Amidst a dismal record in cracking its whip, the Commission to Investigate Bribery and Corruption ended its term on Friday without a new commission being appointed. The new commission cannot be named without the President first appointing the Constitutional Council. The Government has maintained a deafening silence on the future of bribery and corruption inquiries in the country. This picture by our photographer Saman Kariyawasam shows the commissioners bidding farewell to each other before they left the office.
A new General Court Martial (GCM) to hear charges of fraudulent military deals against retired General Sarath Fonseka is to comprise Major General Milinda Peiris (President), Major General Lalith Daulagala and Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe.
Foreign monitors including members from the European Union (EU) have been left out of the election monitoring process amidst allegations by the main opposition UNP that the Commissioner of Elections has failed to forward the invitations in time.
Some time after our Horton Plains expedition, Forest Department officials invited us to join them on a hike through the Knuckles range. They proposed climbing the Knuckles range from the Laggala side, then descend to Panwila on the Kandy side through Kalupahana.
Stakeholders at the Colombo bourse are calling for increased liquidity in the market to attract major international funds and investors saying unless this happens Colombo will remain a place attracting just small players. “The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) increased by 130% last year and was the second best performer in the world, but it was mostly driven by local investors and significant public institutional investors
When the G20, representing some of world's politically and economically powerful developing and industrial nations, suddenly gained a higher profile with the onset of the global financial crisis two years ago, there was apprehension the group would sooner or later try to upstage the United Nations and its key decision-making role.
Denmark is ranked 10th among the greenest countries in the world and it also ranked as the least corrupt country in the world in the year 2008. Denmark's northern location means that summer days are long and lovely and winter days are short and dark.
Twenty-year-old NCC and Ruhuna batsman Dinesh Chandimal looks a certainty of making it into the final squad of the World Cup T-20 tournament which is scheduled to take place in the West Indies from, 30 April to May 16.
On the eve of the Presidential election, we wrote in this space how a boatman in Weerawila in the deep south probably embodied what many ordinary voters in this country felt about elections. The candidates come begging for their vote at election time, "but who will look after us thereafter" he had asked our reporters in the field.
Though not surprising, the campaign for the April 8 parliamentary elections has been lacklustre. The only political heat it has generated is from the internecine rivalry within contending factions of all parties over preference votes or manape, the term familiar to most voters.
“Thaaththa,” Bindu Udagedera asked, “what is all this fuss about a pop star?”
“Well,” Bindu’s father Percy said, “they say he should not be performing in Sri Lanka…”
“Why is that, thaaththa?” Bindu wanted to know.
She was the darling of the gossip columnists, her openness about her personal life sparking many a feeding frenzy. "I remember Shah Rukh calling me and saying 'Pooja, you're on 11 magazine covers. What are you doing? It's a bit ridiculous.’ I said, 'I'm not doing anything, I'm just speaking my mind'."
The Colombo National Museum was opened to the public on January 1, 1877 its founder member being Sir William Henry Gregory who was the Governor of Ceylon at that time. The plan for the Museum was made by the government architect Mr. James G. Smither and he designed the plan in Italian
architectural style.
