Justitia cringing in horror

Lawyers gearing for two days’ strike

January 7, 2016, 7:31 am 

It is with trepidation that ordinary people always visit courts of law. For, even a yawn in those places is considered contempt of court which carries severe punishment. A man was sentenced to eight months in jail for yawning in a court the other day. Policemen pounce on those who ever so much as scratch their heads in a courtroom. That’s how the dignity of the judiciary is persevered!

But, on Monday a group of lawyers and some policemen created an ugly scene in Colombo Magistrate’s Court. They threw the court house into turmoil, bringing its proceedings to an abrupt end. A case against a politician and his henchmen who are alleged to have assaulted a group of persons engaged in a protest against the Meethotamulla garbage dump was being heard at that time.

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka has led pro-democracy campaigns from the front and fearlessly taken on oppressive governments to protect judicial independence and tame arrogant political leaders who thought no end of themselves. It courageously took up the cudgels for Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake when she was wrongfully impeached. It has recently called for action against those who set upon the Meethotamulla protesters.

But, sadly, the same high octane performance was absent on the part of the BASL when a group of lawyers went berserk in the Colombo High Court, opposing the judgment in the so-called White Flag case on Nov. 18, 2011; they not only smashed furniture in the courtroom but also heaped abuse on a female judge. The culprits went scot free! That set a very bad precedent.

Among those ensconced in power today are some grandees who backed the J. R. Jayewardene regime to the hilt in 1983, when a group of pro-government thugs stoned the houses of Supreme Court Judges who had given the judgment in a fundamental rights case in favour of Vivienne Goonewardena. In July 2012, a mob led by a minister of the Rajapaksa government which was, not to put too fine a point on it, a veritable cesspool into which anti-social elements of all sorts were drained, attacked the Mannar court complex. The ‘yahapalana’ government which came to power last January, promising good governance, had no qualms about appointing that politician a minister. Worse, he was also made a member of its National Executive Council which was tasked with restoring judicial independence among other things!

Anyone has a right to disagree with judges on their decisions which can be challenged in higher courts or even criticised without causing an affront to the dignity of the judiciary. That is how issues arising from disagreements on judicial decision and contentious matters discussed in courts should be handled in a civilized society.

It is now taken for granted that the lawmakers representing the party in power have legal immunity. They have proved over the years that they can storm media institutions, smash up night clubs, tie public officials to trees and have people abducted and hold kangaroo trials in their party offices with impunity. However, those who thought indiscipline reigned only in Parliament stand corrected. It has now spread to the other branches of government; the judiciary has not been spared. Monday’s incident in the Colombo Magistrate’s court may have made the law-abiding citizens wonder whether black and khaki coats place the wearers thereof above the law the way the kapati suit does.

There has been a serious erosion of public faith in the national legislature owing to the despicable acts of rowdyism it has become notorious for. MPs, most of whom are school dropouts who would not have been able to secure decent jobs either in the state service or the private sector, plunge Parliament into chaos. The judiciary is one of the few state institutions that still command public respect, but, we are afraid, it will go the same way as the legislature unless stern action is taken against the rowdies in the garb of lawyers and policemen responsible for fracas in court houses.

Stringent action is called for against those responsible for Monday’s incident in the Colombo Magistrate’s Court. Let the National Police Commission, the BASL etc be urged to ensure that they are brought to book. A stitch in time, as they say, saves nine.

 Curiouser and curiouser!

The Police Spokesman ASP Ruwan Gunasekera, asked by the media the other day why UNP MP Hirunika Premachandra had not been arrested over the Dematagoda abduction carried out by her bodyguards, said the matter had been referred to the Attorney General’s Department. The police would act according to the AG’s advice, he said.

We thought the AG’s Department was not short of good legal brains to study simple matters like the one the police have referred to it and express opinions within a couple of days. Curiously, that institution has not yet been able to instruct the police.

It is incumbent upon the AG to order that his subordinates get cracking. He is considered an efficient official though some dim-witted government politicians are convinced otherwise. Where is he? Has he also been abducted?

IGP orders probe - Dec 2015 plot to Kill President

By Rathindra Kuruwita-2016-01-08

The Inspector General of Police has instructed the CID to investigate an allegation of an attempt to assassinate President Maithripala Sirisena last December, Police spokesman ASP Ruwan Gunasekara said at the Cabinet Press Briefing yesterday.

UNP's T. Thuvarakeswaran said that there was a plot to kill Sirisena last December. After being informed of this, the IGP wrote to the Director, CID, to immediately investigate the veracity of the allegation. "CDs containing footage from TV stations about this claim have also been sent to the CID," Gunasekara said.

Monkey Le Not Sinha Le

By V Kanthaiya –January 7, 2016

Disclaimer – This article is about a particular group of people with visible symptoms of racial lunacy and does not have any intention of criticizing any religion or race. However the writer accepts the reader’s fundamental right to misconceive the idea of the article and express their resulting emotions on the comments section.

This incident happened when I was a kid. We had a lonely, old man in our village, his dog was his only companion, and that only companion died. After sometime, the old man started to show some abnormal behavior, something like of a dog. Some People said the dog’s spirit had possessed him, and some said he’s been bitten by a dog. The doctors said his change of behavior was due to his belief that he was a dog not a human.

Of course, you become what you think. For him he was a dog, he believed it and he lived his belief. The whole world told him that he is a human, a creature with some basic common sense and intelligence above other species. But the dog man refused it. He wanted to live like a dog and he lived like a dog and finally someone admitted him in the Manthikai Mental hospital and there he died like a dog.

Well, the saying history repeats, is a harsh reality and we observe in our monotonous day today life. But the phenomena I encounter now is something of a larger scale.

Now we see lot of photos on Facebook with the anthropomorphism related mental disorder among Sri Lankans, but at an epidemic level. It now seems that more and more people started to believe that they have the DNA of a panthera leo persica aka asiatic lion, not of a homo sapiens. Remember, I told you about the dog man of our village.                                       Read More

Many from Mahinda faction too get ministerial privileges

THURSDAY, 07 JANUARY 2016

54 chairpersons of District Coordinating Committees have been appointed states Presidential Media Unit. These Chairpersons of District Coordinating Committees will have same privileges as cabinet ministers.

All those who were appointed as chairpersons of District Coordinating Committees have obtained their appointment letters from President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday (6th). Interestingly, several who represented the Mahinda faction until recently too have been given the appointment as chairpersons.

Among them are former Speaker and MP for Hambantota Chamal Rajapaksa has been appointed as a co-chairman for Hambantota District. Premalal Gunasekera (Choka Malli), A.A. Wijetunga and Pavithradevi Wanniarachchi have been appointed as co-chairpersons for Ratnapura District.

Also, Janaka bandara Tennekone, Sumedha G. Jayasena and Geetha Kumarasinghe who represent the SLFP too have been appointed as co-chairpersons.

Chandrasiri Gajadeera of the Communist Party representing Mahinda faction has been appointed a co-chairperson for Matara District.

Gold worth over Rs 27m seized at BIA; immigration officer among 2 arrested

January 7, 2016
Two suspects including an immigration officer have been arrested at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) in Katunayake in connection with an attempt to smuggle gold worth over Rs 27 million into the country.

A 31-year-old passenger, from Kattankudy, who had arrived from Kuala Lumpur by flight MH179 at 12.10am this morning and a 55-year-old immigration officer, from Puttalam, on duty at the airport’s arrival lounge have been arrested by customs officers.

The arrests were made at the arrival lounge after 4 packets containing 392 gold chains weighing 3,300g and valued at Rs 18,153,025 and 18 gold slabs weighing 1,800 grams and valued at Rs 9,000,000 were found concealed in a brief case belonging to the immigration officer. 

Customs spokesman Leslie Gamini said that the total weight of the seized is 5.1kg while the total estimated value is Rs 27,153,025.

He stated that the investigations are being carried out by a team led by Deputy Superintendent of Customs, Nishantha Jayasinghe.

The customs inquiry will be held by Deputy Director of Customs, Anura Walawage, following which the two suspects including the immigration officer along with the gold seized will be handed over to the Customs Investigation Division for onward action, the spokesman said.

Ban on political group in Israel leaves Gaza orphans destitute

Palestinian citizens of Israel in the town of Umm al-Fahm protest the government’s closure of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, on 28 November 2015. The ban has hit vulnerable Palestinians in Gaza who relied on support from the group’s charities.Ammar AwadReuters

Isra Saleh el-Namey-7 January 2016

The last thing Sabah Breas needed was a greater financial burden.

The 47-year-old widow and mother of six children, three born deaf, has relied for four years on a monthly stipend to assure the family’s survival in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.

Ban on Political Group in Israel Leaves Gaza Orphans Destitute by Thavam Ratna

Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of bombing embassy in Yemen 
An image of the Iranian embassy in Sanaa taken in 2013 (AFP) 

Thursday 7 January 2016

Iranian foreign ministry says embassy guards injured as Yemeni capital reels from heaviest bombardment in months-long war 

Iran on Thursday accused Saudi Arabia of deliberately hitting its embassy in Yemen following airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition targeting Houthi fighters in Sanaa, and promised to take the matter to the UN Security Council. 

"During an air raid by Saudi Arabia against Sanaa, a rocket fell near our embassy and unfortunately one of our guards was seriously wounded," Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said, quoted by official news agency IRNA.

"We will inform the Security Council of the details of this attack within several hours," he said.

"Saudi Arabia is responsible for the security of our diplomats and of our embassy in Sanaa," he added. 

The incident comes amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Riyadh over Saudi Arabia's execution of Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shia cleric, and the subsequent attack on Saudi Arabia's embassy in the Iranian capital, which led to Saudi Arabia and other states cutting or downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran.

"This deliberate action by Saudi Arabia is a violation of all international conventions that protect diplomatic missions," foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari was earlier quoted as saying by state television.

Ansari indicated that guards at the embassy had been injured in the incident, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. 

"It goes without saying that the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right to pursue the issue through legal channels," he said. 

IRNA reported that the embassy walls had been damaged by shrapnel from a rocket strike.

However, sources in Yemen told Middle East Eye that there was no visible damage to the compound, which is in an area that has previously been targeted by airstrikes.

A reporter for the Associated Press news agency separately said there was no visible damage to the embassy building.

The Saudi-led coalition has been conducting frequent airstrikes against Houthi forces, who have been in control of Sanaa since 2014, as part of its campaign to reassert Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi's control of the country.

Heaviest bombardment

The Reuters news agency reported that Sanaa had been pounded by dozens of airstrikes on Thursday in what it said residents described as the heaviest bombardment in the Saudi-led nine-month military campaign.

A spokesperson for the coalition said it would investigate Iran's accusation but said that allegations made on the basis of information provided by the Houthis "have no credibility".

Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said the coalition had requested all countries to supply it with coordinates of the location of their diplomatic missions.

Asseri said overnight strikes had targeted missile launchers used by Houthi fighters and accused them of using civilian facilities including abandoned embassies.

Qatar on Thursday recalled its ambassador from Tehran, becoming the latest Gulf state to reduce its diplomatic presence there in response to the arson attack by protesters on the Saudi embassy on Saturday.

Bahrain and Sudan followed Saudi Arabia in cutting diplomatic ties, while the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait withdrew their ambassadors.

Iran said on Thursday it had banned all products from Saudi Arabia from entering the country.

Despite months of airstrikes and a ground campaign by the Saudi-led coalition, the Iranian-allied Houthis remain in control of Sanaa and other areas of the country.

But on Wednesday troops loyal to Hadi took control of the strategic port city of Midi on Yemen's northwestern Red Sea coast, according to a local military commander.

The next round of United Nations-backed peace talks is due to start on 14 January, although neither side has yet confirmed their attendance.

Libya truck bomb targets police recruits in Zliten

Dozens die as Libya's worst bomb attack since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi hits a police training centre where hundreds of recruits were gathering for a morning meeting.

THURSDAY 07 JANUARY 2016

It has been reported that it was a water truck rigged with explosives which caused the bombing.

Witnesses have said residents were ferrying victims to Misrata hospitals in ambulances and cars, many with shrapnel wounds and some bodies too damaged to be identified.

Medical sources had initially said 65 people had been killed, including some civilians. But Fozi Awnais, head of the crisis committee for the health ministry in Tripoli, said later that 47 people had died and 118 more were wounded.

Libyan media said the attack struck the al-Jahfal training camp, a military base during the rule Muammar Gaddafi. Mayor Miftah Hamadi said the bomb detonated as around 400 recruits were gathering in the early morning.

"It was horrific, the explosion was so loud it was heard from miles away," Hamadi told Reuters by telephone.

"All the victims were young, and all about to start their lives."

A country in chaos 

Since a NATO-backed revolt overthrew Gaddafi in 2011, suicide blasts and car bombings have increased as Islamist militants have taken advantage of the country's chaos to expand their presence.

It is currently run by two rival governments - only one of which is recognised internationally - and a range of armed factions locked in a struggle for control.

Islamic State militants have grown in strength, taking over the city of Sirte and launching attacks on oilfields. Islamic State fighters this week attacked two major oil export terminals.

The Zliten blast is the worst since an attack in February last year when three car bombs hit the eastern city of Qubbah, killing 40 people. That attack was claimed by the so-called Islamic State group, just a few months after it established a foothold in the country.

The latest explosion has not been officially claimed by any group yet, but it comes against the backdrop of intensified attacks this week carried out by IS militants near Libya's eastern oil ports.

Syrian regime to allow aid into besieged, starving town

UN welcomes move that comes after images of starving children and emaciated bodies in Madaya spark worldwide outrage

Malnourished children reported trapped in Madaya, Syria

Kareem Shaheen in Beirut,Emma Graham-Harrison andPatrick Wintour
Thursday 7 January 2016


The United Nations says the Syrian government has agreed to allow aid delivery to the besieged town of Madaya, where residents have said they are starving to death under a blockade by troops loyal to Bashar al-Assad.

“The UN welcomes today’s approval from the government of Syria to access Madaya, Fua and Kefraya and is preparing to deliver humanitarian assistance in the coming days,” the office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said in a statement on Thursday.

People in Fua and Kefraya were also enduring a debilitating siege after a rebel coalition known as Jaysh al-Fateh surrounded the two Shia enclaves in Idlib province in spring last year.

It remains unclear how much aid will be allowed into Madaya, situated a few miles from Damascus, where people have been reduced to scouring grass from minefields and eating tree leaves and boiling water flavoured with spices. A kilogram of rice now costs around $250 (£170) there.

The last aid delivery to the town was in October, and there are now shortages of everything from baby milk to basic medicine. Residents and UN officials say people have died of starvation.

Residents greeted the news with a mix of happiness and scepticism that the aid deliveries would endure. Madaya is only the latest example of a debilitating siege targeting a city in Syria, with areas of eastern Ghouta in the suburbs of Damascus and the Yarmouk refugee camp south of the capital having suffered similar blockades by the Assad regime in the course of the five-year civil war.

Opposition activists say the sieges amount to the systematic use of hunger as a weapon of war.

“Madaya is not on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe, it is already a humanitarian catastrophe,” said a health worker in the town’s field hospital, reached by phone. “The view on the street is frightening, frightening. We know that people think we are exaggerating, but believe me, it is worse than any exaggeration.”

A teacher in the town, who requested anonymity, said: “There is nothing official from the government, they haven’t talked with us yet, so we have heard it from the news. We are afraid that would be a lie, so we felt happy at first, but now we are a little afraid. We don’t know anything about the amount of aid or what there will be, if there is milk for the children or other important things.”

But Louay, another resident trapped in the town, said: “People are really, really, really happy and thank God, smiles have been drawn on our faces.”

Images of starving children and emaciated bodies have sparked outrage, including in Britain, where the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, called for RAF air drops of food.

“Forty thousand people have been under siege by the Assad regime and its Hezbollah allies in Madaya,” he said. “If Britain can assure the safety of RAF pilots and do food drops, we should. Britain should simultaneously be pressuring Russia and Iran, via the EU and the UN, to make the Assad regime stop this medieval-style siege of thousands of people.”

The town, located 1,300 metres above sea level in a mountainous region straddling the border with Lebanon, is home to 30,000 people who have been under siege since July, as part of a complicated power play. Their fate is tied to Fua and Kefraya where backers of the government and the rebels are attempting to orchestrate a population swap that has been repeatedly delayed due to Russian intervention in Syria.

“Any amount of food, even small, can resolve the crisis for a week or 10 days,” said the medical worker in Madaya. “Even if aid enters now we need to know what comes next. There must be a clear working plan, and humanitarian agencies must pressure the regime and its allies.

“What’s important for me is to not walk in the street and see people dying from hunger,” he added.

Residents say there are numerous cases of malnutrition among children in particular – a kilogram of children’s milk costs about $130 – and fainting due to hunger is a regular occurrence. The Syrian American Medical Society documented 31 civilian deaths in Madaya in December, including six infants less than a year old, mostly due to malnutrition.

The medical worker said seven people had died so far in January due to starvation, and that schools had been closed as neither children nor teachers could cope with studying while starving. The UN said it had received credible reports of death by hunger in the city.

The UN estimates 400,000 people in Syria live in 15 besieged locations without access to medical aid. Other organisations put the figure as high as 600,000 – mostly in areas blockaded by the regime.

“Through the sieges, they are pressuring the civilians so they in turn pressure the rebels and blame them for the siege,” said Abdullah al-Khatib, an activist and longtime resident of the Yarmouk refugee camp, which was besieged for three years by the Assad regime. “This is despite the fact that the ratio of armed rebels to civilians in these areas is usually one to ten, so the primary victims are the civilians.”

“In Syria we’ve had thousands dead by barrel bombs, chemical weapons and hunger sieges. The regime has used dozens of methods that are contrary to international humanitarian law,” he added. “It is an enormous number of violations. The international community shares the blame.”

Canada was a bystander in Rwanda. Will history repeat itself?

GERALD CAPLAN-Monday, Jan. 04, 2016

Gerald Caplan is an Africa scholar, a former NDP national director and a regular panelist on CBC’s Power & Politics.

In all the years I’ve been consumed with the Rwandan Genocide, I’ve rarely met a Canadian who didn’t feel some guilt about his or her failure to do something – anything – about it. Yet why should Canadians have done anything? In conventional terms, Canada had few interests in the country, and most Canadians knew next to nothing about it. So, along with the rest of the world, the government of the time decided this distant, little-known place simply wasn’t the business of Canada. This failure ended up shaming many Canadians.

But the personal relationship so many Canadians feel with Rwanda can be explained in two words: Roméo Dallaire – a Canadian lieutenant-general and the force commander of the United Nations mission to Rwanda. Unlike almost every other outsider with a significant role in Rwanda in 1994 – the French, the Catholic Church, the Belgians, U.S. President Bill Clinton – Lt.-Gen. Dallaire did all in his limited power to stop the killings. That he largely failed, admitted his failure and suffered very publicly from post-traumatic stress disorder made him a Canadian hero. Despite his best efforts, perhaps a million people of the Tutsi minority were slaughtered in 100 days without the world raising a finger.

Those who know the African Great Lakes are now fearful that a new disaster looms in this tragic part of the world, this time in Burundi. Burundi and Rwanda are a fascinating, unique phenomenon: next-door neighbours that are almost mirror images of each other. Both are former Belgian colonies that won their independence more than half a century ago. Both are tiny – barely visible on a map of Africa. Both have populations of about 10 million. And both have two major ethnic groups – the majority Hutu, who comprise about 85 per cent of the population, and the minority Tutsi – that are often in conflict despite their overall similarities.

But while the Hutu majority held power in Rwanda from independence until after the genocide, the minority Tutsi ruled Burundi for many decades. Burundi was actually considered the more volatile of the two countries. In fact, some scholars of the region, such as René Lemarchand, believe the first African genocide (other than the slaughter of the Herero of Namibia by the Germans early in the 20th century) really took place in Burundi in 1972 – though, by a quirk of history, little is known about it.

Twenty years later, the Tutsi minority in Burundi allowed a democratic election in which a Hutu became president. But he was soon assassinated by Tutsi soldiers, leading to years of terrible conflict in Burundi while helping to precipitate the genocide in Rwanda. Burundi escaped a full-blown genocide but the country descended into civil war. Eventually, after 12 years and hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides, a peace process seemed to bring some calm to the country. Elections were held and agreements reached for the armed forces to be integrated – half-Tutsi and half-Hutu – and for national and local governments to represent both groups. These arrangements were expected to bring real stability, and some observers insist they do.

Yet there are warnings that something terrible may erupt once again in Burundi – maybe even another Rwanda. The UN and the African Union are keeping a close eye. All kinds of mediators are standing by. From conflicting interpretations, it’s hard to know how dangerous the situation really is. The provocative decision of President Pierre Nkurunziza to change the Constitution so he can serve a third term has greatly exacerbated tensions, leading to violent protests and an aborted coup. Some 280,000 Burundians have fled their homes – an astonishing number. The ruling party’s youth wing, the Imbonerakure, is frighteningly similar to the notorious Hutu Interahamwe of the Rwandan Genocide. Still, the killing to date has been relatively limited – 277 people – and not necessarily based on ethnicity. Many Hutu oppose the President, a Hutu.

To complicate matters, Burundi shares Africa’s resource curse: nickel reserves that the United States, Russia and China all covet. No one knows how this will play out, but it’s a troubling aspect of the equation.

Sensible people will watch closely. Hopefully this will include the Canadian government. It’s too early, it seems to me, to be crying wolf – or genocide. But there is a real potential for serious escalation here, perhaps even to the ultimate level. So ignoring what’s going on in Burundi is even worse than exaggerating it. Dismissing it as just another case of Africans killing each other as Africans are wont to do, as the French establishment liked to say about Rwanda, is flat-out racism. Keeping vigil and being prepared to take all appropriate action – that’s what Canada and the world should be doing.

Rwanda’s genocide was preventable; that reality compounded the 1994 tragedy. For Burundi’s sake, for humanity’s sake, let’s pray that a lesson has been learned and that the so-called international community, including Canada, is not again guilty of being bystanders or even enablers of another Rwanda.

U.S., world stock markets slide as panic in China spreads

Global stock markets fell for a sixth day on Jan. 7, as another collapse in China’s ailing share market spread across the world. (Reuters)

By Simon Denyer and Renae Merle-January 7 at 1:50 PM

BEIJING — Global stock markets fell for a sixth day Thursday as another collapse in China’s ailing share market spread like contagion across the world.

It all began on Thursday in a flash.

Chinese stocks traded for less than 30 minutes, slumping 7 percent before triggering the second emergency market closure this week and generating talk of a crisis.

U.S., World Stock Markets Slide as Panic in China Spreads by Thavam Ratna

Congress party rebuffs idea of GST breakthrough after govt raises hopes

A view of the Indian parliament building is reflected on a car in New Delhi April 24, 2012. REUTERS/B Mathur/Files

Congress leader Kapil Sibal gestures after an interview with Reuters in New Delhi October 15, 2013. REUTERS/Anindito Mukherjee/Files

BY RAJESH KUMAR SINGH AND MANOJ KUMAR- Thu Jan 7, 2016

The Congress party on Thursday rebuffed suggestions of a breakthrough on a landmark tax reform, hours after the government said it had accepted the demands set by the main opposition party to back the measure.

The proposed goods and services tax (GST), India's biggest revenue shake-up since independence in 1947, seeks to replace a slew of federal and state levies, transforming the nation of 1.2 billion people into a customs union.

Supporters say the new sales tax will add up to two percentage points to the South Asian nation's economic growth.

The Congress party, the original author of the tax reform, has opposed what it calls the "flawed" version now before parliament, where it has been able to block a key constitutional enabling amendment in the Rajya Sabha.

"The government is using optics of meetings and is not serious about GST," senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal told reporters.

His comments came after Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu said the government had agreed to accept the opposition party's demands.

Naidu also said the government was willing to bring forward the next parliament session to pass the proposed goods and services tax (GST) bill if Congress backed the measure.

The minister met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday to convey the government's decision. Gandhi did not assure him of her party's support, however.

"Sonia said they (Congress) will discuss among themselves and take a final decision," Naidu said.

But Sibal said the party was still waiting for written proposals from the government.

Congress wants the government to cap the GST rate at less than 20 percent, scrap a proposed state levy and create an independent mechanism to resolve disputes on revenue sharing between states.

The political slugfest between the two sides has ensured that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's self-imposed deadline of April 1 for the GST's launch will be missed.

While Jaitley has yet to set a new date for the rollout, aides say passage of the constitutional amendment bill in February's budget session of parliament would allow them to implement it by October.

Yet even that deadline, which would fall in the middle of the tax year, appears optimistic, say economists.

"There is still a substantive legislative process that has to be completed," said Aditi Nayar, an economist at ICRA, the Indian arm of rating agency Moody's.

(Writing by Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Clarence Fernandez)

Addressing Climate Change: COP21 and Sri Lanka

Featured image courtesy EPA

• by Ranil Senanayake 
• - on 01/06/2016 

The COP on climate change in Paris saw Sri Lanka make pledges on the global stage, that we will be a responsible nation when it came to the issue of climate change. The President has gone on record that we will develop towards a fossil free future. The Sri Lankan position paper issued in at the Climate Change Conference stated this:  

Addressing Climate Change COP21 and Sri Lanka by Thavam Ratna

Watch: Who Will China’s Huge Water Transfer Project Leave Behind?

Victims of forced relocation find it hard to start over.

BY SHARRON LOVELL, TOM WANG-JANUARY 5, 2016

Like so many of Mao’s pronouncements, it sounded simple. “The South has a lot of water; the North lacks water. So if it can be done, borrowing a little water and bringing it up might do the trick.” And thus, in 1952, the spark was lit for what would blaze to life four decades later as China’s most ambitious engineering project—a scheme to bring some 45 billion cubic meters of water, mostly from the mighty Yangtze and its tributaries, up to the north China plain to Beijing and the parched farmland and factory towns around it. The central route of the project began carrying water from Hubei to Beijing in late 2014, and, like so many of Mao’s plans, it has left a swath of human devastation in its wake.

Most environmentalists see the South-to-North Water Transfer Project as a necessary, though not sufficient solution to the severe water shortages suffered in China’s capital and surrounding areas—a situation that owes much to weather and climate but which has been compounded by the over-damming of the region’s rivers (another of Mao’s enthusiasms) and the severe pollution of its already small supply. Without comparably ambitious plans for regulation and conservation, experts like Ma Jun have been saying for more than a decade, those 45 billion cubic meters are just a drop in the bucket. And the project has put its own stresses on the environment, even as it has alleviated others. When I visited the Danjiangkou reservoir, the place at the heart of Sharron Lovell and Tom Wang’s new film, in 2006, environmentalists downstream worried the transfer project would strip the major Yangtze tributary it was damming of its ability to flush itself clean of the pollutants that streamed into it from the surrounding countryside.

Lovell and Wang’s focus is on the direct human costs of the transfer—who has won, and who has lost. On the winning end are residents of Beijing’s ever-sprawling suburbs, hoping for reliable showers and clean water to cook with. On the short end of the stick are the people who live in the areas giving up their water, who, without choosing to have had to leave their homes, find new work, leave behind the comforts of community and family, and fathom how their lives fit into the grand and ambitious plans their leaders have devised to solve a nation’s problems.

—Susan Jakes

Reporting and production of this film were supported in part by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.