'India has given assistance that we required, otherwise we would not have been able to survive this far.'
This divisiveness is upsetting social cohesion and can throw the bright young people thronging to Bengaluru with billion dollar ideas in their creative minds off balance, warns Shekhar Gupta.
Ranjith Madduma Bandara, a senior politician from Wickremesinghe's United National Party was sworn in on Thursday morning as the new minister in charge of the police.
Mahinda Rajapaksa is a democratically elected leader who received a massive mandate of 71% of votes, and he owes nothing to Delhi or Washington for staging his political comeback, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
From Sri Lanka's most popular political family to its most despised -- going by the voices on the streets calling for the Rajapaksas' ouster -- what went wrong for the clan? Veteran Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy offers an insight.
The 74-year-old leader, who describe himself as "a rebel with a cause", earlier served as the country's president from 2005-2015, becoming South Asia's longest-serving leader. He was also prime minister for a brief period in 2018.
'As I went around Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna and Mannar, my mind went back to my visit in January 1990 at the fag end of the IPKFs mission in Sri Lanka,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy on Monday condemned Dravida Munettra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi for his 'outrageous' remarks against Indo-Sri Lanka relations at a pro-Eelam Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation meet.
While Sri Lanka's state media chose to ignore Sarath Fonseka's release from prison, pro-government newspapers said on Tuesday that the former army chief had become a "political pawn" in the hands of foreign countries against President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
After keeping quiet when the Lankan army mowed down Tamil civilians four years ago, M Karunanidhi has no right to shed tears over the community's plight, and certainly not at a time when Tamil Nadu is plagued with problems of its own, says A Ganesh Nadar
'This Ram Navami -- the birth anniversary of Lord Ram -- presents the majority community an opportunity to shed its minority complex and offer an olive branch and discrimination- free society to the minority,' suggests Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Rajapaksa and said he looks forward to further deepen relations between the two nations.
India, which abstained during the vote on a strong resolution against Sri Lanka's human rights practices at the UNHRC, on Tuesday urged Colombo to fulfill its commitments on the devolution of political authority, to carry forward the process of reconciliation and address the aspirations of the Tamil community in the island nation.
Superstar Rajinikanth's visit to Sri Lanka next month to inaugurate a housing scheme has met with opposition from pro-Tamil outfits in Chennai, who cautioned him from getting "involved" in the emotive ethnic issue.
The two brothers led a decisive campaign that helped end the island nation's three decade long civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Delhi finds itself between the rock and hard place in the coming Sri Lankan election, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Sri Lankan singer, who composed a song backing the country in the 2011 Cricket World Cup, has apologised after his much-hyped song was banned, as President Mahinda Rajapaksa expressed his disapproval of the lyrics over fears that it might cause offence to other competitors.
'Gotabaya will expect India to observe the red line.' 'He even dispensed with any gesture welcoming India as an interlocutor on the Tamil issue.' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Nearly 70 percent voters cast their franchise in Sri Lanka's first post-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam presidential election on Tuesday, expected to be a close finish between incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa and his main challenger General Sarath Fonseka.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, who perhaps became the first Head of State to speak in Tamil at the UN General Assembly, has conveyed that the government puts the language on equal status with that of Sinhala, a top minister said.
Describing the slain head of LTTE political wing S P Thamilselvan as an extra-ordinary son of our nation, Tamil Tigers' reclusive supreme V Prabhakaran on Tuesday charged that the international community contributed to his killing by only paying "lip service to peace".
LTTE and the Tamil cause was a stepping stone that Vaiko used just as other Tamil leaders did. For his exertions, he was thrown out of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam where, he claims, he fell a victim to family politics: he came in the way of Karunanidhi's son Stalin's elevation.
The country has a fiendishly complicated electoral system that is a combination of population-based proportional representation and party-based national lists, says Aditi Phadnis
It was the first time in seven years Sri Lanka had imposed the measure. The country was under a state of emergency for nearly three decades when the government fought Tamil rebels Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the civil war that ended in 2009.
New Delhi is approaching Gota with an open mind, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Mahinda Rajapaksa completed 50 years of parliamentary politics in July this year. He was elected as a Member of Parliament at the young age of 24 in 1970. He has since been elected president twice and has been appointed prime minister thrice.
Unofficial results indicate that the SLPP would comfortably win at least 17 out of the 22 districts on offer.
In May 1996, the then government advanced the clock by an hour and by October that year brought it back by half hour to put Sri Lanka six hours ahead of GMT.\n\n
Pakistan batsman Ahmed Shehzad has been provisionally suspended and charged with violating anti-doping regulations after he tested positive for a prohibited substance in May, the country's cricket board (PCB) has said.
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Rajapaksa will transform Sri Lanka's political landscape after Thursday's electoral triumph, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran Colombo watcher.
In the endlessly entertaining and absorbing soap opera that is India-Sri Lanka relations, wait for the next episode, Aditi Phadnis reports.
Tensions remain high across Sri Lanka after the violence broke out following the death of a man from the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority last week.
After the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation could soon have an anthem after an Indian diplomat in Kathmandu penned a song for the grouping to foster deeper regional consciousness.
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Sri Lanka's sports ministry said on Friday that an investigation had found evidence that members of the national women's cricket team had been forced to perform sexual favours for officials.
Polls opened at 7 am local time and would close at 5 pm with some 12,845 polling stations being set up throughout the country for 15.9 million voters, who will choose a successor to President Maithripala Sirisina.
The swearing in ceremony was held inside the premises of the Presidential Secretariat at 9:30 am. President Sirisena administered the oath of office to 66-year-old Wickremesinghe, who has already served three times as the prime minister.
President Maithripala Sirisena's government in Colombo has clearly decided to restore some balance in its diplomatic outreach, which presents a great opportunity for India.
Even as the polity find ways and means to address the genuine concerns and fears of the society, the Sri Lankan State apparatus would have to unravel these mystery-questions with convincing answers, and a road-map to the future, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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