Lanka govt pledges autonomy to Tamils

The Sri Lankan government has vowed to go ahead with the process of drafting the new Constitution to give its Tamil minority greater autonomy after the country’s influential Buddhist community demanded that the plan be abandoned. Government spokesman and Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said Parliament will not reverse the process begun in April last year to draft the Constitution. “The government got 6.2 million votes to change the constitution,” Senaratne said.