Columns
Home » ColumnsSriLankan flight makes emergency landing at Kunming
A SriLankan Airlines flight (UL 829) doing its finals to land at the Kunming International Airport in China was forced to abort after the flaps malfunctioned. After carrying out emergency drills, the Airbus A 320 pilot later made an emergency landing. Fire engines and rescue crew were on standby. Since then, the aircraft remained on [...]
Relations between SLFP and UNP further strained; one minister accused of blocking probes and informing Rajapaksas
Three senior ministers meet Sirisena to express concern over PM being summoned by the Bond Commission Senior civil society activist attacks Government for delaying probes on major corruption President also asks why action was not taken and says he is ready to quit at anytime Arjuna, Dhammika widely blamed for petrol crisis; while minister blames [...]
The blue-green Budget presented
My dear Mangala, I thought I must write to you because you are in the news these days after delivering your ‘mangala’- or maiden – budget this week. I’m sure there will be enough pundits who will analyse the pros and cons of the Budget in the days to come, but congratulations anyway for doing [...]
Clean, lean, green, no-frills Mangala Budget
Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera stuck to his promise to keep his maiden Budget clean, lean and green by presenting a no-frills Budget, at the heart of which is an environmentally sustainable development strategy. The Budget came at a time when the country was reeling under a petrol shortage, enabling lawmakers of the Joint opposition (JO) [...]
Maritime hub: Case for the liberalisation of shipping and freight forwarding
One of the key objectives of the Government’s Vision 2025 is to develop Sri Lanka as a maritime and trading hub for the Indian Ocean, fully leveraging its conducive geographic location. Accordingly, significant investments have been made in the country’s physical infrastructure, particularly in the Hambantota Port and the Colombo Port, with further development of [...]
Environmental-friendly budget must achieve fiscal deficit target for economic stability and growth
The 2018 Budget speech of Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera on Thursday was a long recitation of programmes to usher in “Enterprise Sri Lanka” and promote an environmental-friendly country. The Minister promised assistance for the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), information technology and technical skills, the expansion of medical education and the reduction of [...]
Enduring snake-charming of a political kind
Can sheer bumbling incompetence bring down a Government? This may be a far from rhetorical question in the months ahead. However what propels this query at this point is not simply the arch tragi-comedy of Sri Lanka’s fuel crisis this week. This had its funny moments with snake charmers and musicians playing at fuel stations [...]
Prime Minister hits for a six Arjuna’s spin attack on LIOC
Potbellied Arjuna Ranatunga may have led the Sri Lankan cricket team to World Cup victory in 1996 and had the nation popping their champagne corks in jubilation but he certainly had the country stumped this week and fulminating when, as Lanka’s Minister of Petrol, he grossly failed to ensure the smooth and steady supply of [...]
So to our perpetual papers and perpetual promises
At first there was the “Pentagon Papers”. That is, of course, if you rightly dismiss Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers as belonging to a different genre. The Pentagon Papers, as it was called, was a top secret study by the US Department of Defence of the country’s 20 years or more of military-political involvement in Vietnam [...]