Is it for crispy dollar notes?

Bandula Jayasekara in New Delhi

INDIA: War is business, peace is business. Attending seminars and workshops- that too is business and also pleasure. That's how most of the NGO wallahs (the way Indians refer to them) do to keep them going and of course for a living. A good living. They also badmouth their country to earn few dollars more or to build a swimming pool.

They try to get inside think tanks to change their thinking about ones country.

They also try to appear on television to provide a bleak picture about their country. It's done smartly since over years they market themselves as 'Experts' of Sri Lankan affairs.

One such thing happened last week when a former Indian Ambassador and a former Indian Air Force Chief were interviewed on an Indian Television channel. That was after the LTTE's failed attack at the Katunayake Air Force base. The former Indian Ambassador and the Air Chief were very objective.

They understood the Sri Lankan situation well. They both expressed support for Sri Lanka against terrorism.

But, guess what the 'Sri Lankan' Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council who spoke from Sri Lanka said? He said, there were more than 400,000 people displaced in the East of Sri Lanka. Nothing much has been done to rehabilitate them. Government will escalate its offensive. Stock market is down. He painted a bleak picture of the country he was born. That too commenting from Sri Lanka protected by Mother Lanka.

We also heard about another man famed for arranging a press conference for the LTTE in the name of Free Media speaking at a South Asia Media Conference here and slamming his 'own' Sri Lanka.

He had been joined by people who got nothing to do with journalism.

A Sri Lankan journalist who attended the conference said " No other journalist would have ever spoken like that against his own country that too in a another country." These people got no shame.

They are only in search of money. It's no secret.

Would Indians speak like this? Would Pakistanis speak like this- of their country? ? Need we say more?