Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Be Sri Lankans and live like any other Sri Lankans..

What is the definition for the non existing Sri Lankan identity. :)))

What is the definition for the non existing Sri Lankan identity. :)))

Is Sinhala Buddhist nationalism masquerading with Sri Lankan pep talk to fool the minorities?

I KNOW that Sinhalese will NEVER give you chaps a political solution as there is NOTHING to give...

I know that, the Sinhalese are not yet politically mature enough to understand democracy in a true sense of the word!

Winning the war? Then there must be elections around the corner. It is no secret that the war has become Mahinda Rajapakse's recipe for electoral success but what surprises many is that he is able, time and time again, to persuade the Sri Lankan people - or at least his Sinhala-Buddhist constituency - that victory is but a gunshot away.

No one doubts that with an investment of nearly Rs. 200 billion per year, and the willingness to expend a few thousand lives and limbs, the government can in the course of 2009 credibly claim to have won not just Killinochchi, but all of the north. The Rs. 200 billion we plan to spend on bombing the life out of the LTTE's remaining 4,000 cadres, after all, should do the job. As for the lives, there's still plenty of space left on those stone tablets on the doormat of parliament for them. And as for limbs, where would Jaipur be if not for the steady stream of feet shipped to help keep the armed forces on the hop?

Granted that after 'winning' the war, just as is the case in the east, the north too, will be converted into an occupied territory. A matrix of army camps will dot the landscape, helping to keep errant Tamils from getting any funny ideas, and the Lion Ensign will flutter briskly in the katchan winds of the Wanni. It will not be the meek, but Douglas Devananda, who will inherit the earth. The meek, after all, will be arranged in neat little rows in their respective refugee camps, eating their lunch from the tinsel packs dispensed by the World Food Programme.

Now, with another election looming, military victories - and promises of regular conquests - are bound to come thick and fast. Leaving nothing to chance, Mahinda Rajapakse presented a gift-wrapped New Year's gift to the people last week, by way of what amounted to a mini-budget.

Despite a significant reduction in the price of LP gas, the government cut the price of diesel by Rs 10 per litre and that of petrol by a derisory Rs 2. By doing so, it was clearly thumbing its nose at the Supreme Court, in the face of an order that the price of petrol should be slashed by Rs 20.

Notwithstanding that, in a move harking back to the grimmest days of the 1970s, the cabinet decided to award coupons to three-wheelers, giving them a subsidy of Rs. 18 per litre up to a limit of 75 litres per month. This discriminatory price structure will, no doubt, be challenged before the courts in quick order, for owners of motor cars and motor cycles, though equal before the Constitution, will have to pay more. They too, after all, are citizens. All in all, the justices of the Supreme Court are in for a busy time this January.