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Home » ColumnsRajapaksa slams Govt. as “Yahapalana dictatorship”
The rustic mansion along Colombo’s Gregory’s Road, a stone’s throw away from the British High Commission, has been home for some of Sri Lanka’s colourful personalities of recent times. It was the official residence for one of the country’s illustrious Foreign Ministers, the late Lakshman Kadirgamar. Maithripala Sirisena, the then Minister of Health, lived there [...]
Like waiting for Godot
My dear Mahinda maama, I thought I must write to you after some time when I heard that you are about to launch a new political party that would challenge the Blues, the Greens and even the Reds. This is despite having been a Blue party man all your life. You are certainly taking a [...]
Sports Minister batters journalist at Jaffna event
The conduct of the National Sports festival this year was historic. This was the first time in 42 years that it was held in Jaffna. On the penultimate day of the event, media personnel were invited to dinner at a popular hotel in Jaffna. After covering the day’s events, they reached the hotel around 9 [...]
MPs’ Code of Conduct a must; LG Minister found wanting
While the rather ambitious Code of Conduct (CoC) for Members of Parliament (MP), made public a few months ago, continues to lie in cold storage, the serious question of what could be deemed a conflict of interests came to light during Question Time (QT) in the House on Tuesday. Minister of Provincial Councils and Local [...]
Judicial upholding of the right not to be violated
Last week’s affirming by the Supreme Court of a female school teacher’s constitutionally protected right to talk to the media in the face of prolonged sexual harassment and intimidation at a leading educational establishment in Colombo calls for a multipronged deterrent approach to an all-pervasive problem in Sri Lanka. Emphasizing two broad principles of value [...]
From MDGs to SDGs: Can Sri Lanka be a model for implementing the SDGs?
Most countries have achieved the landmark UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).World leaders agreed on these goals 15 years ago in order to tackle poverty and climate change and to pave the way towards a more gender equal global society. The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been accepted by the world as the way forward [...]
Arise and grow more food
Food is essential. Though we had terrorism and war, few people died of hunger. We often do not give much thought to our plate of rice. Our colonial masters drew us into the habit of eating wheat flour products at a time when most of us were having three meals of rice. They are now [...]
Double standards – here’s more of the same
Last Sunday I was prompted to write about the double standards practised by Britain after reading reports of the lucrative arms trade she pursues with countries that have little compunction in turning the same weaponry against their own people or neighbours. Those media reports mainly drew attention to arms deals with Saudi Arabia which is [...]
5 billion buck bond bonanza: Gosh, didn’t they do well?
Perhaps it was beginner’s luck. Or how else do you explain the phenomenal killing made by a three-year-old company in the cut-throat world of bond business? But whatever the reasons may have been, the initial euphoria must be for the rest of Lanka’s 20 million people to take their beggared hands out of their centless [...]