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Home » ColumnsDefiant woman journalist happy to clean her country’s dirt
Just weeks ago, the Washington -based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) laid bare the names and addresses of those who held offshore bank accounts in a number of countries. It was the result of investigations ICIJ carried out for several months. Disclosures of those account holders in the United States, France and other countries in [...]
COPE head, Opposition call for better paid, powerful Auditor-General
While Parliament last Wednesday approved a salary of Rs 48,940 for Auditor-General (A-G) H.A.S. Samaraweera, Opposition legislators argued strongly for a better salary for a person holding the top post of one of the most important State institutions, while there were also calls to strengthen the powers given to the State auditor. Several Government members [...]
Foreign policy a gamble: Lanka’s future like a horse race
Menon’s tough line puts ties with India at low ebb; Government has no clear-cut strategy TNA insists it won’t take part in the PSC, Sampanthan pushes for Justice Vigneswaran as CM candidate If free and fair poll is not held to the NPC, New Delhi may downgrade delegation to CHOGM President Mahinda Rajapaksa engaged in [...]
Steering wrong on Northern course
My Dear Sampanthan Seeya, I thought I must write to you now when I heard that the provincial council elections that you were demanding all these years are to be held in a few months. Although I expected you to be happy at this turn of events, I understand that you are not. From what [...]
Has the SLFP hijacked the process?
The dust is yet to settle after a flurry of high level diplomatic visits across the Palk Strait, in both directions. The carefully crafted diplomatic statements that followed these interactions, while they may not reveal all, give reason to think that their outcome could be the creation of conditions somewhat more conducive to an accommodation [...]
Change economic policies drastically and urgently
The six and a half decades since independence have been characterised by economists as one of missed opportunities. The end of the war in 2009 was considered another opportunity for an economic resurgence. As in the past, the four years since the war ended has proved to be another missed opportunity: an initial expectation turning [...]
Playing a game of smoke and mirrors again
At first blush, recent actions of the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration on Sri Lanka’s abysmal governance front may cause some who are apt, (or at least pretend thereto), to wear rose coloured lenses to proclaim that there appears to be glimmerings of hope on the horizon. A misplaced optimism One specific development cited in that regard [...]