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Home » ColumnsCan Gota run for presidency sans Uncle Sam’s courtesy?
Last Sunday the outgoing US Ambassador paid a courtesy call on the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa at his official residence down Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo 7. It was to bid farewell to a person whom the United States Government had publicly labeled as persona non grata – a person who was not welcome in the Bald [...]
If you’re seeking asylum in the US, forget it
Sri Lankans seeking political asylum in the United States be warned. The US is getting increasingly tougher in providing asylum both on political and religious grounds – and even on grounds of human rights violations in the home country. And if the applicant is found to have ties to a “terrorist organisation” either as a [...]
Ambassadorial swing and miss
My Dear US Ambassador Atul, I thought I should write to you because everyone is talking about you when you are about to leave us after spending several years in Paradise. All those years, hardly anyone knew your name and your presence was not felt but all of a sudden, you have become the hot [...]
Sustained economic development undermined by political factors
The inability to achieve a high trajectory of sustained economic growth has been a serious concern. The country appears to be destined to achieve only its ‘autonomous’ rate of growth of 4 to 5 percent in the foreseeable future. The inability of the economy to take off into sustained high growth has been a feature [...]
Does Article 9 of the Constitution stipulate protection of abusive monks?
When irrepressible British satirist, soldier and spy Malcolm Muggeridge said, ‘never to forget that only dead fish swim with the stream’, that warning beautifully underscored the tediousness of drifting in comforting safe shallows without challenging the odds in deeper waters. A woman who challenged the odds This week, the jail term of six months and [...]
Trump’s lavish praise music to Kim’s ears
It was historic, yes. It was unprecedented, yes. But it was more spectacle and little substance. At times it looked like a theatre of the absurd. That is why all Trump’s bluster and bluff could not hide the emptiness of the Joint Declaration signed in Singapore. Only weeks earlier the United States and North Korea [...]
Minister suggests “extra compensation” to include ex-LTTE members and next-of-kin
A United National Party (UNP) Cabinet Minister wants “enhanced compensation” paid to Tiger guerrilla ex-combatants who were defeated in the separatist war that ended in 2009 and their next of kin. Ministers last Tuesday discussed a memorandum by Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Hindu Religious Affairs Minister Deva Manoharan Swaminathan for this purpose. He has recommended that [...]
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