Nirmala Rajasingam, founder of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum and who is based in the United Kingdom speaks to Newsclick about the challenges faced by the civil society and democracy activists in Sri Lanka. She appeals to the Tamil speaking people in India, the international civil society and the Left in India, to be cognisant of the new challenges faced in post-civil war Sri Lanka, where militarisation, military triumphalism, neoliberalism and Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism have created new discontents apart from the still un-rehabilitated and traumatised Tamil populations - both in the North and the East and in the plantations and the hill country.

President of the Tamil United Liberation Front and a senior politician from Sri Lanka, Veerasingham Anandasangaree expresses his anguish at the government apathy with war affected Tamil peoples' plight in the Northern Province.

  Ahilan Kadirgamar, spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, suggests that the Tamil National Alliance's victory combined with international pressure after the Channel 4 Documentary and the UN Special Panel Report have brought upon added impetus for the Sri Lankan government to proceed with steps towards a "political solution" in that country. The peoples' mandate in the Northern Province in the local body elections held there in July this year, were clearly a rebuff to the Rajapaksa regime's efforts to limit the discourse to "development". 

Spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, Ahilan Kadirgamar talks to Newsclick over phone from New York. He argues that the "Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka" brings about valid recommendations, which if heeded by the otherwise triumphalist and denialist Sri Lankan government could pave the way for true reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka following the brutal civil war in 2009.

V. Vivekanandan, Advisor, South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies, speaks on the issues confronting fishermen in South Tamil Nadu, apropos the problems between India and Sri Lanka over fishing close to the maritime boundary.

In February 2010 General Fonseka, the opposition presedential candidate was arrested after the incumbant Rajapaksa won a clear victory. Gen. Fonseka commenting in the press that the elections were fraudulent and his subsequent arrest has cast a shadow on the political process in Sri Lanka. Srinivasan Ramani comments for Newsclick

Prof. Sahadevan analyses the post war political scene in Sri Lanka with the elections coming up.

Rather than considering a progressive alternative to the two presidential candidates, incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa and ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka, the Tamil political leadership went in for a compromise.

The way forward in Sri Lanka involves demilitarisation, restoration of the rule of law, and democratisation. These are interlinked so closely that it is impossible to separate them, and on their fulfilment depends not only the political future of Sri Lanka, but also its economic survival.