Sri Lanka has shown a significant improvement in the 2018 Global Peace Index (GPI) published on June 6 jumping 13 notches to rank 67th out of 163 countries with a global score of 1.954, reports Colombo Page. Sri Lanka was again the second most peaceful nation in South Asia, and the second largest riser in the region last year.The GPI, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), covers 99.7 per cent of the world’s population in 163 countries, using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace using three thematic domains: the level of Societal Safety and Security; the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict; and the degree of Militarization.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva, Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez addressing the forum on 'individualized approach' on the sidelines of the Intercessional Meeting of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention on June 8 in Geneva said that Sri Lanka is making steady progress towards the goal of mine free status and remains hopeful of completing mine action by 2020, reports Colombo Page. Ambassador Azeez highlighted Sri Lanka's engagement in demining activity as one which had its own complexity and uniqueness. The National Policy on Reconciliation and Co-existence, in place in Sri Lanka since 2017, both underpinned and nourished the ongoing programs of peace building and development in the country, he stressed.
Separately, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Charles Nirmalanathan on June 8 alleged that Chiefs of Security Forces in the North and East were refusing to meet them and said they had no one to discuss issues of their people, reports Daily Mirror. The MP told Parliament that he made several requests to meet a Navy Officer in the North but he had refused to give him an appointment without an approval of the Defence Ministry. "I made several requests to meet a Navy Commander in the North to discuss an issue related to the fishing community there. I even wrote to the Defence Ministry but there was no reply as yet," he said.