2ND LEAD

Indian university confers honorary doctorate on Erik Solheim

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 February 2012, 02:05 GMT]
TERI University of India (The Energy and Resources Institute), which is a deemed university located in New Delhi, has conferred honorary doctorate on Norwegian Minister of Development Mr. Erik Solheim in its fourth convocation this year held on Wednesday. The deemed university, specialized in sustainable development, got accreditation in India in 1999. The university has affiliated centers in Japan, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, USA and UK, besides in some prominent Indian cities. Mr. Solheim is involved in international peace facilitation on behalf of Norway in several countries in the world. As Development minister, his office is part of the foreign ministry establishment of the Norwegian government, since Norway sees ‘development’ and ‘foreign relations’ intertwined in facilitating its interests.

Mr. Solheim was chosen by TERI University as a person who has made contributions to environmental protection and the need to maintain equity, ecological security, and the wealth of global natural resources.

As peace facilitator to the national crisis in the island of Sri Lanka, Mr. Solheim, became a miserable failure in 2009. The peace process ended up in mass-scale genocide of Eelam Tamils, in which nearly 140,000 Eelam Tamils went unaccounted.

A committee appointed by the Norwegian government to evaluate the peace process came out with the finding criticizing those who were handling the peace process that Norway should have withdrawn from the peace process before it ended up in a massacre, at least to enlighten the world of the impending realities.

The peace process was also criticized in the Norwegian report for not being prepared with contingencies to meet such a catastrophic turn of affairs.

Despite his historic failure with Eelam Tamils and the State of Sri Lanka, Mr. Solheim continues to handle ‘peace facilitation’ on behalf of Norway in countries like Myanmar, Philippines and elsewhere.

Commenting on the Norwegian report findings some times back, Mr. Solheim said that he was constantly in touch with the Indian government on every move of his peace facilitation in the island of Sri Lanka.

The Indian ruling circles were generally satisfied with the way the war had ended in the island of Sri Lanka, was the assessment of political observers.