Introduction

This paper is in two parts, the first part focuses on the period under the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa following his government’s successful crushing of the Tamil armed rebellion and the second, since Rajapaksa’s replacement by a new ‘unity’ government headed by Maithripala Sirisena in  January 2015 to-date.

Introduction

A major demand of the Tamil polity in Sri Lanka is that the Northern and Eastern Provinces are merged into a single entity.

This is a brief review of M Thirunavukarasu’s latest work in Tamil, Globalism- New Nationalism. The book is a well-researched tome of well over 500 pages.

Maldives is the smallest nation in South Asia in terms of population, area and GDP. Yet in August 2017, it defied India, the regional power, by permitting three Chinese warships to dock in Male.

India and Sri Lanka have always had a complex relationship-and New Delhi’s frustration with Colombo is the latter’s reluctance to accept India as the regional power. Instead, Colombo has always looked to other powers to counter Indian influence.

Unnerved by growing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka, India is seeking to strengthen ties with the Colombo government through economic cooperation as the Indian Ocean island nation assumes increasing importance as a regional trading hub in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.