Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Flag of Sri Lanka
Coat of arms of Sri Lanka
Official Language Sinhala, Tamil
Largest City Colombo
Capital Sri Jayawardenepura
Type of State Democratic Socialist Republic
President Mahinda Rajapaksa
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
Total Area 65.610 km²
Population 20.238.000 (Stand: 2009)
Density 308,4/km²
Export Tea, Coffee, Rubber and Coco Nuts
Independence Day February 4, 1948
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, known as Ceylon before 1972 and as Taprobane, is an island country in South Asia, located about 31 kilometers off the southern coast of India. It is home to around twenty million people.
Because of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia. It has been a center of Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times. The Sinhalese community forms the majority of the population; Tamils, who are concentrated in the north and east of the island, form the largest ethnic minority. Other communities include Moors, Burghers, Kaffirs, Malays and the native original inhabitants, the Veddas. Today the country is a multi religious and multi ethnic nation, aside of Theravada-Buddhism are mainly Islam, Hinduism and Christianity the meaningful religions.
Buddhism 69.1 %
Islam 7.6 %
Hinduism 7.1 %
Christianity 6.2 %
Others 10 %
Sri Lanka has the longest continuous history of Buddhism of any predominately Buddhist nation. Hinduism the second most religion is came from neighboring South India. Most of the Hindus were Tamils who are majority in Northern Sri Lanka.
History
After over two thousand years of rule by local kingdoms, parts of Sri Lanka were colonized by Portugal and the Netherlandsbeginning in the 16th century, before control of the entire country was ceded to the British Empire in 1815.
During World War II, Sri Lanka served as an important base forAllied forces in the fight against the Japanese Empire. A nationalist political movement arose in the country in the early 20th century with the aim of obtaining political independence, which was eventually granted by the British after peaceful negotiations in 1948.
Over 2000 years Singhalese and Tamils live together in Sri Lanka. They differ between Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Tamils. During the British Empire, the Indian Tamils were brought from South India (Tamil Nadu) as plantation worker to Sri Lanka. They are settled in the central mountains of Sri Lanka during the native Tamils live in the North East coast area. Often they mix up the history of Indian and the Native Tamils, which brings people to the wrong statement that Tamils are immigrated not before the 19thcentury to Sri Lanka.
One of the aspects of the independence movement was that it was very much a Sinhalese movement. As a result, the Sinhalese majority attempted to remodel Sri Lanka as a Sinhalese nation-state. The lion in the national flag is derived from the banner of the last Sinhalese Kingdom, which, to the Sinhalese majority, is a symbol of their fight against British colonialism. One single strip of orange on the left part of the flag represents the Tamil population, and it is seen by many Tamil as a symbol of their marginalization.
In 1956, the Official Language Act (commonly known as The Sinhala Only Act) was enacted. The law mandated Sinhala, the language of Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community, which is spoken by over 70% of Sri Lanka’s population, as the sole official language of Sri Lanka. Supporters of the law saw it as an attempt by a community that had just gained independence to distance themselves from their colonial masters. The immediate (and intended) consequence of this act was to force large numbers of Tamil who worked in the civil service, and who could not meet this language requirement, to resign. An attempt to make Buddhism the national religion, to the exclusion of Hindu and Islam, was also made. Affirmative action in favor of Sinhalese was also instituted, ostensibly to reverse colonial discrimination against Sinhalese in favor of Tamil. Many Tamil, in response to this deliberate marginalization, came to believe that they deserved a separate nation-state for themselves.
From 1983 to 2009, there was an on-and-off civil war against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist militant organization who fought to create an independent state named Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island. Both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE have been accused of various human rights violations.
On May 19, 2009, the President of Sri Lanka officially claimed an end to the insurgency and the defeat of the LTTE, following the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran and much of the LTTE’s other senior leadership.
Human rights
Human rights as ratified by the United Nations are guaranteed by the constitution of Sri Lanka. The human Rights situation in Sri Lanka has come under criticism by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as the United States Department of State and the European Union, have expressed concern about the state of human rights in Sri Lanka. Both the separatist Liberation (LTTE) and the government of Sri Lanka are accused of violating human rights. In its 2007 report, however, Amnesty International stated that “escalating political killings, child recruitment, abductions and armed clashes created a climate of fear in the east, spreading to the north by the end of the year”, whilst also outlining concerns with violence against women, the death penalty and “numerous reports of torture in police custody”. However, the report also stated that the ceasefire between government and LTTE remained in place despite numerous violations. However, the Sri Lankan minister for Human Relations said: “We regret one or two statements made here, that fly in the face of all concrete evidence, that the situation in Sri Lanka is deteriorating, when we have dealt more firmly with terrorism, with far-less damage to civilians, than in any comparative situation.” Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said that the report presents a distorted view of the actual situation in Sri Lanka during the year 2007 and is a litany of unsubstantiated allegations, innuendo and vituperative exaggerations.
Sri Lanka’s government is labeled as one of the “world’s worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances”, according to a study by US-based pressure group ‘Human Rights Watch’ (HRW). An HRW report accuses security forces and pro-government militias of abducting and “disappearing” hundreds of people -mostly Tamils- since 2006. Sri Lanka’s government says that HRW has exaggerated the scale of the problem. The report said: “The number of disappearances carried out by the Tamil Tigers in government-controlled areas was relatively low. But, the Tigers were responsible for targeted killings, forced child recruitment, bomb attacks on civilians and the repression of basic rights in areas they controlled.”
Foreign relations
Sri Lanka traditionally follows a nonaligned foreign policy but has been seeking closer relations with the United States since December 1977. It participates in multilateral diplomacy, particularly at the United Nations, where it seeks to promote sovereignty, independence, and development in the developing world. Sri Lanka was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). It also is a member of the Commonwealth, theSAARC, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank, and the Colombo Plan. Sri Lanka continues its active participation in the NAM, while also stressing the importance it places on regionalism by playing a strong role in SAARC.
Education
With a literacy rate of 92%, and 83% of the total population having had Secondary Education, Sri Lanka has one of the most literate populations amongst developing nations. An education system which dictates 9 years of Compulsory Schooling for every child is in place, with 99% of the children entering the first grade. A free education system initiated in 1945 by Dr. C. W. W. Kannangara has greatly contributed to this. Dr. Kannangara led the establishment of the Madhya Maha Vidyalayas (Central Schools) in different parts of the country in order to provide education to Sri Lanka’s rural population. In 1942 a special education committee proposed extensive reforms to establish an efficient and quality education system for the people. The free education system ensures that primary to tertiary education is provided free of charge to its citizens In the 1980s changers to this system saw the separation of the administration of schools between the central government and the provincial government. Thus the elite National Schools are controlled directly by the Ministry of Education and the provincial schools by the provincial government.
Most schools in Sri Lanka provide education from grades 1 to 13 in the same institution. Students sit for the Ordinary Level Examination (O/Levels) in grade 11 and the Advanced Level Examination (A/levels) in grade 13, conducted by the Department of Examinations. These schools are modeled on British colleges. A majority of them are public, but a number of private schools do exist. While most reputed National and Private Schools centered around large cities are usually single-sex institutions, rural provincial schools tend to be co-educational. In recent decades, a large number of international schools have been established across the nation. Many of the schools offer subjects in Sinhala and Tamil languages with regionally leading schools offering subjects in English medium also.
Sri Lanka has around 16 public universities.
However, the lack of space in these institutions and the unwillingness to establish private universities has led to a large number of students been denied entry into formal universities as well as high undergraduate unemployment. As a result, a number of public and private institutions have emerged, which provide specialized education in a variety of fields, such as computer science, business administration and law. These include the government owned Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology and the Institute of Technological Studies.
Transportation
Most Sri Lankan cities and towns are connected by the Sri Lanka Railways, the state-run national railway operator. The first railway line was inaugurated on April 26, 1867, linking Colombo with Kandy.
The total length of Sri Lankan roads exceeds 11,000 kilometers
Resource: Wikipedia
