So it is that trivial an issue ?

"Tamils complain of marginalisation at the hands of successive governments led by the Sinhalese majority, which came to power at independence in 1948 and took the favoured position the Tamils had enjoyed under the British colonial government"
---C. Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal, Yahoo India News

To the best of my knowledge this takes the cake in terms of "awful" journalism in recent times.

PS :(Well wait I saw something on the TOI about the barter system..I'll dig that up and come back..)