I began my conversation with Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Minister of Science and Technology and Chair of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) by asking him about the state of play in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Sri Lanka, and what exactly the declaration of 2009 as the Year of IT and English meant. We talked about work force development, business service outsourcing, the sustainability of nenasala’s (cybercafes) established by ICTA and efforts by his Ministry to promote IT across the island.
Over half of the programme was devoted to Sri Lanka’s constitutional dynamics, and in particular, options for constitutional reform that included the full enactment of the 13th Amendment. I asked Prof. Vitharana what he felt about the success of the APRC process as it was nearing its end, and also talked in depth about the constitutional architecture the APRC would propose (referred to as 13th Amendment plus).
For the Minister’s answer as to whether he had lost most of his hair on account of the APRC process and whether the 13th Amendment alone is enough to address the underlying causes of violence in Sri Lanka, please watch the video in full.
[Note: For a complementary video, and interesting counterpoints to the Minister’s views on the 13th Amendment, please see this exclusive video interview with the Leader of the JVP, Somawansa Amarasinghe.]