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Govt. faces probe by independent UN body
= US to move strong resolution at UNHRC sessions; India also likely to support it = Prime movers in impeachment get top posts in new jumbo cabinet; Rs. 100m needed annually to maintain each ministry By Our Political Editor After a world record of having two Chief Justices, Sri Lanka set another last Monday. For [...]
Talk at the Cafe Spectator
Tax payers’ money for diplomutt’s Benz blunder
Tax payers’ money for diplomutt’s Benz blunder The acting head of a Sri Lanka diplomatic mission in South Asia fired his driver and chose to drive the official Mercedes Benz. He took it to a fuel station. Instead of petrol, he got the tank filled with diesel. Soon the engine developed trouble. Now the Sri [...]
5th Column
Minting ministers: More the merrier
My Dear Cabinet of Ministers, I thought I must write to you since you have been ‘reshuffled’ even though this reshuffle was not what most people expected. You usually reshuffle a pack of cards to get a better hand but if you reshuffle a pack full of jokers, that wouldn’t happen, would it? Now, you [...]
The Economic Analysis
Reflections on 65years of economic change and development
Tomorrow we celebrate 65 years of regaining independence from British rule. It is a brief period in Sri Lanka’s long history of more than 2500 years, yet these 65 years have witnessed profound and irreversible changes in the economy and society. There have been achievements we can be proud of, as well as inadequacies, concerns [...]
Focus on Rights
Of great betrayals and other paradoxes
If an objective perspective is brought to the calamitous events of the past few months precipitating Sri Lanka even deeper into a yawning abyss of disorder and non-governance, there is much to marvel at. A difficult history to forget or forgive For example, even though a new found activism on the part of lawyers in [...]
From the sidelines
Welcome to our ‘Cabinet like no other!’
Sunil had been burning the midnight oil trying to calculate the exact number of ministers, deputies and other persons with new and varied designations,who will dip into the public purse for their maintenance and upkeep after the latest ‘cabinet reshuffle’. There were so many permutations and combinations of figures doing the rounds that he, like [...]