Columns

Political Column

It is now official. President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared this week that the enforcement of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution - part of political proposals to address Tamil grievances - would not be introduced in Parliament until the conclusion of the next Presidential elections as exclusively revealed in these columns last week. He also confirmed the disclosure last week that presidential elections would come first.

5th Column

Come down, come down from your ivory tower, and start afresh

I thought I must write to you when I heard you were away in London attending a meeting of some democratic organisation-because people here are now beginning to wonder whether you are an Opposition Leader in exile!

The Economic Analysis

Is the IMF loan less significant now?

With no signs of a decision on the IMF loan, the Governor of the Central Bank has once again reiterated that it is less important now as the reserves have improved.

Lobby

IDPs to the fore as Opposition hits back at PM’s words of ‘freedom’

Last week as Parliament debated the extension of emergency by another month, the plight of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), from the north, living in relief centres, figured prominently with opposition politicians seeking more access to these camps.

Focus on Rights

The question of judicial injustice

Great injustice commensurately results in great anger. When that injustice is alleged to be perpetuated by the one individual in whose hands is vested the final authority to remedy wrongs of lesser human beings, namely the head of a country's judiciary, an unstable and dangerous edge hones that injustice.

Inside the glass house

Mummified or not, NAM returns to Egypt

When the first summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was held in the Yugolsav capital of Belgrade in September 1961, Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike was reported to have made an impassioned plea on behalf of the developing world's poorest and marginalized peoples.