Shaking the rain out of his hair, Ravi Chandran boarded a state-run bus for Jaffna in the north and looked around. It would leave Colombo soon, at 11.30pm, and he wanted to grab a good seat for what could be a 16-hour journey. Mr Chandran, a 27-year-old businessman in a rugby jersey and jeans, is among an estimated 3,500 commuters from Sri Lanka's Tamil minority to have used the new bus service since the government eased travel restrictions earlier this month. Civilians taking public transport to Jaffna no longer need defence-ministry authorisation; just three copies of their national identity card will do.
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