As Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse begins his third year in office, India is desperately hoping that he will unveil a credible power sharing package to end one of the world's most protracted conflicts.
After two years of escalating violence and many political twists and turns, the optimism in New Delhi seems to be slowly ebbing away vis-a-vis an early negotiated solution.
Although Rajapakse chose India as his first destination after narrowly winning the Nov 17, 2005, presidential election and has visited New Delhi four times, the Sri Lankan leader is not revealing his cards to the Indian leadership.
The belief is that Colombo understands the seriousness of New Delhi's repeated urgings not to harp on a military solution even as it wins some battles against the Tamil Tigers and not to lose sight of the larger Tamil issues.
As a consequence, India remains firmly supportive of Norway's role as a facilitator in the war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government.
IANS learns that Norway's special envoy to Sri Lanka, Jon Hannsen-Bauer, may visit Colombo in early 2008 to try to take forward a peace process hit hard after the violence of the past two years that has killed thousands.
The intended visit has taken added importance after a dramatic spurt in tit-for-tat attacks.
On Oct 21, the LTTE dealt a stinging blow when a suicide squad attacked a Sri Lankan Air Force base in the northcentral district of Anuradhapura destroying 10 jets and damaging 14, some beyond repair.
On Nov 2, the air force hit back, bombing an LTTE base and killing among others the group's political chief S.P. Tamilchelvan, the most high profile LTTE leader to die at the hands of the military.
Amid the bloodshed, India and other countries are banking on a positive outcome from the prolonged deliberations of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC), which has been tasked to come up with a power sharing formula that will be nationally acceptable.
But much of the initial optimism has given way to pessimism. Critics say the ARPC has become a smokescreen for the government not to do anything beyond paying lip service to a negotiated solution to keep donor countries in good humour.
And even as the military prepares for a major push against the LTTE in the north, the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the main opposition United National Party (UNP) are draggers drawn, spiking a possible chance of their coming together to evolve a consensus on devolution of power.
Some here feel that if the APRC fails to come up with a just resolution of the grievances of the minorities, it will only prove that the ethnic conflict cannot be settled from within the island nation.
Sri Lanka has also come under intense attack from domestic and international rights groups and Western countries over the large-scale unaccounted killings as well as disappearances in the country.
N. Manoharan, an Indian scholar on Sri Lanka, says that while Rajapakse has taken some positive measures since coming to power, much of it has been negated by his own actions.
'Convening the APRC was a good move. But then came his own party's (widely criticised) devolution proposals and attempts to sideline the APRC,' Manoharan, from New Delhi's Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, told IANS.
'Another good move by the president was the idea of reviving a bipartisan consensus between the SLFP and the UNP on the ethnic conflict,' he said. 'Again that got negated when the president poached MPs from the UNP.'
Colombo is optimistic that it can bring the LTTE to its knees by attacking the Tiger-held north. But the LTTE is confident of resisting any military challenge. 'So there is no possibility of a negotiated settlement, at least for one or two years,' Manoharan said.
