Rajapaksa agrees to make 'province' unit of devolution in Sri Lanka

In a significant move that could help bridge the ethnic divide in Sri Lanka and lead to a lasting political settlement of the Tamil question, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has agreed to make the 'province' the unit of devolution instead of the 'district', as proposed by his own Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) earlier.

'The President has agreed to make the province the unit of devolution,' moderate Tamil leader and government minister K.N.Douglas Devananda told foreign correspondents in an interaction here Thursday night.

The ruling SLFP's proposal to make the 'district' the unit of devolution instead of the 'province' had dismayed the Tamils, including the most moderate, because the community had been struggling for the past 60 years for a federal constitution in which a Tamil speaking northeastern province would enjoy a reasonable degree of autonomy.

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