News stories by Amantha Perera, page 16

The road to Unnichchai in eastern Sri Lanka makes for a nerve-wracking journey trying to avoid large crater-like potholes, squeezing across narrow bridges, and passing by a patchwork landscape of paddy fields - both abandoned and cultivated - with not a building in sight.

Suresh Sundaram and Wilfred Wickremasinghe live 350 kilometres apart, and have never met each other. But their lives ran parallel for over a quarter of a century, as war ravaged their tear-shaped country Sri Lanka and changed their destinies forever.

The civil war ended two years ago this month, but for war-affected women—widows, mothers, daughters, and former rebels— the struggle to survive rages on.

It has been two years since the end of Sri Lanka’s decades long war, and life in general has begun to slowly edge back towards normalcy here. Not so for the country’s besieged media community, according to observers and journalists alike - reporting still feels hemmed in and muzzled, they say.

These are trying times for the Mahinda Rajapaksa government here. Faced with renewed international scrutiny over alleged abuses during the last phase of the island’s bloody civil war, the government has once again readied itself to face off global giants, yet another test of will and skill on the global stage.

Dengue infections and deaths here have declined significantly this year.

The latest elections in Sri Lanka serve as yet another reminder that despite all its follies, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government is unshakable.

She became famous playing the role of ‘Pabha’, a poor young girl in love with a rich man in a long running hit television series here. But these days, Upeksha Suwarnamali is better known for her real-life role: A victim of domestic violence turned champion of abused women.

Twenty-year-old Veethirasa Winston is planning his schedule meticulously for the next few weeks, making sure he keeps his diary free on days when Sri Lanka’s national team takes the cricket field.

Sri Lanka goes into a frenzy this month as it plays co-host to the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Conservationists hope the national pasttime will share national and international media attention with an endangered Sri Lankan resident: the elephant.