US is to sponsor a procedural resolution against Sri Lanka; Decline of young population in Sri Lanka; Netherland cooperates with Sri Lanka to deal with maritime piracy; Cairn India begins its phase 2 exploration of well, ‘Balack January ‘protest in Sri La
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    • January 28 - February 3

    According to reports, Sri Lanka has recorded an increase in the population of women and old in the country while the youth and adult populations are on the decline. The second preliminary report of the 2011 census by the Census and Statistics Department has recorded the female population to be around 51.5 percent of the total population. The report has also recorded a decline in the number of persons below the age of 15. The number of persons aged 60 years and above has increased to 12.2 percent in 2012 from a 9.2 percent in 2000. According to the report, a majority of the country's population is between the ages of 15 and 59, which is around 62 percent of the total population. The decline in the fertility rate and number of births, increase in life expectancy and migration by the young and young adult population have resulted in the increase of the elderly population in the country. 1

    In another development, according to reports, the government of the Netherlands with the cooperation of Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defense and Urban Development is providing security to the international trade vessels against maritime piracy. According to a release from the Netherlands Embassy in Colombo, arrangements have been made to use certain Sri Lankan harbors to on-, and off-load Dutch Vessel Protection Detachment (VPD) teams which provides protection on board against piracy attacks . 2

    According to reports, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of the State Department James R. Moore in a media briefing in Colombo on January 28, 2013, said, “The US has decided to sponsor a procedural resolution with its international partners against Sri Lanka at the March 2013 sessions of the UNHRC,". 3

    According to reports, following the successful completion of the first phase of oil exploration in Sri Lanka's Mannar basin, Cairn India, in its recently released 2012 Third Quarter Financial Results statement said the drilling of the phase 2 exploration well in the offshore SL 2007-01-001 block is advanced by a quarter. Cairn Lanka, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Cairn India commenced drilling a fourth exploratory well 21km off the Kalpitiya coast on February 01, 2013. In Phase One Cairn successfully discovered two successive gas and condensate deposits in the wells CLPLDorado-91H/1z well and, the CLPL-Barracuda-1G/1 well in the offshore Block SL 2007-01-001 in the Mannar Basin of Sri Lanka. The third well, CLPL-Dorado North 1-82K/1 as been plugged and abandoned as a dry hole on 14th December, 2011. 4

    In other developments, according to reports, the Alliance of Media organizations, a media right organization in Sri Lanka held the 'Black January' protest on January 29, 2013 to commemorate slain journalists and protest the acts of media suppression. 5

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