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Home » ColumnsGovt. plays Peeping Tom with its proposed eNIC
“People have been surfeited with sweetmeats and their digestion has been ruined: bitter medicines, sharp truths, are therefore necessary,” wrote Russian writer Mikhail Lermontov in his acclaimed book, “A Hero of Our Time.” It was these words that Galle District Independent MP G.H. Ajith Kumara used to bring to light a sharp truth by way [...]
US probes monitoring MP’s huge deals with PR firms
Revelations in the Sunday Times in the past two weeks have prompted a review of mandatory information forwarded to the US Department of Justice by public relations (PR) and lobbying firms assigned by Sri Lanka using vast sums of public money. The FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) Unit of the US Justice Department said it would [...]
Come on, common candidate!
My Dear Common Candidate, I thought I must write to you — whoever you are — because everyone is searching high and low for you these days. Despite various reports about various people from time to time, no one seems to have found you yet — and time is running out because Mahinda maama may [...]
President daubs green on FCA portrait
Wamey inney Premadasa. Dakuney Inney Ranil or on the left is (Sajith Ranasinghe) Premadasa and on the right is Ranil (Wickremesinghe), guffawed President Mahinda Rajapaksa last Tuesday. It was after the Foreign Correspondents’ Association (FCA) gave a large, framed picture (seen here) of two elephants fighting at the Yala National Park. The occasion was a breakfast [...]
Achieving a trade surplus in 2020: A challenging task
An important objective of the Government is to achieve a trade surplus by 2020. This key objective, according to Treasury Secretary P.B. Jayasundera, is to be achieved through two strategies: Import substitution and increased exports. This is a challenging task given the trade deficits of more than US$ 7 billion in recent years and exports [...]
The slow evolution of a constitutional monstrosity
A mere two years before a doomed United National Party administration staggering under accumulated burdens of long drawn out rule was destined to fall, opposition parliamentarian Mahinda Rajapaksa was in the forefront of an imaginative challenge on the afternoon of a characteristically hot day in 1992. Engaging in legitimate dissent In issue was a litany [...]
Asia’s regional tensions surface at defence seminar
The presentation by Dr Subramanian Swamy, chairman of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Committee on Strategic Action at the Defence Seminar 2014 this week brought no surprises in relation to Sri Lanka, reinforcing the message that India, in its own national interest, gave high priority to having good relations with Sri Lanka. It was during the [...]
Can any Indian Guru Google Modi’s mind?
Despite the comforting assurances dished out liberally like holy ash by the new Indian Guru in town Subramanian Swamy to Lanka’s guardian deities of the divine benevolence radiating from India’s Prime Minister Modi as he tenderly casts his grace upon Lankan soil and the radical change of heart India now has toward their neighbouring isle, [...]