Situation Analysis of Nation Building Efforts in Sri Lanka: From Early Years of Independence to Contemporary Days

Despite the smooth transition of power from the British colonists to the Sri Lankan Sinhalese in 1949, Sri Lanka inherited considerable challenges. After the culmination of the civil war, from 1983 to 2009, Sri Lanka confronted numerous obstacles in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country. Drawing from Birch’s model of national integration, this study attempts to examine the diverse political, economic, and social challenges facing Sri Lanka. The review shows that Sri Lanka needs critical nation building in the following areas: (i) Infrastructural development; (ii) Resettlements and rehabilitation of displaced populations; (iii) Ethnic and religious integration; (iv) Equality in political representation; (v) Educational and employment policies; (vi) Gender equality policies; and (vii) Mental health interventions for children and women. The role of international bodies, like the United Nations Human Rights Council, and neighboring countries is key to creating pressure for national integration and growth. There is fear that if national unity is not at the forefront of state and international policy for Sri Lanka, conflict and instability may arise again.

Onshore Offshore Software Process Model

Offshore software development model is one of the most successful development models being adopted by different worldwide organizations. The main reason behind the offshore development is the higher cost of the software development in the local industry. So the organizations take the projects from the local industry and send their projects to their offshore offices where development cost is significantly lower. In countries like Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Philippines etc, most of the software companies are working as offshore development offices. These software companies are using different software development methodologies like Waterfall, Spiral, Iterative, Incremental and Agile. The projects developed by these software companies face time, cost and quality constraints because of opting inappropriate software development lifecycles. A detailed study is conducted by gathering data from different offshore software companies in Pakistan and then based upon this data their common problems are identified. The major problems faced by the software companies in Pakistan include non static and ambiguous nature of requirements which cause the software developers to make certain assumptions. There is no direct interaction between the software developers and the clients, so the product developed is not an exact match of the client requirements and expectations. These issues are major bottleneck in delivering the quality software products in case of offshore development in Pakistan. We propose a new process model that addresses the needs of the onshore/offshore software development industry.