Sri Lanka's giant neighbour, India blinked this time. If it raved and ranted over the ongoing separatist war and the resultant humanitarian issues in the past weeks, just seven days ago, India seemed to relent.
There was the threat of members of major Tamil Nadu political parties resigning their seats in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha (the Indian Parliament) last Wednesday.
No doubt much will be written today about the air attack by the LTTE in Colombo early last week. There would have been time to gather more information, assess the damage done by the bombing and take a serious look at the larger picture.
The latest trade statistics for August confirmed the fears that the trade deficit would continue to grow and reach a huge proportion. In the first eight months of the year the trade gap had nearly doubled to what it was last year. Last year’s trade gap was in itself a record one of US$ 3560 million, higher than in the previous year when it was US$ 3371.
