Columns
Home » Columns
Perfume plant: Minister likes the foreign scent Police and Customs continue to conduct raids on those dealing with wallapatta or Aquilaria spp used in the manufacture of perfumes.However, Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena wants the Government to import young plants from this Thymeleacae family “to boost the development process” and to “introduce strategies of earning [...]
2015 budget: Political impulses stronger than economic imperatives
The practice of discussing proposals with a cross section of people and interest groups before the preparation of the budget is ostensibly a good one. It could elicit people’s difficulties and some budgetary proposals may take these into account. However, such popular discussions are likely to be mostly requests for reliefs without due consideration of [...]
The problem is greater than the excesses of a war
As predicted, the swing of the United Nations Human Rights Council this year towards initiating an inquiry into war time excesses in 2009 has forcefully enabled the emergence of a full blown military State in post-war Sri Lanka. As a result, even those fragile checks and balances which had survived emergency rule in the face [...]
India-US strategic dialogue – not so smooth sailing
US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to New Delhi last week for discussions with his counterpart Sushma Swaraj during the 5th India-US strategic dialogue, followed by his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, represented the first high level contacts between the US and India since Modi became prime minister. Reports on the outcome of [...]
As UN probe begins, controversy over local inquiry
The first phase of the international investigation into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka has begun in Geneva. The exercise, the Sunday Times learnt, is the study of voluminous material including complaints which the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has received. The idea is to categorise them before the formal process begins [...]
Isn’t it sickening to see doctors fight?
My Dear Hippocrates, I know you lived more than two centuries ago and you are now dead and gone but I thought I should still write to you because of what is happening in Paradise Isle. Wherever you are I am sure you would be turning in your grave, if you hear of what is [...]
Wimal’s lone flight to his castle in the air
While Lanka’s largest opposition party, the UNP, struggles to find fringe parties to form a united front to meet the challenge they face from the Government on the Uva polls plateau, a pint-sized party with a pint-size leader decides to alight from the seemingly unstoppable UPFA juggernaut and brave the hustings on its own — [...]