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Home » ColumnsMangala: From five-star cuisine to Buth packet farewell at FO canteen
Hopping from one world capital to another when he was Foreign Minister of the ruling coalition, Mangala Samaraweera has savoured the sumptuous delicacies crafted by the world’s renowned Michelin chefs with multi stars and those in Cordon Bleu aprons. That is when he brushed shoulders with his then counterparts, world dignitaries and even Heads of [...]
Black Friday for disaster victims; Rs 369m for MPs
Rs 1,200 million since March for luxury vehicles; Rs 1,000 million to reconstruct houses destroyed by floods, landslides in Kegalle District in 2016 By Chandani Kirinde- Lobby Correspondent To say it is ironic would be an understatement, that, on a day the country is faced with a huge natural disaster, the Govt appeals for international [...]
No fully fledged reshuffle, Govt. faces more burdens
President’s much-awaited changes just quid pro quo between SLFP and UNP More changes among ministers, deputies and state ministers likely as Sirisena shows who the boss is Amid new flood catastrophe, public debt soars to more than Rs. 9,387 million; PM appoints economic experts to study the debt situation By Our Political Editor Exactly a [...]
A cabinet reshuffle
My dear Reshuffled Ministers, I thought I must write to you because I assumed that you must be as confused as I am about this reshuffle. It was a long time coming but when it finally saw the light of day, I daresay it was a damp squib, with you lot playing musical chairs and [...]
Mind the trade gap to avoid a balance of payments crisis
The widening trade gap in the first few months of this year poses serious difficulties for the balance of payments. The trade gap that has been increasing in recent years has widened still further in the first two months of this year to US$ 1.73 billion and is expected to increase to nearly US$ 1.9 [...]
Caught between grinning devils and incompetent imbeciles
Caught between the grinning devil of Rajapaksa racism and the incompetent (if not corrupt) deep blue sea of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe unity alliance, Sri Lankans are increasingly being left helpless. Is this not obscene conduct? With the passing of each day, examples abound of this odious dilemma. It is the height of callousness for example, that [...]
Bodu Bala bogeyman bares bigotry’s evil breast again
Phantoms raised from comatose state to dance once more on Lanka’s grave It was, probably, the shortest sathyakriya – the assertion of truth – ever undertaken by any man in search of martyrdom. But when injustice protests its innocence and demands its continuance in the outer precincts of the Sri Dalada, it’s no wonder the [...]
Britain mourns while Sri Lanka groans
It was a week of tragedy and farce. Here in the UK death came suddenly and unexpectedly one night last week. The country went into mourning as the single biggest suicide bomb attack in the UK brought home a reality. Home grown terrorism is as alive here as transnational terrorism which has taken root in [...]