President opens EU reconstructed Vakarai school in Eastern Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa today ceremoniously opened the reconstructed Vakarai Maha Vidyalaya in Batticaloa District of Eastern Sri Lanka which has been reconstructed with European Union funds.

The school damaged by the 2004 tsunami and the ethnic conflict has been reconstructed under the government's Eastern Awakening Program (Nagenahira Nawodaya) at a cost of Rs. 300 million.

The reconstruction was carried out with the collaboration of the Ministry of Education through its implementing partner, the International Organization for Migration. Read more ...

India ready to help reconstruct North

Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Bhaila told Parliament yesterday the Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee during his recent visit to Sri Lanka, expressed India's readiness to participate in the reconstruction of Northern Sri Lanka so as to overcome the ravages of armed conflict and also lay the economic and political foundation for a sustainable peace in which all communities in Sri Lanka feel comfortable.

The Indian External Affairs Minister in his discussion with the President also stressed the India will work together with Sri Lanka on a reconstruction plan for these areas which involves infrastructure development and other support.

The Indian Minister held detailed and productive discussions with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Deputy Foreign Minister said. Read more ...

Talks with Indian leaders yield results

The Indian government has set apart Indian Rs. 500 crore (SL Rs. 11.9 billion) for North East reconstruction and resettlement of IDPs in the annual Budget, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee unveiled in Indian Parliament recently.

This was another outcome of talks that President’s Senior Advisor Basil Rajapaksa, Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga held with the Indian leaders in New Delhi last month.

Minister Mukherjee in his Budget speech reiterated his government’s commitment to help Sri Lankan Tamils secure their democratic rights and fulfill their legitimate aspirations within the parameters of the country’s sovereignty and the Constitution. “Our External Affairs Ministry is closely working with the Sri Lankan Government towards this end,” Mukherjee who himself was a former External Affairs Minister told Parliament. Read more ...

SRI LANKA: Will Tamils Have A Say In Reconstruction?

For people in Sri Lanka’s war-torn North, for many years life has meant virtually living out of a suitcase while moving from place to place to escape the rigours of war and bloody combat.

In the late 1980s when government troops were battling Tamil separatist rebels for control of the northern capital of Jaffna, journalists from the Tamil daily newspaper Udayan - who themselves were fleeing the fighting - printed the newspaper, virtually on the run.

"We moved an entire printing press out of Jaffna and published the paper while being among the displaced," said a veteran journalist of the Jaffna newspaper, reflecting on a common problem faced by many northerners during nearly three decades of war.

Weeks after government troops crushed Tamil rebels and their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, the government is pushing ahead with a massive reconstruction and rehabilitation effort - prioritising resettling most of the nearly 300,000 civilians who are housed in internally displaced person (IDP) camps in the northern town of Vavuniya. Read more ...