Columns
Home » ColumnsInadequate export performance with undiversified export structure
Despite high economic growth, the country’s export performance has been inadequate in recent decades. Although the structure of exports changed from one of exporting primary agricultural commodities to a more diversified one in which manufactured exports are significant, manufactured exports are highly concentrated on garments. The country’s export performance and export structure are discussed today [...]
SLFP battle-lines drawn for May Day showdown
This New Year dawns on a note of uncertainty for many politicians, with an extremely fluid situation prevailing in parliamentary politics. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is up for debate tomorrow (20th) and the day after (21st) but it seems unlikely that a vote on it will be taken. Party leaders who met on [...]
Giving with one hand and taking with the other?
Constitution-making exercises in Sri Lanka are generally a coyly deceptive dance of appearing to give much but actually conceding very little. And for too long, we have suffered from a peculiar obsession with keeping rights away from the people. This is not an affliction limited to a particular political era or to individuals of greater [...]
Sirisena torn between his promise of 19A and SLFP’s 20A
The ruling coalition will cross a milestone on Wednesday when it ends 100 days in office with some promises and pledges remaining unfulfilled and triggering an erosion of its support base in such short a time. Nowhere is it reflected more than in the solemn pledge to deal with bribery, corruption and misrule. Though such a [...]
Out of the red and into the wilderness
My dear Somawansa sahodaraya, I thought I must write to you when I heard you announcing that you were resigning from the party of the rathu sahodarayas. Having not heard from you for many months and believing that you had retired when Anura sahodaraya took over the leadership of your party, this came as quite [...]
Alleged Rs. 600 million fraud to buy ‘gifts’ before Presidential poll: TRC in trouble
The Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID), set up by the ruling coalition, is now probing a case where funds amounting to Rs. 600 million were transferred to the Presidential Secretariat from the Telecom Regulatory Commission (TRC). The money has allegedly been used by three different contractors to buy “gifts” for pre-identified persons before the January 8 [...]
No comeback for Mahinda as all roads lead to dead ends
If it was the closest Ranil Wickremesinghe would get to be President all but in name, it was the nearest Mahinda Rajapaksa could have reached to enjoy executive powers again in a new role as prime minister and act as de facto president. But with the Supreme Court dictated dilution that redefined the 19th Amendment, [...]
Miliband’s views smack of blatant bias and hypocrisy
Many years ago when TV was new to Sri Lanka, one of the programmes telecast was an obviously low-budget series called Ed the Talking Horse. On and off I used to watch this for want of anything better on TV. How was I to know that some decades later I would come across another talking [...]