Areas in Sri Lanka that remain isolated since 9 November 2020

Colombo district (police divisions): 

Mattakkuliya, Modara, Bloemandahl, Kotahena, Grandpass, Coastal, Aduruppu Weediya, Maligawatta, Dematogoda, Wellampitiya, Borella and Keselwatta. 

Gampaha district (police divisions): 

Wattala, Peliyagoda, Kadawatha, Ragama, Negambo, Pamunuwa, Jaela, Sapugaskanda

Kalutara district:

Horana, Ingiriya (police divisions) and Wekada West Grama Niladhari Division

Kurunegala district: 

Kurunegala Municipal Council area, Kuliyapitiya police divisions

Kegalla district: 

Mawanella, Ruwanwella (police divisions)

Housing schemes in Colombo district with a high risk of spread (movements restricted to houses):

Methsanda Sevana, Mihijaya Sevana, Ranmina Sevana - Modara, Sirisanda Uyana - Dematagoda, NHS housing - Maligawatta

More than 25% random PCR tests in North Colombo positive

Colombo Chief Medical Officer of Health Ruwan Wijayamuni said to Sinhala daily Lankadeepa that 98 out of 348 random tests of PCR in Colombo city are positive. 

The patients were identified from northern city areas like Mahawatta, Grandpass, Modara and Mattakkuliya. 

He said that reports of about 300 more random tests are to be received.

937 of 5,267 PCR tests of randomly selected persons in Colombo proved positive on 26th October also.   

17% PCR tests of randomly selected persons in Colombo proven positive

Colombo Chief Medical Officer of Health Ruwan Wijayamuni said that 937 of 5,267 PCR tests of randomly selected persons in Colombo proved positive, reported The Lankadeepa Sinhala daily. 

The report further said the doctor had told that a part of these COVID-19 cases is connected to Brandix and Peliyagoda fish market clusters. 

The percentage is over 17%. 

(Photo credit: socialnews.xyz)

Breakthrough of CCTV evolution of Sri Lanka

We are in an age of Closed-circuit TV or CCTV, yes, in Sri Lanka too. Big Brother is looking at you.

Last week saw a major breakthrough in CCTV evolution in Sri Lanka.

In one incident a Chicago type Rs. 7.5 million robbery was filmed in Hollywood style by CCTV camera. Sadly, the 55-year-old  victim passed away days after of a heart attack. The money he had withdrawn was to be used for his daughter's wedding.He was followed right from the bank and the story of the bank's CCTV camera is yet to be revealed.

The other incident was treacherous. A man contracted to kill another man whom he was indebted millions of rupees. They ate together and drove off to the trap laid by killers. The contracted killers took the victim away. The man who gave the contract drew the car off to desert it somewhere. Later he was posing as desperately looking for his friend. He was caught red-handed when a CCTV camera of a house near the roadside where he deserted the car showed him slip away after parking the car there.

Interestingly but essentially not unexpectedly, the contract killers have been the members of  security staff of a senior Deputy Inspector General.

He is one of us (A man on the roof top of the Welikada prison of Sri Lanka)

This man is on the roof top of the Welikada prison of Sri Lanka's capital Colombo since Wednesday. He is not visible to the Baseline Road which runs in front of the prison. I captured him from the second floor of Nagarodaya Hall where I am participating in a training.

He seems a convicted man who has something to say to the world. But only a few local media reported the story even though very carelessly without digging into find the man's voice. 

He is one of us. He has a story to tell. He wants the world listen to him. That's why he is on this roof top.

Read the full story in Sinhala

Sri Lanka MP Duminda Silva back in politics to lead lumpen

What is ahead?

Duminda Silva is out released on bail. Looks sound and vows to be back in active politics.

His lawyer Hemantha Warnakulasuriya might be further clever to prove what he told to courts about MP Duminda Silva's health.

Government needs him. He is a promising man who can mobilize Colombo lumpen better than Thilanga Sumathipala or Mahinda Kahandagamage.

These lumpen when summon to streets may help the government to sabotage the struggles of the working masses.

Be careful! Duminda is out!

Whose success is IIFA? Sri Lanka government or Tamil nationalist lobby?

They will miss photo opportunity
with many Bollywood stars

(June 03, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Eleventh ceremony of Indian International Film Academy Award (ITFA), the Indian equivalent of the Oscars, is to be held in Sri Lanka since today.

However, the event in Colombo is similar to a wedding without bride and bridegroom, when paraphrased according to Sinhala folklore.

Many of the Bollywood super stars have boycotted the awards ceremony although they have used other words to describe their absence.  With this, inevitably marred by politics, the 11th IIFA has become the most controversial awards ceremony of entire world in the recent history.

Selecting Colombo as the venue for IIFA was initially a success to the Sri Lankan government. Sri Lanka had hoped to repair its battered international image and revive its tourist industry by hosting the IIFA. Indian government assisted Sri Lankan authorities to sort out the matter as a goodwill gesture to help the nation trying to mark its presence emerging from the debris of three decade war.

But since the venue was announced in April, the Tamil nationalist lobby in South India made the event a success for them using it to raise voice against Sri Lanka government over the woes of the Tamils battered by war in the northern and eastern parts of the island reinforcing the war crime charges haunting intermittently against Mahinda Rajapaksa regime in international politics.

Top Bollywood stars that have pulled out from the IIFA 2010 are too shiny to be absent and the ceremony sans them will definitely be less glamorous posing a threat to the organizers that the event can be an economical loss.

Most damaging of all is the apparent withdrawal of Amitabh Bachchan, the IIFA’s brand ambassador and patriarch of Bollywood’s first family, who met Sri Lanka’s President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in Colombo in April to help promote the event.

Although the “Big B” has yet to officially announce his absence, industry sources say he will not attend the ceremony for the first time in several years following protests from Tamil groups outside his residence in Mumbai.

His latest postings on his blog and on Twitter say that he is busy shooting an advertisement to promote tourism in the Indian state of Gujarat.

His son, Abhishek Bachchan, and daughter-in-law, Aishwarya Rai, will also be absent officially because they are tied up with promoting their forthcoming film Raavan, according to Indian media reports.

Mani Ratnam, the director refused to show the film in Colombo parallel to the ceremony citing its production work is not yet finished. But, it is well known that Mani, a Tamil, is willingly or unwillingly giving in to the Tamil nationalist lobby.

Eventually, Raavan, the pre-historic king of Lanka who abducted Sita will surrender and play in Rama's side.

Shah Rukh Khan who had been due to captain a team in a celebrity cricket match in Colombo announced his absence in a recent posting on Twitter, saying: “…dont think i will be able to come for iifa..too much work here, will miss Colombo.”

Two people were killed when a Khan concert in Colombo was bombed in 2004, and he vowed at the time that he would not visit Sri Lanka again.

Others likely to be absent include Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan and Aamir Khan, according to Indian media reports. Last minute attempts could be observed to prevent Salman Khan playing cricket in Sri Lanka in the cricket match of the cricketers and the film stars scheduled to play tomorrow at Sinhala Sports Club grounds.

Tamil film stars such as Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan, Mani Ratnam, Vijay, Ajit and Surya are also thought to be staying away.

Namitha, a star of Tamil cinema, issued a statement saying she had turned down an invitation to perform at the ceremony. “How can I attend even after knowing the existing problem? It is the Tamil people who made me what I am today,” she said.

Some second tier stars, including Vivek Oberoi, have already arrived in Colombo for the event, including many of those nominated for awards. “Come to Colombo,” Mr Oberoi told reporters in Colombo today. “I don’t believe in boycotting the awards. Bollywood films are about building bridges, not putting up walls against people.”

Applying more pressure, the South Indian film industry bodies met hours ahead to reiterate their threat to prevent the release of films featuring actors and technicians who attend the awards ceremony in Colombo. “We expect the Bollywood film industry to respect the sentiments of Tamils and refrain from participating in the event,” said L. Suresh, secretary of the South India Film Chamber of Commerce.

The SIFCC is backed by the Film Employees Federation of South India, the Tamil Nadu Theatre-Owners Association and Tamil Nadu Producers’ Council.

South India is a big market for Bollywood after all than Sri Lanka where authorities have restricted the countrymen's access to Indian audio visual art.

Weddings in Buddhist temples and Christianization of Buddhism

New couple under a bo tree

(May 12, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Piyumi Boteju is a beautiful actress of Sri Lanka. She took the hands of a young man recently and she made a topic for us not because of her wedding but because of the venue it was held.

The wedding took place in Gangaramaya, a famous Buddhist temple in Colombo. Buddhism deals mostly with the spiritual side of the life and the Buddhist temple normally is not a place where weddings take place.

But in recent times, some young Buddhist couples tend to register their weddings in temples and some of them lobby for Buddhist monks vested in legal powers to register marriages, a power that the Christian priests possess.

This is the Vesak month the Buddhists commemorate the birth, enlightenment and passing away of Lord Buddha. It is interesting to see that the Buddhists send Vesak cards as same as Christians, make Sal Uyana, an equivalent of a Christmas decoration and sing Vesak 'carols'. The day following the Vesak full moon day is a holiday in Sri Lanka and many Buddhists feast on that day like Christians do on Christmas.

This 'Christianization' of Buddhism began in late 19th century under the patronage of Henry Steel Olcott of Buddhist Theosophical Society. One can study the ancient Sinhala literature to see how different the way the Buddhists followed religion before this cultural reform.

Weddings in temples are a culmination of this 'Christianization of Buddhism' movement.

Apart from the shifts in the traditional sects, some Buddhist monks have even imitated the evangelist Christian sects when they created a new kind of religious centers called Asapu in Sri Lanka.

Inter religious cultural transfer is common and Sri Lanka's Christianity too is immensely influenced by Buddhism.

But the problem here is that the Buddhist leaders blatantly imitate Christian values while criticizing West and sowing hatred against the minority religions in the country.

Original Buddhism is far different from what is now worshiped by most 'Buddhists' in Sri Lanka. During Vesak, it is good if Buddhists can focus to rediscover Buddha, leaving behind this hubbub of religio-business and chauvinist ethno-religious projects that go in the name of Buddhism in contemporary Sri Lankan society.

A commendable comment that reflects undermined Sri Lankan mind

(March 17, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  Following comment was posted in The Hindu website:

This is good news. We need somebody to look at recent affairs in our country objectively.

Yes, as a Sinhalese Sri Lankan my culture, language, and a Sri Lankan philosophy of life are important to me. But we live in a global village (too bad the expression is so hackneyed) and I consider all these political notions of sovereignty to be quite meaningless.

The Rajapaksas are no longer "sons of the soil." Gotabaya is an American citizen. General Fonseka has a Green Card and his children are now American. I cannot really be more committed to Sri Lanka than I am. But I know that our culture is largely Indian; my family and I are brown Asians; but we are all part of the world which is dominated (for good or ill) by the species "homo sapiens".

I spent yesterday reading about Barack Obama and Manmohan Singh. When will a "non-Sinhala Buddhist" ever be the leader of my country? Even caste remains an important consideration, although it can be exploited only with great subtlety. President Premadasa cleverly used it in an inverted sort of way.

Yes, Mr Ban Ki-moon, we need your help.

from: Dayaratne

Posted on: Mar 17, 2010 at 11:41 IST

The comment is related to the following post in The Hindu website:

UN Chief to go ahead with proposal for panel on Sri lanka

B. MURALIDHAR REDDY

The United Nation’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that he is going ahead with his proposal for a panel of experts on Sri Lanka as part of an accountability process following the end of the civil war in island nation despite vehement objections from Colombo and defended it on the ground that the panel would not infringe on the country’s sovereignty.

A report posted on the UN News Centre web site quoted Mr. Ban Ki-Moon as telling reporters at his routine monthly news conference that the establishment of the panel is in line with a joint statement he issued with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his visit to the country last May.

Since the defeat of the LTTE, the government has been engaged in war of words with all those who have demanding a commission to investigate alleged human rights violations in the war and repeatedly pointed to the resolution by the Human Rights Commission lauding Sri Lanka on the issue.

After Mr. Rajapaksa personally spoke to Mr. Ban Ki-Moon describing the move on experts panel as 'uncalled for and unwarranted’, Sri Lanka had also reached out to several countries in a bid to stall the UN experts panel. Last week Chair of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement, Ambassador and Permanent Representative Maged A. Abdelaziz in his letter to Mr. Ban said: “The Non-Aligned Movement strongly condemns selective targeting of individual countries which it deems contrary to the Founding Principles of the Movement and the United Nations Charter.

In his latest interaction with the media at New York Mr. Ban Ki-Moon has been quoted as saying, “This joint statement contained a commitment related to ensuring an accountability process for addressing violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws,” he said in response to questions from reporters at his monthly press conference at UN Headquarters in New York.

“The panel I am establishing will advise me on the standards, benchmarks and parameters, based on international experience, that must guide any accountability process such as the one mentioned in the joint statement. Now this panel will report to me directly and not to another body.”

Mr. Ban said a recent letter on the subject he received from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) indicated “there is a misunderstanding on the nature and purpose” of the experts’ panel.

“I am convinced that it is well within my power as Secretary-General of the United Nations to ask such a body to furnish me with their advice of this nature. This does not in any way infringe on the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.”

Last week the UN chief voiced concern about the lack of progress on political reconciliation, the treatment of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the setting up of an accountability process since he reached the joint statement with Mr. Rajapaksa.

Earlier this month Mr. Ban had what he described as “a frank and honest exchange of views” by telephone with Mr. Rajapaksa. Since the ballot was held the runner-up candidate, General Sarath Fonseka, has been arrested and faces trial.

B. Lynn Pascoe, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, is slated to soon head to Sri Lanka for talks with senior officials in the Government.

Withdrawal of Colombo sea high security zone praised by fisher community

(December 27, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka government has taken steps to withdraw the high security zone in Colombo sea that stretched from Wellawaththa from south of Colombo harbor to Pamunuwa in north. All Lanka Fisher Community Trade Union secrtary M. Vijendra says that the fisher community appreciates the government step that relieved them.

Thousands of small-scale fishermen had lost jobs due to this high security zone, Vijendra said. They included fresh water fishermen of Beira Lake of Colombo city. Now the fishermen can engage in the industry in shallow waters around Colombo harbor except near the two entrances of the harbor.

The sea around Colombo harbor is rich with food for fish and yields good harvest, fishermen say.

Sweden to close down embassy in Sri Lanka

(July 25, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Sweden, one of the main development partners for Sri Lanka in the 1980s has decided to to close down its embassy in Colombo. 

The Swedish Embassy in Colombo is scheduled to be closed by March 31, 2010, said Xinhua news agency quoting diplomatic officials.

Sri Lanka and Sweden were embroiled in a diplomatic row in April this year when Sri Lanka denied visa for its Foreign Minister Carl Bildt who was intending to join British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in a visit to Colombo during the last stages of the government's military campaign against Tamil Tiger rebels. 

The Sri Lankan government claimed Bildt was welcome to make a separate visit.

US official visits Sri Lanka as IMF loan is released

(July 24, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Immediately after the IMF emergency loan was approved for Sri Lanka, the newly appointed United States Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Eric P. Schwartz is to arrive arrive in Sri Lanka tomorrow (25), US Embassy in Colombo announced. US was earlier accused of delaying the loan for Sri Lanka.


Schwartz has worked with Sri Lanka earlier as UN Deputy Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery from 2005 to 2007. 

He is scheduled to visit the IDP camps in the North and will meet with senior government officials and civil society representatives.

This tour is significant as Sri Lanka looks improving its diplomatic ties with US and the West that are worried about the developing close ties of the island nation with China.

Traders of Sri Lanka seek freedom for trade to and from Jaffna

(July 19,2009) The traders of Sri Lanka seek freedom for trade to and from Jaffna peninsula. They point out that the producers as well as the consumers may benefit if the high transport cost can be reduced.The licensed lorries that transport between Jaffna and Colombo levy high charges. For instance, the transport charge of a 15 ton lorry is over Rs. 130,000 and the Jaffna - Colombo traders say this can be reduced to Rs. 75,000 if their lorries are given permits.

The government has provided limited access to the A-9 highway from Vavuniya to Jaffna after clearing the Vanni areas from the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The lorries to and from Jaffna are unloaded and checked at Omanthai check point and the operation costs tens of thousands of loading and unloading costs per a lorry. Further, it takes hours for a lorry to be unloaded, checked and reloaded.

All private vehicles from Northern Province are banned entry to the Southern areas of the country beyond Medawachchiya checkpoint in Anuradhapura district. The traders have to change lorries from there.

Sri Lanka's new state policy; 'One country; one underworld'

(Juy 17, 2009) Sri Lanka Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickramanayaka said that the state had declared war against drug dealers, ransom takers, thugs and murderers following the victory against terrorism. He made this statement addressing a ceremony held to declare open a new building in Mulleriyawa police station. 


A direct link between the killing of a number of underworld goons during the recent past and this declaration of war against underworld can be guessed. 


Over 100 individuals suspected to be the members of underworld gangs were arrested recently from Maligawaththa of Colombo city. One person named Fajee said to be a leader of an underworld gang has reportedly fled from the country as a member of his gang was killed this week in Colombo. 


Anamalu Imitiaz, the leader of the rival gang was abducted and killed last week.


These underworld gangs supported the candidates of both the ruling party and the opposition United National Party (UNP) at the past Western Provincial Council election especially in Central Colombo electorate. 


However, another underworld gang that is supported by a powerful government politician is enjoying impunity from this so called declaration of war, observers say. 


A section of this underworld gang that is active centering to Bloemandhal area in Colombo city abducted, tortured and assassinated one Ranjith Rupas Fernando, a fisher community businessman for ransom taking. His son is still in hospital due to serious injuries committed to him by the goons. This gang is reportedly linked to a number of assassinations in recent past.

IFJ Condemns Vilification of Lawyers for Sri Lankan Newspaper

(July 14, 2009) The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is shocked at a recent article posted on the website of Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence, branding as “traitors” five lawyers appearing in a case of contempt involving the Sunday Leader newspaper.

The article, titled “Traitors in Black Coats Flocked Together”, names five lawyers who appeared for the Sunday Leader at a hearing in the Mount Lavinia court near Colombo as having “a history of appearing for and defending” separatist guerillas of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The article features pictures of three of the lawyers.

“We have observed in recent times that this manner of public vilification of individuals for being supposed sympathisers of the LTTE has often provoked physical attacks on them by vigilante groups,” IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said.

“The IFJ calls upon the Sri Lankan President to publicly repudiate the sentiment expressed in the article and ensure that it is removed from the official website of the Defence Ministry.”

The Sunday Leader, edited by Lasantha Wickramatunge until his murder in January, has for long been locked in a defamation case brought by Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse.

After Wickramatunge’s murder, the newspaper agreed during a hearing of the case that it would not publish material similar to that which had brought the action against it.

The contempt case that the Sunday Leader now faces reportedly involves another report involving the Defence Secretary, though on a different subject.

“It is a principle of natural justice that the newspaper should be able to seek sound advice and be represented by competent legal counsel in this case,” White said.

The IFJ stands by the strong stand taken by its affiliate, the Free Media Movement (FMM), and other professional bodies in Sri Lanka on the matter.

“We urge Sri Lanka’s President to turn the page on the bitterness of the long civil war against the LTTE and actively seek to restore the freedoms that have deteriorated alarmingly in recent years.”

Mercy Mission arrives in Cape Colorado instead of Captain Ali

(July 07, 2009) The load of relief items collected by Tamil Diaspora in UK in April in the name Mercy Mission to be dispatched defiantly to the civilians that were trapped in a Sri Lanka government designated no-fire zone prior to the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), is finally arriving in Sri Lanka today in a ship named Cape Colorado instead of the Captain Ali that languished for months near Colombo and Chennai ports seeking permission to be unloaded.

The Tamil Diaspora now seems less interested in the welfare of the internally displaced people who are now held in government run camps amidst severe hardships and they have focused their attention in setting up of a Transnational Self-governance for the Ealam Tamils. The separatist Ealam movement has lost ground in Sri Lanka amidst the severe suppressive measures of the government to crack down on the LTTE remnents.

However, the 27 container load weighing 884 tons of relief items will be vital for the Tamil IDPs to ease their hardships at least a little. Proud Sri Lanka government rejected these relief items but later agreed to accept it under the influence of India.

Last link to old left of Ceylon passed away

(July 07, 2009) A prominent figure of the early leftist movement in Ceylon and wife of S.C.C. Anthony Pillai, Caroline Anthony Pillai a.k.a Dona Caroline Rupasinghe Gunawardena, passed away in Kosgama, on the outskirts of Colombo on July 06. She was born on October 08, 1908.

She is the sister of Philip, Harry and Robert Gunawardhanas.

She spent much of her life in India, but gradually became less of a revolutionary and more of a helpmate to her husband in the labour movement in Madras, reported The Hindu, quoting S. Muthiah.

 S.C.C. Anthony Pillai joined the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in 1936 and party and the leadership soon felt he had the makings of a good trade union leader. But he needed to know Sinhalese and Philip Gunawardena suggested he take lessons from Caroline. Later the teacher and the student go married.

The Party asked them to move to central highlands and, together, despite harassment by both the planters and the authorities, they helped to organise the labour. During the World War II period, as the authorities cracked down on the LSSP leadership, Anthony Pillai went underground in Madurai with the help of Bolshevik Leninist Party of India. He was later arrested in March 1947 and sentenced to two years R.I. for possessing seditious literature. 

On June 6, 1946 Anthony Pillai was elected President of the Madras Labour Union and became a major figure in the Indian labor movement. 

In 1947, he was elected President of the Madras Port Trust Employees’ Union, in 1948, he was elected to the Madras Municipal Council, then he became, in turn, General Secretary and Vice-President of the All India Port and Dock Workers’ Federation and then President of the All India Transport Workers’ Union. In 1952, he was elected Vice-President of the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, the Socialists’ trade union federation.

S. Muthiah wrote to The Hindu on February 23, 2009, "By then he had matured considerably from the days of the B&C strike, and in the years that followed gained the reputation of being a trade union leader who preferred negotiation to strikes and who encouraged productivity so that he could demand monetarily more for the workers from managements. This ‘softening’ cost him the leadership of a couple of unions."

When Anthony Pillai died in 2000, Caroline returned to Sri Lanka. 

The Hindu editor writes after his privileged visit to the IDP camps in northern Sri Lanka

Following is the article written by 'The Hindu' newspaper editor-in-chief N. Ram following his hyped visit to the IDP camps in northern Sri Lanka. The government of Sri Lanka provides access to a selected few outsiders to the camps. Local media and even the parliamentary representatives of the displaced people are blocked access to these camps.

Visiting the Vavuniya IDP camps: an uplifting experience
N. Ram



The photographs by Thilak Bandara – taken during our visit on July 1, 2009 to some of the Zone 1 IDP camps on the outskirts of Vavuniya town in Sri Lanka’s mainland North – speak for themselves. They are testimony to the Sri Lankan government’s efforts, with international assistance, to care for a brave and resilient Tamil community, which will be resettled and rehabilitated in the next few months through an ambitious programme.   Colombo: The last phase of Sri Lanka’s low-intensity military conflict saw the elimination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as a military force. It simultaneously witnessed a poignant human drama in which some 300,000 Tamil civilians were rescued by force of arms from a terrorist organisation that, claiming to fight for their freedom, had no compunction in using them as a human shield.



Most of these internally displaced Sri Lankans are now housed and cared for by the government in transitional relief camps located in five demarcated zones of the 1500-acre Menik Farm on the outskirts of the town of Vavuniya in the mainland North. International concern has been expressed over the present condition and the future of these Tamil civilians, who include a large number of children, women, and senior citizens.



Following a three-hour conversation, including a recorded interview, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa at ‘Temple Trees’ in Colombo, I had, at his suggestion and thanks to the helicopter and other facilities provided by the Defence Ministry, the opportunity of seeing for myself how the Tamil IDPs were being sheltered and cared for in the camps. It was an uplifting experience, which is reflected in some measure in the photographs by Thilak Bandara published on this page. The sight of tens of schoolchildren returning from makeshift schools and of the distribution by the Controller of Examinations and his team of preparatory material for the A-level exams, which will be taken in a month, was special.




What became clear during the visit to Anandakumaraswamy Village in Zone 1, through glimpses of other camps in the vast IDP relief complex, and in conversations in Tamil with some of the displaced people was this. Conditions in these camps are much better than what has been depicted, mostly second-hand, that is, without visiting the camps, in western media reports. Moreover, they are visibly better than conditions in Sri Lankan refugee camps in India, which are still mostly inaccessible to journalists, researchers, and other outsiders. Basic needs, including education for the schoolchildren and vocational training for older boys and girls, are being met by the Sri Lankan government with assistance from the United Nations, a number of countries, including India, and more than 50 INGOs.




Hearteningly, the best hospital in the Menik Farm IDP relief complex is the one staffed and provisioned by the Indian Medical Team with its eight doctors, four nurses, and overall strength of 60, including senior and junior paramedics. After this highly skilled and dedicated medical team, led by Dr. K. Vasantha Kumar, moved to Settikulam from Pulmodai (in the East) in March, it has treated close to 13,000 Tamil civilians and performed several surgical operations.




In his interview, which will be published in The Hindu on Monday, President Rajapaksa claimed, without exaggeration, that “the condition in the camps is the best any country has.” He admitted some “shortcomings,” chief among them being a lack of “freedom of movement.” But he also emphasised his responsibility for the security of his people and pointed to the need to speed up the work of de-mining in the heavily mined Wanni, which needed to be certified by the U.N. He reiterated his personal commitment to resettle all the Tamil civilians speedily.



The Sri Lankan government is now confident that the President’s 180-day resettlement plan can be implemented. This confidence would have been boosted by the unexpected success of the first meeting of the All Parties Committee for Development and Reconciliation, in which all parties, including the Tamil National Alliance, promised cooperation and support to the project of reconciliation and development in the North.




Brigadier S. Perera, who has responsibility for the Vavuniya IDP complex. Photo: N.Ram.

Sri Lanka Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender coomunity holds Colombo Pride - 2009

Equal Ground, a non profit organization seeking human and political rights for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning (LGBTIQ) community of Sri Lanka, has organized Colombo Pride - 2009 in Colombo.

Colombo Pride - 2009 week has began with with a kite festival held at Mt. Lavinia Beach on June 28. The event named as 'Rainbow Festival' stretches during the week and following is the schedule:

30th June – 02nd July:
“Rainbow Visions” – LGBT Art and Photo Exhibition.
Venue: Barefoot (Daily:10a-10p)
Entrance: FREE

30th June – 02nd July:
“Celluloid Rainbows” – LGBT film festival.
Venue: Barefoot (7pm-10pm)
Entrance: FREE

DAILY SCHEDULE

DAY 1:

700pm – 830pm THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (DOCUMENTARY)
845PM – 1030PM MILK – Academy award winning movie starring Sean Penn

DAY 2:

700pm – 10pm LGBT SHORT FILMS PRESENTED BY THE BRITISH COUNCIL AND OUT IN AFRICA

DAY 3:

700pm – 800pm I CAN’T MARRY YOU (DOCUMENTARY)
815PM – 1000PM RIGHT BY ME – Thailand’s first gay pride movie (shown at the New York and Los Angeles LGBT film festivals and the Hong Kong LGBT video festival)

04th July:
WORKSHOP ON SEXUALITY – National Youth Coalition/EQUAL GROUND
Venue: EQUAL GROUND
Entrance: FREE

05th July: “Rainbow PRIDE” – the Annual PRIDE Party.
Venue: Rhythm ‘n Blues (8pm onwards)
Tickets: Rs.1,000

(June 29, 2009)