Search Results for: Sri Lankan

By Raghavendra Verma, in New Delhi

India is the latest example of a country struggling against a Maoist insurgency fuelled by rural inequality, showing how emerging market governments worldwide risk harbouring violent rebel groups while promoting economic development.

In Peru, the notorious Maoist guerrilla group ‘The Shining Path’ continue operations, funded by the illicit drug trade, after a major insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s failed to achieve its political ends. In Nepal, an armed insurgency was successful, ending with a peace accord in 2006, its Communist Party of Nepal (Unified-Maoist) (CPN-UM) joining the country’s parliament and briefly leading its government.

Other Maoist groups continue to operate in pockets worldwide, for instance in The Philippines, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. But it is maybe in India where the phenomena has most prominence today. The Indian government, for its part, has identified the Maoist insurgency as a leading domestic security concern and it is unclear how this insurgency will end.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED Nations Development Programme (UNEP) is pushing the Sri Lankan government to use the country’s hard won peace to bring social and economic justice to tea plantation Tamils. These communities are not the long-established Tamils who supported the Tamil Tigers in the civil war that recently reached its bloody climax.…

BY WILL ROBERTSON, MARK ROWE and KEITH NUTHALL

THE ROBUST nature of the southeast Asian palm oil industry has been illustrated by the way the market has remained strong despite both the global recession and the arrival of weather phenomenon El Nino this year and its attendant drought conditions.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

NURSING of course is a profession that expands beyond cold medical science – it is about care. It is the prime motivation behind the wish of Pushpa Ramyani Zoysa, 42, a senior nurse at Sri Lanka’s leading government-owned 3,000 bed National Hospital of Sri Lanka, in Colombo, to give her workplace a more homely atmosphere.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

SRI LANKA, which saw an end to its quarter-century-long war recently, is stepping up efforts against money laundering and terrorist financing by introducing technologically savvy software. The initiative is led by the Sri Lankan Banks Association (SLBA), which includes retail, commercial banks and licensed specialised banks.…

By Munza Mushtaq, in Colombo, Sri Lanka

The destruction of a ruthless armed seperatist organisation in a small south Asian nation may provide lessons to counter-insurgency units fighting terrorists and rebel groups around the world. Sri Lanka citizens rejoiced this week at the end of its quarter century long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - dubbed as the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit.

In a final brutal battle in the northeast of the island, the group was wiped out from its very root with the killing of the organisation’s leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his son and heir-apparent Charles Anthony on Monday. This also marks the conclusion of an era of massive destruction since 1983 which killed more than 100,000, injured scores more and destroyed vast amounts of valuable property across the country.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA and KEITH NUTHALL

A CHARGE sheet has been filed by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the key figures involved in the Satyam scandal, including the two PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) partners caught up in the affair. The CBI has confirmed that charges have been filed at a court in Nampally, Hyderabad, naming "Sri S.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

THE INDIAN paint and coating industry is currently passing through a significant transitional phase – being forced to shift its production from solvent-based to water-based products. The high crude oil prices in 2008 so increased the cost of raw materials that despite the fall in prices from last summer, many paint manufacturers have had little option but to move away from oil-based coatings.…

BY MARK GODFREY

WITH the global recession raging across most of the world, Bangladesh’s knitwear sector is maintaining a strong commercial position and looks better geared to survive the economic downturn than some of its regional competitors. Orders have only dipped marginally say local knitwear producers.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE SULTANATE of Oman has earmarked billions of dollars to build six new airports and expand its existing international airports of Muscat and Salalah.

This Arabian country of 3 million people has the least developed aviation sector of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states and this dramatic increase in capacity forms part of a diversification strategy away from energy – which accounts for an estimated 75% of government revenues.…