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Item Issues in peace: special reference to poverty and development in contemporary world(Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Peiris, M.J.D.An issue is a matter of concern or of interest. Often people have different opinions about an issue and will discuss or argue about it in order to find a solution. Sometimes an issue can have a particular focus. For example, issues may have a political, social, environmental or economic focus.Therefore, Issues can also occur on different scales. When we talk about a global issue, we are usually referring to something that affects a number of countries and populations. It is an issue that affect upon or is important to the global community that could be a threat for peace.The idea of issues that are truly global in scale is new to us. It emerged late in the 20th century, perhaps when humans first saw images of the Earth from space a small blue-green planet devoid of boundaries and arbitrary political divisions. Regardless of their novelty, global issues are so important that they might literally determine the future of the human species. Moreover, global issues affect virtually all social, environmental, economic, health, and security concerns. Yet, those concerns are, in themselves, global issues. There are number of global issues have been identified yet, this article provides a framework of poverty and developmentwith regard to issues in peace.Item Gender Inequality in Sri Lanka(Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Gunawardane, D.S.W.Gender equality is both a core concern and an essential part of human development. However, in no society do women yet enjoy the same opportunities as men. They work longer hours and they are paid less, both in total and pro rate. Their choices as to how they spend their time, in both work and leisure, are more constrained than they are for men. These disparities generate substantial gaps between how much women and men can contribute to society, and how much they respectively share in its benefits. As a conceptual tool, gender is used to highlight various structural relationships of inequality between men and women as manifested in the labour markets, income, economic resources, education and training. Discrimination is especially obvious in political leadership and decision-making positions and in economic top management. The objective of this study was to analyse how gender inequality indicate that different dimensions in Sri Lankan context. Study was based on secondary data gathered from literature survey which are directly related to the issues addressed in this study. The study was revealed that disadvantage and marginalization of women and discrimination against them is a global phenomenon. Everywhere in the world, there are still considerable differences in living conditions and upward social mobility opportunities between men and women due to unequal factors. In Sri Lankan context traditional women have much less social, economic, political and domestic power than men. However, they have played considerable role inside the family as homemakers. Especially rural women spend much time every day on agricultural and domestic tasks. However, after the independent, successive governments have invested heavily in education, health, and welfare programmes. As a result, both men and women enjoy relatively high standards in health and education. From this view, the status of Sri Lankan women has been changed last few decades. Though, poor women are facing several problems due to unequal factors of political participation, labour force participation and decision-making process. To overcome those disparities mobilization of women as equal partners in all developmental process therefore needs the priority attention of policy makers.Item How to sight the Holy Grail of Development: Two Development Tales of Sri Lanka and Malaysia(Department of Economics, University of Kelaniya, 2016) Priyantha, R.; Dickwella, R.; Samarakoon, A.The grammar of development always relates to the question words of who, what, and how. Contemporary uni-polar world order has paid more attention on the ways of developing all countries equally. The United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Work Bank have become the entrepreneurs of the international development project that has focused on establishment of a universal development system. However, the current development discourse is still in a struggle to conceptualize and map out the development policies to accomplish development ends. The waves of development discourse emphasis the changing pattern of development and reduce rich-poor gap. Bridging the gap of rich and poor is a dilemma as of poor understanding of root causes of underdeveloped. The objective of this article is to understand richpoor gap and the role of internal and external structure to exterminate this gap. Sri Lanka and Malaysia are the selected case studies of the present study. The case studies are to understand the lessons learnt of development. One of the key findings of this study is that the absence of consensus on development and development alienation are direct causes to fail the mega level development policies that has caused countries to stagnate in the same level of poverty. The interests of entrepreneurs of development project on capital accumulation is another crucial factor of widened gap between rich and the poor. Bad governance, corruption, political instability, popular politics and consumer politics, connectivity of global capital to local elites and economic policies to maintain the industrial reserved army have further deteriorated balance development both at national and international levels.Item Indian Environmentalism: Discourse, Politics and Fragments(Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2015) Tripathy, JyotirmayaIt is often customary to represent environmentalism in the industrialised North as a predominantly middle class phenomenon whereas Indian environmentalism is hyphenated with questions of equity and distributive justice. When it is true that Indian environmental activism is a response to developmental challenges posed by the state and the penetration of global capital, there is an uncritical and unproblematic theorization of such activism that often reduces Indian environmentalism to questions of life and livelihood. The present paper challenges conventional theoretical assumptions of Indian environmentalism by highlighting the fractures within the theory and practice of Indian environmental discourses. It engages with questions like how competing conceptions of environment and development bring forth new dimensions to human-environment relationship. How the political expressions of these movements repress and produce conflicting narratives? What counts as environment and environmental problems? Drawing from the theoretical vocabulary of post-structuralism, the paper uses existing theoretical literature as an entry point to engage with more critical questions of representation, authenticity etc. It also uses qualitative data drawn from visits to two areas of environmental activism (anti-POSCO movement and anti-Vedanta movement in Odisha) which includes interviews with various groups of people. At a theoretical level, the paper argues that representing Indian environmentalism as a survival imperative not only zoifies affected people, but also projects the North as the subject of environmental history. The site visit and interviews establish that affected people in the POSCO and Vedanta project areas are not uniform in their response to ideas like, development‟, state and „people‟. It is also revealed that questions of identity, class and gender mediate the way people experience state and „development‟.Item North Korea's National Security Strategy and Its Impact on Development(Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2014) Dissanayake, B.S.National security is of paramount importance for North Korea due to the continuous hostilities between North and South Korea and the external threats posed by other nations. The military tension between North and South Korea has increased significantly with the launch of North Korea’s third nuclear test in February 2013. North Korea has attempted to justify and legitimize its nuclearization process as a self-defense mechanism which is essential for national security. Even though national security is defined at three different levels: individual, the state, and the international system, in North Korea, individual level gains priority over the others since the regime maintenance of the Kims is considered to be a critical factor in the nation’s survival. North Korean aspiration for reunification, considered to be achievable partially by reducing U.S. influence on the Korean Peninsula, and its commitment to perpetuating the Kim family regime has remained unchanged since the nation‟s founding in 1948. But, the strategies to achieve the same have evolved significantly and resulted in its nuclearization process posing a security challenge for the United States and its allies. The objective of the study was to identify and assess different types of risks caused by North Korea’s national security strategy which will have an impact on the development of North Korea. Secondary data was used to identify the various risks. These risks were assessed using a risk assessment matrix. It was revealed that certain strategic measures such as the high resource allocation for defense activities are extremely high risks posing an adverse threat to the economic growth of North Korea. Several other high, moderate and low risks were also identified. Based on the findings of the risk identification and assessment process, it is evident that North Korea’s national goal of building a “Strong and Prosperous State” has become a challenge.Item An Evaluation of India’s Approach towards Northeast India(Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2013) Sampa, KunduIndia‟s Northeastern region (NER) has been a subject of continuous scholarly discussion because of its low level of development despite huge amount of assistance and grants provided by the central government and its various ministries and departments. The problems of Northeast India are complex and inter-related with each other. Therefore, the Government of India and even the civil society seem to be in a dilemma with what needs to be prioritised in dealing with Northeast India. Is it the development of the region that should come first or, is it the security of the nation that should be the primary concern? So far, the government‟s approach has indicated that while it wants Northeast India to be closely connected with neighbours in Southeast Asia, it is also afraid of further infiltration of several cross-border problems and trans-national crime into the region from countries like Myanmar and China. The proposed paper will deal with aspects related to government‟s approach towards Northeast India, especially look East Policy and BIMSTEC that have been visualised to connect India‟s Northeastern region with Southeast Asia. The primary objectives of the paper would be to understand the significance of national security and domestic development in the case of Northeast India and her importance in determining India‟s foreign policy and implications of India‟s Look East Policy and BIMSTEC on Northeast India The proposed paper will be based on consulting available primary and secondary literature and would be analytical in nature. At the end of the paper, we would be able to understand that India‟s NER represents an example where domestic policies and development act as one of the important determinants of national security vis-à-vis foreign policy. Specifically, it would help us to understand India‟s approach towards Northeast India in regard to development and security aspects.