{"id":36374,"date":"2014-12-20T01:21:23","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T06:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=36374"},"modified":"2014-12-20T08:11:46","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T13:11:46","slug":"maithripala-sirisena-manifesto-is-silenton-minority-related-issues-like-devolution-andimplementation-of-13th-constitutional-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=36374","title":{"rendered":"Maithripala Sirisena Manifesto is &#8220;Silent&#8221; on Minority Related Issues like Devolution andImplementation of 13th Constitutional Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> by<\/p>\n<p>Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka will maintain equal relations with India and China, Maithripala Sirisena, joint opposition candidate in the coming presidential polls, said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Releasing his election manifesto ahead of the January 8 polls \u2014 in which he will challenge the incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa \u2014 the former Minister said: \u201cI would act to have closer relations with an attitude that would be neither anti-Indian nor dependent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an apparent reference to Tamil Nadu\u2019s role in India\u2019s diplomacy with Sri Lanka, Mr. Sirisena said: \u201cOur Indian policy will take into due consideration the diversity of India.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka, he said, would maintain cordial relations with India, China, Pakistan and Japan \u2014 the principal countries of Asia while improving friendly relations with emerging Asian nations such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea without distinction.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement comes at a time when India has been expressing concern over China\u2019s apparently growing military presence in the island nation. Though the Sri Lankan government has said it would not do anything detrimental to the interests of India, the docking of Chinese submarines in Colombo port earlier this year is said to have irked India.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Sirisena\u2019s manifesto is silent on the question of devolution to the country\u2019s minorities, and on the implementation of the 13th Amendment that speaks of devolving powers to the provinces. There is no mention of a likely political solution to the ethnic question, even as some leaders of the joint opposition had earlier said on different occasions that the \u201cTamil question\u201d was unlikely to be taken up as a poll issue.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The manifesto speaks of abolishing the executive Presidency in the first 100 days of assuming charge, should Mr. Sirisena win the elections, and ensuring religious freedom. <\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton36374\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D36374&amp;text=Maithripala%20Sirisena%20Manifesto%20is%20%26%238220%3BSilent%26%238221%3B%20on%20Minority%20Related%20Issues%20like%20Devolution...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Meera Srinivasan Sri Lanka will maintain equal relations with India and China, Maithripala Sirisena, joint opposition candidate in the coming presidential polls, said on Friday. Releasing his election manifesto ahead of the January 8 polls \u2014 in which he will challenge the incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa \u2014 the former Minister said: \u201cI would act to &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=36374\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Maithripala Sirisena Manifesto is &#8220;Silent&#8221; on Minority Related Issues like Devolution andImplementation of 13th Constitutional Amendment&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36393,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36374\/revisions\/36393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}