niger.

The global outrage over the attack has shone a spotlight on the rebellion and institutional challenges faced by the government and military just as Nigeria's economy has overtaken South Africa's as the biggest on the continent.

Earlier this month, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau threatened to sell the girls "in the market".

The kidnappings and a broader militant threat overshadowed the World Economic Forum held in the Nigerian capital this week that showcased investment and opportunity in the country of 160 million people.

Human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement, citing multiple interviews with sources, that the security forces had been warned more than four hours in advance of the school attack but did not do enough to stop it. Olukolade dismissed the report as baseless.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Gaza: Where Cemeteries Serve the Living

Tim King Salem-News.com-May-08-2014

Welcome to Baraka City --Gaza

Gaza cemetery where people are living

(SALEM / GAZA) - Most people know about the suffering in Gaza, or do they? Israeli propaganda groups like to send out photos of shopping malls with happy people and claim they are from Gaza, and God knows people of Gaza deserve what everyone else has, but I would bet my life on the fact that a very tiny percentage of Gazans ever actually go to a mall.

But they do go to their graves.

Sometimes, as we learn in the video report below from Hussein Haniyeh in Gaza, the people calling them home aren't dead... yet.

Gazans living in graveyards

Loving the people of Gaza does not equate with being against Israel. Espousing criticism of Israel is not antisemitic. Speaking up for the downtrodden population of any culture is not terrorism.

Gaza resident talks about immense hardship

I feel a bit like a broken record because I have written this so many times. The elected government of Gaza is Hamas. Many years ago Hamas halted two practices; suicide bombs and rocket attacks.

Hussein Haniyeh of Salem-News.com in Gaza

Rockets are intermittently fired from Gaza in self defense but most are fired by civilians unaffiliated with the Hamas. Either way, fewer than 30 Israeli people have been killed in rocket attacks since they began in the early 1990's.

But Israel, like the US, uses drones and F-16's to terrorize the population of Occupied Palestine, Gaza in particular. Israel does everything it accuses Gaza of a thousand times harder and more intense. There is no secret these days, anyone in Gaza who dares raise a fist toward Israel will likely be targeted and killed, and a lot of innocent people may go with them.

News media in the US, UK and Israel cause people to believe these unguided rockets kill people constantly, it is far from the truth.

Most people in Gaza just wish they could live out their lives

45 Families presently live in the cemetery in Gaza Strip. The Baraka City association Decided to collect some money for them, the IBAN is already in the video and the We donate page is attached to the video.

Narendra Modi - Prime Ministerial Candidate in the World’s largest Democracy.

Architect of genocide of Muslims

By Latheef FarookIndian corporate conglomerates and their mainstream media have been making all out effort to ensure Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party, 

BJP, Prime Ministerial candidate is voted to power. His ascendency in the corrupted, criminalized and communalized Indian political scene remains an insult to all accepted norms and values. It also demonstrates India’s decadency towards anti Muslim Hundutva fascism which has been tearing apart this great ancient country.

Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee-Mahathma Gandhi’s grand daughter

Modi’s thugs on rampage

Qutubuddin Ansari-Begging for life.   Imagine the plight of these frightened Muslim     women during the pogrom in the largest democracy in the world.     

Narendra Modi - Prime Ministerial Candidate in the World’s Largest Democracy. by Thavam Ratna

The Indian election and the lessons the west can take from Narendra Modi's popularity

Western policy-makers have ignored the rising of the lower middle class across India

Narendra Modi, who enjoys enormous grassroots support, is likely to emerge victorious in India's elections. Photograph: Amit Dave/REUTERS

Jason Burke-Saturday 10 May 2014

Today, for the first time for several weeks, the million and a half voters in the Indian parliamentary constituency of Varanasi, the holy city on the Ganges, will be left alone. For weeks, they have been canvassed, rallied, bombarded with texts, tweets and Facebook posts, subjected to front-page advertisements and giant billboards of politicians' grim or grinning portraits. Tomorrow they will vote in the final phase of this protracted, historic and inspiring Indian election.

The winner is likely to be Narendra Modi, who is happy to be described as a Hindu nationalist. The 63-year-old politician has called for a strongIndia which will not be pushed around on the international stage. He promises an end to the "false secularism" which has favoured "particular communities", ie India's 150 million Muslims. The BJP manifesto explicitly promises western growth without imperilling the nation's own rich culture. Modi offers a package: governance of the highest global standards by a man who is resolutely local in his identity.

A victory for Modi, or at least one for his Bharatiya Janata party, will add 1.25 billion people to the already sizable proportion of Asia, by far the world's most populous continent, ruled by conservative leaders, often populist and often, though far from always, committed to a powerful fusion of religion and patriotism which has mobilised huge numbers of people. Many are also authoritarian. This dominance has gone largely unnoticed.

There is, of course, huge variety. The differences between, for example, the Sinhala and Buddhist ethno-religious triumphalism of the Rajapaksa family in tiny Sri Lanka and the moderate Islamism and social conservatism of Nawaz Sharif in troubled Pakistan are patent. Comparisons between communist China, even if a new leader there favours a nationalist narrative, and India are never helpful. They are too different for comparisons to be useful. In Russia, nationalism is booming, the economy is not. But the broad picture is clear. How many progressive internationalists are in power? Not many.

Key to explaining this are the twin linked phenomena: rising prosperity and urbanisation. Recent decades have seen hundreds of millions of people across Asia become less poor – if not wealthy – and even more moving from the countryside to cities. Clear divisions between the aspirations and expectations of rural and urban communities have collapsed. The result is a huge number of people caught in a vortex of rapid change, and, more recently, stuttering social mobility and faltering growth. They are also more politically conscious and, as the number of volunteers in the streets of Varanasi last week showed, increasingly active.

Modi is an outsider. He comes from humble origins and grew up in a provincial town in the coastal state of Gujarat. He did not go to the best Indian schools and has never liked India's capital. He is abstemious and eats simple Gujarati food. In short, he is entirely unlike many members of the Delhi-based political and bureaucratic elite. This is one reason for the fear he inspires in the Indian capital.

Modi has many critics and when the final results are released on Friday we will probably learn that, even in the event of victory, under a third of voters in India will have actually voted for him. Though he has been cleared by judicial inquiries of having allowed, or even encouraged, sectarian violence in 2002 in the state he runs, suspicions of deep-rooted prejudice remain. Others fear authoritarianism. Concerns about his accession to high office may prove unfounded, but are legitimate.

His supporters, however, see someone else. For if this new urban-rural lower middle-class – also, incidentally, the key constituency for political Islamists and, historically, European revolutionary organisations of every type – are still optimistic, they are also very frustrated. In Modi, they see a strong leader with a proven record of administration who will bring jobs and security, internal and external. They see someone who will restore "Indian pride", a little battered in recent years. And above all, they see someone like them. It is their concerns, they believe, he articulates. "I understand you because I am from among you," Modi told a rally in Gujarat, with some justification.

If much of Modi's support is based in the hope that he can bring order to the chaos of modern India, some is also rooted in an inchoate resentment directed primarily at the local political elite. Unfortunately, this simmering anger results in outbursts that are often poorly aimed, with the west becoming collateral damage.

This is in part our fault. Our interaction with countries like India is complex. But our policymakers and official representatives are guilty of extraordinarily narrow vision which has helped open up space for people like Modi across much of a continent. This aids the sense among huge numbers of people that globalisation is a conversation from which, metaphorically and practically, they are excluded. That conversation takes place in English and it is worth noting that Modi will be the first leader of such prominence and power in India who, like the vast majority of his compatriots, is uncomfortable in what has become the world's language.

On the political track, our diplomats and politicians inevitably favour those who resemble them most closely. That usually means anglophone moderates or, as they are often termed locally, "liberals". There is also an inherent and inevitable journalistic bias towards those who share reporters', viewers' and readers' language and cultural references, however superficial. Due to the inequality of the growth seen since market-orientated reforms were introduced across much of Asia in the last four decades, the global economy, still dominated by the west, appears to many in small-town India, not as an opportunity for all but a means for a select few to become extremely rich. Out in provincial cities, western culture is increasingly represented more by luxury cars, internet pornography and shops selling international brands in the more exclusive malls than Shakespeare and liberal democracy.

This ignorance is certainly a fault of both sides. But it is the failure of western policymakers and analysts to grasp the importance of the emergence of the frustrated lower middle-class masses across much of a continent that is the more reprehensible. We are the ones who still, for good or ill, command most of the high ground of international affairs. But it is only through understanding what is happening at a lower, earthier level, that we will be able to grasp why men like Modi can win such support and so much power.

Government attempt to arrest student activists who participated in the protest march organized by the IUSF
(Lanka-e-News- 09.May.2014, 4.30PM) A protest march from University Grant’s Commission to the Temple Trees, headed by the Inter University Students’ Federation was held on 7th May 2014 with the participation of thousands of students. The protest demanded for the reinstatement of the four year Allied Health Sciences degree and dropping the unjust suspensions against 27 student activists of University of Rajarata. It is reported that preparations are being made to arrest the student leaders who headed this protest. 

On the previous day, the police had taken measures to obtain a restraining order against the protest march in the Fort Magistrate Court. Media reports claimed that the restraining order was taken due to the World Youth Conference that is being held in Colombo. The government is now attempting to arrest the students based on this restraining order.

We believe that this move by the police raises critical issues with regards to not only the student community’s right to organize and freedom of expression but also that of the broader masses. AHS students and Rajarata students have been organizing and participating in sit-in actions at Anuradhapura, Peradeniya, Galle and Colombo Fort for more than 150 days demanding solutions for their problems. The rulers have not given any solution to these problems. When the rulers adopt education policies in violation of the students’ right to education, students are left with no other option than to organize against such policies and express their dissent. In a democratic society masses must be entitled with the right to organize in order to protect their interests and freedom of expression. 

However, in the recent past we noticed a pattern of the government obtaining restraining orders to obstruct such protests and rallies. A similar protest march was organized by the IUSF on the 19 the of March from the University of Kelaniya to Colombo and a similar court order was obtained against that as well. Do these students, who are victims of gross injustice, have any other option other than to express their dissent through peaceful demonstrations? If the government is violating the right of the people to peacefully protest in the guise of Youth Conferences or any other reasons, should we not identify it to be an assault on the democratic rights of the people.

The right to dissent and the right to express that dissent are inalienable rights of the people. The repression that is levelled against the students’ movement today will rise against every other struggle in the coming days. We have already seen how the government uses this violence against people’s struggles, in Katunayake, Rathupaswala and Chilaw. Therefore we plead with every force, organization and force that appreciates values of democracy and freedom to condemn this repressive behaviour of the government and to fight unwaveringly to defeat these efforts. 
Ramindu Perera -Convener, Students for Human Rights

Tamils resisting demographic genocide at North-East border, stricken by poverty

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 May 2014, 23:10 GMT]
The Sri Lankan State is accelerating Sinhala colonization with the aim of permanently wedging the demographic contiguity of the northern and eastern provinces at Kokkuth-thoduvaay, a strategic village situated in Mullaiththeevu district. “Nobody has listened to our repeated pleas for freeing our lands. We went from divisional offices to SL president placing our appeals. We have also done our maximum in mobilising against the demographic genocide,” says civic member K. Sivalokeswaran from Kokkuth-thoduvaay North. Now, the Eezham Tamils, who have resettled in the village are stricken by poverty, similar to what the world has witnessed in Somalia, he says. All the agricultural lands owned by Tamils have been appropriated. The residential areas where Tamils managed to resettle are also being appropriated by Colombo, he says. 



Mr Sivalokeswaran is the only elected Tamil member of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at the civic body of Seru-nuwara of the Trincomalee district in the Eastern Province. He hails from Kokkuth-thoduvaay in the Northern Province. Sivlokeswaran narrated the situation Sinhala colonisation and demographic-genocide taking place at the strategic link. 

Tamils Resisting Demographic Genocide at North-East Border, Stricken by Poverty by Thavam Ratna

Dhanapala Steps Down From Dialog Board

May 9, 2014 

Jayantha Dhanapala, member of the Board of Directors, Dialog Axiata PLC, key co-signatory of the Friday Forum, is to retire from the Dialog directorate citing personal reasons.

Dhanapala

“‘… he will retire at the conclusion of the forthcoming AGM on June 10,’ the company said in a statement on Friday. The announcement came months after a controversy over the alleged blockage of anti-government websites by the top mobile operator. Colombo Telegraph, one of the blocked websites, said Mr. Dhanapala, a governance activist, should step down from the Dialog board or should have protested over the issue. Mr. Dhanapala has remained non-committal on the issue.” Colombo based Times online (Sunday Times) reported.

Related posts;

5 years today - No Fire Zone assault continues, HRW confirms hospital bombings, C4 journalists expelled
 09 May 2014
May 09 2009 - No Fire Zone assault continues, HRW confirms hospital bombings, C4 journalists expelledThe assault on the No Fire Zone continued with the make-shift hospital in Mullaithivu seeing another influx of injured Tamil civilians, reports TamilNet.

5 Years Today - No Fire Zone Assault Continues, HRW Confirms Hospital Bombings, C4 Journalists Expelled by Thavam Ratna

5 years after: Reflections as a mother, women and a citizen of Sri Lanka

Image by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP, via FT.com

by Visaka Dharmadasa 

- on 05/09/2014 

The moment I think of the war it takes me to 1995. Sri Lankans had very high expectations – a new government and a new President with a lot of promise to end the war. People in the South, North, East and West were so hopeful to see the day the war would end. I can remember me taking my elder son to the Army headquarters to enlist him. All of us the mothers were saying “now there is nothing to worry. The war has ended so our children will be safe. This a good time to enlist in the Army. These are the lucky ones”. I never knew what war was. Frankly speaking I never felt the danger that I was putting my son into. It was a good job. He would be an officer of my country’s army. I was proud. I was proud to see him on the right side of the law.

Memories of JVP insurgency came back to me. The day my father came to Kandy with both of them, early in to morning, and told me never to send them to the village as he had to keep them under the bed to save them from the Police and Army who came to houses and took all teenagers away. My sons were small but my parents were scared as they were even taking young boys.

Though it was very hard my son liked the academy. It was like a finishing school. He was trained and groomed to be a gentleman. Then it was time for my second son to join the Army. He never wanted to join the Army. He wanted to get into business, but visiting the brother at the Academy changed his mind. He joined the army while my older son was still undergoing training at the Diyathalawa Military Academy.

A lot has happened during the war. More than hundred thousand died, sixty nine thousand widows, incalculable damage to property and wealth. Sri Lanka has lost thirty years in a rapidly developing world. Five years after the war ended, what have we achieved as a country, as a people?

We know the pain of the loss of loved ones and more so of not knowing the fate of one’s loved ones. Youth with permanent disabilities and shattered lives live in the Northeast and the South. The biggest question is whether we have learned a lesson? For me, the politicians in the South and the Northeast have not learned anything from the past thirty years and are engaged in the same mistakes that their predecessors did.

On the face of it, if one drives to North, one can see roads being built and new structures coming up. But if one goes into a village, the pathetic situation of people still living in huts is clearly visible. There was never a planned resettlement taking into account the necessities of the people. It was all was done in an ad hoc manner, mostly to keep the internationals happy. Thus new conflicts are created as people are pushed to live with the little they have. The only good thing that took place after the war ended was elections in the Northern Provincial Council. The people of the North kept their trust in the Tamil National Alliance and gave them a majority of 76.28 %. But more than six months past the elections, there are serious issues of not adhering to the 13th amendment and making it possible for the provincial council to function properly. On the other hand, the politicians in the North seem to be very comfortable in being in the opposition and  blaming the central government for all its problems instead of trying to do as much as possible within the available space, and demanding for the full implementation of the 13th amendment. The most worrying thing is that new issues that surface regularly. Be it the Muslim-Tamil fishermen issue in Mannar, the Muslim settlement in Wilpattu or the Indian fishermen’s issue, we are faced with complex issues which need careful thinking as well strategies that will take all aspects in to consideration. Sri Lanka cannot think in isolation. We have to remember the close proximity to India and the new developments in the Indian political arena.

It is high time that policymakers and civil society sit for a serious discussion to make a fragile peace work and move the country from post-war to a state of post-conflict.