Two schools of thought: Sri Lanka needs them. Sri Lanka doesn't need them because they are a threat to "free education". The bone of contention, pulled this way and that, bitten and chewed up is whether or not to set up private universities including private medical faculties. Emotion, hyperbole, vituperation and protests apart, what is the ground reality in Sri Lanka?

The sea rolled into the land in the morning of December 26, 2004, spreading death and destruction of a massive scale, never heard or experienced before in Sri Lanka. An estimated 31,000 were killed, 8,000 went missing and nearly one million persons were rendered destitute or were displaced. The damage to property ran into billions of rupees.