Sri Lanka hits back at India’s UN vote

NEW DELHI: In what is seen as an apparent retaliation for India's vote against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka's energy minister has said they were threatened by the Kudankulam nuclear plant, in case of a Fukushima-like disaster. 


Champika Ranawaka, Lanka energy minister, reportedly told journalists in Colombo that Sri Lanka would refer the matter to the IAEA at a meeting in September. The Lankan statement comes as the Kudankulam nuclear plant is finally ready after being bedeviled by protests for the better part of a year.  


Indian officials said Sri Lanka cannot go to the IAEA with this matter because there is no convention that covers such issues. At best, Sri Lanka can make a political statement at the IAEA general conference. 


The IAEA would, as it already has, referred Lanka to India asking Colombo to work out an agreement with India. The minister even said, "We have sent a proposal to India through the external affairs ministry and the Indians have sent back a note on the matter." 


Officials here said the Lankans have not yet had any technical study done to back up their claims of suffering damage. Ranawaka was quoted as saying that Lankan northern town of Mannar would be threatened in the event of an accident in Tamil Nadu, because it is merely 20 km from the Indian mainland. 


Indian government and its atomic energy department, said sources here, have agreed to have a public discussion with Sri Lanka on all the safety aspects of the nuclear power plants in south India. They said India wanted to allay any Lankan fears on the matter. The Department of Atomic Energy is expected to answer all queries by the Sri Lanka Atomic Energy Authority, officials said. 


However, officials said there isn't any international agreement between nations on the matter of a nuclear accident. So despite the Lankan minister saying that they would ask for a bilateral agreement with India, New Delhi would want to keep it to a discussion level, because there are no such agreements between nations, so no template actually exists.  


The closest would be the IAEA's Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC). India has signed this agreement on liability, though has not yet ratified it. The convention calls for countries to pool in amounts into the CSC funds which they could draw from in the event of nuclear damage. That agreement has a provision whereby a neighbouring country, if affected by a nuclear disaster in another country, would be eligible for compensation. India will make the point that Sri Lanka could be covered under this regime once India ratifies the CSC. 


But by and large, Indian government sources said they believe this is political payback by hurt Lankan leadership by India's vote against Colombo. There is also a perception that India's decision was influenced by Jayalalithaa, who had pressured the Central government to vote against Lanka. 


PM Manmohan Singh has already sent in a letter explaining India's vote and tried hard to smooth ruffled feathers there. But this incident makes it clear that New Delhi has to work harder to reassure Colombo.  

Sri Lanka: Notes on a cricket-mad nation

After Sri lanka vs England test series................
By STEPHEN LEVINSON from Dailymail, PUBLISHED: 09:12, 9 April 2012

To capture the essence of watching cricket in Galle in the month of March, view your next Test Match from a microwave oven. Spectating there is exhausting, so playing has to be a nightmare. Sri Lanka does this to England in return for our requiring them to play in Cardiff in April.  

I was part of an audience of 10,000, mostly England supporters, masochistically exposing ourselves to the sun. There was something surreal in having travelled so far to be then surrounded by the same crowd you meet at the Oval. Given the heat and humidity, the quality of play was remarkably high - notwithstanding the batting failures and fielding errors exhaustively described elsewhere.

Sri Lanka is a cricket-mad country. Wherever we travelled children on beaches and patches of bare earth were playing softball cricket with tennis balls and nearly every school had a match in progress. Cricket conversation was an immediate barrier remover with nearly every Sri Lankan. Most advertising hoardings not occupied by oleaginous politicians featured local cricket heroes.  

So where were all of these enthusiasts when it came to the Test Match?  A few were able to watch for free from the walls of the old Fortress, enjoying distant but panoramic views. Most were excluded because of the very high prices charged by the Sri Lankan Cricket Board, which decided to soak the tourists rather than encourage the home crowd.

It must have been tempting as an England test guarantees a large following all round the world, but surely this is a short-sighted and greedy policy. It could have been balanced by allowing more seating at prices locals could afford.  

For similar reasons of greed, the lure of the Indian Premier League meant that the Test series was truncated to a meaningless two matches rather than three. This is no way to foster the future of Test Cricket.

Colonial echoes

'If you don’t go to the Garrison Cemetery, your visit to Kandy is wasted', emailed my friend Hugh. Obediently following his orders, I discovered it up Military Road just behind the Temple of the Tooth. This really is a corner of a foreign field that is forever England, or at least Britain, for many a Scot lies here too.

Founded by the army in 1817 shortly after the battle that secured the Kingdom of Kandy for British rule, the 195 graves record the high price paid by colonists over the next 50 years. A large number of those buried here died under the age of 30. Many inscriptions record the sadness of parents burying their children. 'Henry, son of William and Louisa Leake, died 29th November 1864, aged 11 days' is one of the most poignant, and many other children’s graves record how cholera and malaria destroyed families. Another example records the successive deaths in three days of the two infant children of William and Louisa Gibson in 1839.

There are forgotten heroes: Captain Charles McGlashan survived the battles of Busaco and Albuera in the Peninsular and then fought at Waterloo. His life was ended when he when he recklessly decided to walk from Trincomalee to Kandy during the monsoon rains and died of malaria. A lot of living had been packed into his 26 years. Other bizarre causes of death include that of William Mackwood who stepped on a wooden stake dismounting from his horse; David Finlay, killed by a falling house; and John Robinson - by wild elephants.

In three quarters of an acre a huge amount of sacrifice is recorded. It is a quiet and peaceful, tree-shaded spot, well away from the bustle and traffic chaos of today’s Kandy. Possibly it seems so familiar because nearly all the gravestones were made in England and Scotland and shipped to Ceylon as ballast. Only the wild monkeys and heat remind you where you really are. Hugh was entirely right: not to be missed.

Education, education, education

Driving through Sri Lanka on its awful roads I was struck by the apparent pride of the schoolchildren and their parents throughout the country. Hoards of kids wearing white uniforms of various designs, many of the girls wearing ties, all looking immensely smart both at the beginning and end of the school day were a common sight in large towns and small villages.  

I could not help comparing them with the scruffy, untidy and generally messy appearance of our posh and far-from-posh school pupils as they parade through our streets.

Apparently government schools in Sri Lanka subsidise the cost of uniforms by supplying the cloth and the designs to parents at the beginning of the year, leaving it to them to either make the uniform, or get it made.  

Conclusions drawn from such a casual observation may well be unsound, but it did seem to me that it could reflect a much more positive attitude towards being educated than we seem to be able to instill in many of our children and their parents.

Car importers to shun H’tota port

The Ceylon Motor Traders’ Association (CMTA) has decided to shun the Hambantota port to have their newly imported vehicles cleared, Chairman of the association Tilak Gunasekara said. The government last week announced that all vessels carrying motor vehicles would berth at Hambantota for clearance end May, this year.

“We are not going to use the Hambantota Port, as it would increase logistical costs heavily due to poor infrastructure facilities,” Gunasekara claimed. He further explained that collectively, dealers of brand new cars presently import around 5,000 to 6,000 vehicles at a time and have only three car carriers where each one can accommodate around eight vehicles at a time.

He noted that the directive by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) to route carriers to Hambantota port was optional and not mandatory. Therefore, any importer of vehicles would have the choice between the two ports. When asked whether importers of brand new vehicles are attracted by the concessions offered by the SLPA such as the 20% waiver of tariff, he replied in the negative saying that the promised concessions would not be significant, as they would be on SLPA charges and not on the excise duty.

 “Unlike used car importers, we do not keep our vehicles longer than a couple of days and more often get them cleared within one day. Therefore, the seven day concessions too will not make any difference to us,” he added.  He further noted that before implementing such a crucial decision, the authorities should have identified the response of the shipping companies in particular whether they prefer to use the sea routes including all the stakeholders, which he believes has not done conclusively.