“We need a system where diversities are a basis for celebration and not conflict,” Former Indian President Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam said. 2012 was declared as the year for a Trilingual Sri Lanka at the ceremony. The ten-year action plan aims to make Sri Lankans fluent in Sinhala, Tamil and English.
“World over, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and deprivation are precipitating into the forces of strife, anger and violence. These forces link themselves to some earlier real or perceived historical enmities, tyrannies, injustices, inequities, ethnic issues and religious fundamentalism flowing into an outburst of extremism,” he said.
He proposed a ‘coastal PURA’ focusing the marine industry including sea fishing, processing, packaging and sales and sea tourism, a ‘plain PURA’ focusing on agro products and processing like rice and coconut, forest products, natural and medicinal tourism and ‘hill PURA’ promoting Lankan tea.
Categories: Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Universal Brotherhood