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Home » ColumnsBritish firm may get contract on migration to e-passport
The Government is to hire a leading British firm specialising in currency printing and is in partnership now to prepare the groundwork for electronic passports for Sri Lankans. This new generation travel document will contain in a microchip the holder’s biometric data in electronic format. The University of Moratuwa has just completed a comprehensive assessment [...]
UNP, SLFP agree to disagree as MoU comes to an end
UNP’s problems continue with No Confidence motion against Rajitha Senaratne President agrees to the demand for the removal of Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe from the Cabinet Strong moves by SLFP to retain executive presidency; Sirisena may contest again; UNP has fall-back option The clock was ticking away towards midnight signalling the dawn of Tuesday when President [...]
Giving the game away
My dear Wije, I thought I must write to you this week, as you seem to have lost your job, although it is still not clear whether you were sacked or whether you resigned. Whatever it was, I heard someone say that the government is now two down, with forty five more to get – [...]
A minister’s removal cannot heal the ‘beggars wound’ of high corruption
The agitated pleas of the ruling United National Party (UNP) parliamentarians that they became ‘fully aware’ of former Justice Minister Wijayadasa Rajapakshe allegedly stalling corruption cases against the Rajapaksa clan only now, must be taken with more than a pinch of that proverbial salt. Overstepping the line a long time ago That explanation, as rich [...]
IMF cautions on possible slippages in fiscal consolidation, public debt management and monetary policy
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) considers the expected economic growth of 4.7 per cent this year acceptable owing to the floods and drought that impacted adversely on the economy. However, in its latest Staff Country Report it cautions against any future increasing of public debt and revenue slippage and stresses the need for careful debt [...]
Exit Wijeyadasa as JO takes aim at Rajitha drilled by JVP for starters
With the Govt of National Unity completing two years in office, growing pains seem to be setting in with the shaky arrangement between the UNP and the SLFP becoming shakier. The euphoria of August 21, 2015, the day Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn into office, along with the Cabinet of Ministers, has long evaporated [...]
Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe: Hail the new sawdust filled martyr in town
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends and country. In Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe’s case it wasn’t his life that he was prepared to lay down but the ministerial positions he held; and which he, with disdain, declared as but a trifle – one he could and [...]
Too many cooks and what a soup
Unable to fathom the disastrous performance of our cricket team in all forms of the game a Sri Lankan cricket lover here asked me the other day what was worse-our cricket or our politics. Had the question been formulated differently I would have unhesitatingly said both. Alas this left no option but to ask him [...]