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Home » ColumnsHuge ali dung fraud at Pinnawala
Presidential probe may lead to charges against senior officials of National Zoological Gardens Dept. A massive Rs. 74 million fraud involving elephant dung has been going on at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage for the past three years and the National Zoological Gardens Department’s senior officials are likely to face charges. The findings were made by [...]
The economy’s performance in a turbulent political environment
Recent months were a period of political confusion and chaos. What we may experience in the months ahead could be worse than political instability. It could be a continuation of the chaotic and confusing political environment. Hopefully the two main parties of the coalition have learnt the lessons of their folly and will make an [...]
Mirissa and Midigama attacks reflect Sri Lanka’s brutal realities
At the height of the impunity that prevailed during the Rajapaksa Presidency, it was questioned in these column spaces as to whether one needed to be a foreigner in order to claim the protection of the law in Sri Lanka? The ugliness that Sri Lanka descended to This question was specifically raised at the time [...]
Voting to opt out
My dear ‘Gang of Sixteen’, I thought I must write to you when I heard that you have all quit the government and will sit with the opposition, after voting for the no confidence motion against the Green Man. I am not sure whether I should congratulate you or sympathise with you, because we don’t [...]
How many slaps must Ranil take before he walks alone to triumph?
Let’s face it. The curtain has fallen on the coalition road show. And no public encores echo in the mountains and resound in the valleys demanding it be raised again. That it be lifted to make the two main actors take their curtain calls and make repeated bows before an unappreciative and thoroughly disgusted audience, [...]
The witches’ broth our politicians cook
April, wrote the poet T. S. Eliot, is the cruelest month. Some of our politicians are unlikely to know of Mr. Eliot and his writing even if they lived through several samsaras. Some others might have had a brief encounter with Eliot as they tried to grapple with his imagery while still others would have [...]
Cabinet reshuffle and policy statement among President Sirisena’s priorities
A lesser known fact among most politically literate Sri Lankans was a directive Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe issued to all parliamentarians of his United National Front (UNF) ahead of the National New Year. On Monday April 9 he told them to refrain from criticising the 16 Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MPs who had voted [...]
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