Pri's blog

As the discussion on a new set of post-2015 development goals  gathers momentum, I wonder how far the transport sector has got to framing a discussion on transport development in the post-2015 development agenda.  The sector was slow in getting transport-related targets into the MDG conversation, so let’s hope there is greater energy getting mobility and access issues on to the agenda this time round. As far as the discussions on the post-2015 development goals go, they seem to be moving towards integrating the need for sustainable development goals (SDGs) mooted in the discourse following the Rio+20 summit, and the next round of millennium development goals (MDGs).   If transport is to feed into this discussion, then I believe that we may need to go back to the fundamentals. Transport is about access and mobility and is a means to an end, whether that end is increasing economic growth or improving peoples’ access to services. In the current post-2015 disc...

Lawrence Kershen QC, Chair of the Restorative Justice Consortium, UK and I were having a chat before the Civil Society meeting with the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers yesterday at the Hilton Colombo.  Lawrence Kershen QC was a participant in the Commonwealth Peoples' Forum in Hikkaduwa  and chaired a parallel session  on reconciliation and development.  I was critical of the British Prime Minister, and particularly of the British Secretary of State for the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth's speech at the closing of the CPF.   He asked me what I think should have been the UK's approach.   I suggested that first, the UK shouldn't mention the war! Sanjana Hattotuwa in his interview with George Alagiah on Galle Face Green   talks of some of the post-war issues that indeed the UK and other critics should have highlighted. Watch this space for my own views on the Commonwealth Peoples' Forum and the posturing that took place around it..will take som...

 To be frank, I am a little bored with the nature of CHOGM bashing and all the hype in the western media, and I am really confused as to why the GOSL is bending over backwards to please the Commonwealth, which I thought was a pretty dead duck anyway.  It was funny this last week when I was driving a visiting Indian colleague around the city, and she said looking at all the work that is going on on the streets of Colombo – “Oh, Commonwealth, Commonwealth.. not very different to the Games in Delhi.. incredible how the streets got cleared of rubble and the evidence of frentic labour overnight!”  Maybe the Jewel in the Crown and its neighbours are still not free of our colonial shackles.     Though of course pleasing the Commonwealth is perhaps not what it’s all about. It could just be about showing off to our own electorate. Much like the Al Jazeera interview,  or the appearance on Hard Talk. And it could be about strengthening allianc...