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Home » ColumnsPresident, PM to review Defence Secretary’s directive
President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will have a one-on-one meeting next week, when both are in the country, to discuss a Ministry of Defence directive that has caused embarrassment to the UNF Government. The directive for the first time since independence, issued by the Defence Secretary Karunasena Hettiaratchchi, had debarred military personnel [...]
Alleged war crimes: PM announces probe will be domestic, no foreign judges
Decision conveyed to senior Army officers, details soon, but TNA unhappy Geneva Resolution watered down Armed services to return more private lands to civilians, high-powered Office of Missing Persons to be set up Government to raise funds through international bonds, under interest-free Islamic banking system The United National Front Government’s final position on the UN mandated probe on [...]
A watery end
My dear Nazeer, I thought I must write to you even though, this time last week if someone asked me who ‘Nazeer Ahamed’ was, I would have said, ‘maybe a Pakistani cricketer’. Now, you might say ‘who the hell are you to write to me?’ and ask whether I knew the ‘protocol’, but I feel [...]
House echoes to ‘Talk Show’ on relief measures and disaster management
MPs across the board struck a conciliatory note this week during a special sitting of Parliament to discuss the damage caused by floods and landslides in the country, and the relief measures for thousands of people affected by the disaster. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa made a rare appearance in Parliament at Wednesday’s sitting and said [...]
Population increase poses serious economic and social challenges
The increase in Sri Lanka’s population to 25 million by 2042 and 25.8 million by 2062 poses serious economic and social challenges. Even at present with a population of 21 million the Island is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. With an increase in population to 25 million the population density [...]
An angry call for a selective deluge
Exasperated by the peccadilloes of the ‘yahapalanaya’ (good governance) administration in pulling back on its promises to punish the corrupt in the South and bring justice to those who had suffered in the North, a colleague of mine advocated this week in an angry communication that Colombo’s flood waters should have advanced further than merely [...]
Disaster and joy, realities in life
People wish to live happily without fear and sadness. Not only for us but it is natural for any country to undergo difficulties, privations and hardship. Buddhism teaches the doctrine of the Eightfold path and how we are to live by it. The occurrence of floods and landslides is nothing new to us. But this [...]
Money down the babbling brook by the banks of the Diyawanna
It’s the sacred temple where a people’s sovereignty lies enshrined. The supreme edifice of a secular democratic state. The gilded pagoda from whence the people’s power emanates. The fountain from which all legal enactments spring. The podium where national issues are debated discussed and distilled. The law factory and the talking shop, packed into a [...]
This mad, mad world of yahapalanaya
Would you believe it! Would anybody with a thinking process still in working order believe it? Well you better believe it my friend. Did you not know that Sri Lanka is under the benevolent star of yahapalanaya. So whatever happens and however inexplicable it may seem to the average mind, it is all for the [...]