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Home » ColumnsCracks in UPFA, UNP as President finalises plans for January polls
JHU’s Rathana Thera issues ultimatum to Rajapaksa, demands major constitutional amendments before elections Prelate says many senior ministers extending their support to him, while opposition to MR’s policies grows UNP tries to put its act together but Premadasa dispute simmers amid growing possibility of continuing disunity It is less than a handful who could muster [...]
Political bullets won’t kill war hero
My dear General, I thought I must write to you because you are in the news again, although for the wrong reasons: they tell me that they have taken away your right to vote, which also means that you have also lost your right to contest elections. For a man who nearly lost his life [...]
Developing the varied resources of the Eastern Province
The potential for developing the Eastern Province’s varied resources is immense. As in the North, a political solution to the ethnic discontent is an essential precondition for sustainable economic development of the Eastern Province that has the most diverse ethnic and religious composition. Regaining peaceful conditions has provided an environment for economic development. New economic [...]
Wearing sackcloth and ashes as we apologise
Piquantly enough, this seems to be the week of apologies and confessions for Sri Lanka. First, we witnessed the nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya parliamentarian Rathana Thera’s confession in his capacity as convener of the Pivithuru Hetak (For a Better Tomorrow) movement, that it was wrong to have supported the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. This [...]
EAM blunders again, misquotes court
The External Affairs Ministry (EAM) evidently needs a crash course in the European justice system. A media statement issued on Thursday said the Government of Sri Lanka had “noted with concern the decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on October 16, to annul the EU regulations proscribing the LTTE”. “Concern” is certainly a [...]
New avatar looms over Rama’s Bridge
It is not so much a few Tamil Nadu fishermen poaching in the Palk Straits that Lanka will have to worry about but rather the resurrection this week of an Indian plan to dredge a canal through the narrow stretch of sea that separates India and Lanka which will enable future ships to give Lankan [...]