Sri Lanka, Sept. 29 -- Zooming out and looking at South Asian geopolitics, India appears to be reaching out, repairing and resetting relations with several of its smaller neighbours with some urgency.

The results of Sri Lanka's Parliamentary election held recently in August surprised no one. Ever since the Easter Sunday bombings last year, there has been an implicit acknowledgment across the media, policy making and strategic community, academics and scholars, both inside Sri Lanka as well as outside it, that the Rajapaksa brothers would return to power. However, that their party the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) succeeded in winning 145 seats and gaining five more, giving them the two-thirds majority that they campaigned for, was i...