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Home » ColumnsNational Govt. on the rocks as 19A hangs over dissolution of House
It now seems inevitable that the present Parliament’s term will come to an end by April 23, one year ahead of the end of its six-year term, but its likely to end with a bang, rather than a whimper, given the landmark legislation that the House is set to approve before dissolution, by way of [...]
Sirisena, Ranil struggling for good governance with backs to the wall
Ahead of last Wednesday’s weekly meeting of ministers; President Maithripala Sirisena was locked in conversation with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. After he handed over a document, Wickremesinghe was poring over it. Later, the duo arrived for the ministerial meeting which is conducted in the refurbished Well of the former Parliament and now Presidential Secretariat. It [...]
Do you want to be remembered?
My dear Satellite, I thought I must write to you because you are in the news once again, be it lecturing Mahinda maama on what he should do if he wants to return to active politics or being hooted while attending public meetings. Ah, there is no such thing as bad publicity, is there? Satellite, [...]
Police grill Alles on alleged provision of Rs. 800m to LTTE
Tiran Christopher Alles, businessman and Democratic National Alliance Parliamentarian, has been questioned by Police over the provision of money to Tiger guerrillas. Police spokesperson Ruwan Gunasekera said Mr. Alles was grilled for two hours by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU). This Unit functions directly under Police Chief N.K. Illangakoon. Earlier, Police Headquarters issued an official statement [...]
Weaknesses and vulnerability of external finances
Sri Lanka’s external finances are weak owing to the large foreign debt and persistent large trade deficits. The huge trade deficits are in turn due to weaknesses in the import and export structures. The character and composition of imports make it difficult to reduce imports, while the concentration of exports in a few commodities makes [...]
19A: The good, the bad and the unknown
President Maithripala Sirisena on Thursday finally broke his silence on the subject of dissolution of parliament, indicating that it would take place after the anticipated passage of the 19th Amendment Bill, which is to be debated in Parliament on April 20 and 21. At an event in Polonnaruwa he remarked that the prevailing confusion in [...]
Constitutional games and a nation’s expectations
Even if we give the most compassionate rendering of the extraordinary sequence of events that served as constitution-making by the Wickremesinghe government during recent weeks, there is much to be perturbed about. Secrecy to be deplored However let me follow this up by acknowledging that even the necessity for this discussion would have been redundant [...]
SLFP lets the cat out of the bag: Call off crackdown or no dice
The first duty of the opposition is to oppose. And the opposition members of Lanka’s 14th Parliament took its traditional role literally and opposed at every turn even the selection of a leader to lead them until finally an exhausted, exasperated Speaker of the House gave up the ghost and passed the buck to UPFA’s [...]
Oh, to be in England now that polls are near
At least one person of Sri Lankan ancestry is vying for a seat in the House of Commons as the UK heads for a general election in about three weeks from now. The Conservative Party candidate for the Cambridge constituency is Chamali Fernando, a confident, smart and articulate barrister who threw in her lot with [...]