The Sri Lankan government should create within its ministry of external affairs a post of Additional Secretary for Public Diplomacy. In addition to media, counter terrorism, this new division should include two new capabilities - diaspora affairs and NGOs division especially to keep advocacy NGOs such as human rights organisations briefed.

My objective in this article is to educate the public on diplomacy and diplomats. Before defining these two terms, it is not out of place to emphasize the fact that ‘diplomacy’ is the most important and most influential among the five major instruments in the conduct of international relations.

The United States Department of State’s South and Central Asian Affairs Bureau officials headed by assistant secretary Robert Blake have many reasons to engage in dialogues with members of the Sri Lanka Tamil Diaspora in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday morning opened the International Buddhist Conference to commemorate together with India, the 2.600th "Sambuddhtva Jayanthi", the anniversary of Buddha's enlightenment.

‘I am confident that the multi-continental breadth of the Geneva Consensus of May 27-28th 2009, the ‘soft power’ and ‘smart power’ it represented, the international legitimacy it confirmed, and the politico-diplomatic and strategic space for post-war Sri Lanka that it symbolised, remains safely intact and indeed ably enhanced in the hands of the professionals.’

India has commissioned a 16-feet high icon of Lord Buddha, as part of joint activities with Sri Lanka to commemorate 2,600th year or the Sambudda Jayanthi of the Buddhahood, the Indian High commission here said.

To Western diplomatic corps that depend on their contacts to supply information about the post-war ground situation in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka to fill their diplomatic cables to the respective foreign ministries, for them it is a military rule in the former LTTE-held vast territory.

British Council’s new Country Director Tony Reilly who assumed duties just over a month ago stressed in an extensive interview with Daily Mirror Life that he wanted the British Council’s cultural relations programme to make a sensitive, but meaningful contribution to Sri Lanka’s socio-economic development...