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Home » ColumnsPresident vows to send corrupt politicians to hell
The prosecution of allegedly corrupt politicians has been the topic of political debates for the past three years, and it intensified in recent weeks with the release of the Bond Commission report which implicates some senior politicians. President Maithripala Sirisena on Thursday, addressing an election campaign rally of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in [...]
When in doubt, sing loud
My dear Maithri, I didn’t think that I would be writing to you so soon after congratulating you on your third anniversary in the top job but the events of the past two weeks suggest that I must, especially because we are all quite confused about what is going on between the Blues and the [...]
2018 crucial for strengthening foreign reserves to meet massive debt repayment in 2019
Improvement of the current account of the balance of payments is vital to strengthen the country’s external finances to enable repayment of the massive foreign debt repayment in 2019. Alternatively, further foreign borrowing to repay debt would increase future foreign debt liabilities. What are the prospects of a substantial surplus in the current account of [...]
A reflection on accountability, march hares and madness
An interesting pro-accountability exercise took place in Sri Lanka this week which went largely unnoticed due to political distractions. These doltish distractions ranged from a ‘withdrawal of a withdrawal of’ a long forgotten excise notification forbidding women to buy liquor to ominous grandstanding by leaders of the coalition government even as details of the Central [...]
A plague on all these houses
Members of that edifice by the Diyawanna Oya met the other day to exchange views on the much-awaited Bond Commission — to employ a convenient abbreviation — report. But instead of exchanging opinion some decided to exchange blows. How like politicians who have much on their minds and little in their heads. It was not [...]
The issue: A woman’s right to drink the wine of equality
Last Wednesday, January 10, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera used his broom to do a spot of spring cleaning and to clear the Lankan household of the cobwebs that had long clogged the nation’s march to becoming a modern state. Boldly he used the powers at his command to brush away the tangled web of hypocrisy [...]