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Home » ColumnsMonkeying around with the evil Hitler
Monks, like others, are not all learned men. While all of them may know the dhamma (though not all of them practise the Buddha’s teaching), their knowledge of history and world affairs, among others, needs to be refreshed. That, of course, is if they had learnt and imbibed such worldly knowledge in their reading and [...]
Can Gota live down ‘Hitler’ slur when wooing the minority vote?
Twenty Twenty presidential hopeful, birthday boy Gotabaya Rajapaksa may have felt somewhat uncomfortable when a monk, no less a personage than the Anunayaka of the Asgiriya Chapter the Venerable Vendaruwe Upali, whom he had invited along with a retinue of other senior monks to his residence for an alms-giving ceremony to celebrate his 69th birthday [...]
Malaysian petroleum project: Angry president reprimands Ranatunga for delaying licences
President Maithripala Sirisena strongly reprimanded Petroleum Resources Development Minister Arjuna Ranatunga at last Tuesday’s weekly ministerial meeting for unduly delaying the issue of licences to a Malaysian firm for a project in Sri Lanka. The Kuala Lumpur-based Hirax Oil Sdn Bhd, manufacturers of petroleum derivatives including lubricants, had already set up a USD10 million production [...]
Mid-Year review: Economic recovery yes, but no robust growth
Today we enter the second half of this year with expectation of a better economic performance than in the first half. The first half of the year has been one of economic recovery, not of robust growth. Hopefully this year’s economic growth would be around 4.5 percent, in spite of the first quarter’s economic growth [...]
If the government does not ‘govern’, summary justice will ensue
Competing for top billing for the most ghastly news headlines this week has been public outrage over rampant robberies and murders by notorious underworld gangs along with feverish speculation over the (possibly apocryphal) list of politicians who accepted money from tainted financier Arjun Aloysius and a fracas over Chinese funding of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s [...]
Feeling the blues
My dear Maithri, It has been some time since I wrote to you last, but I thought I must do so now because you seem to have lost the support of those 16 MPs who voted against the Green Man during the vote of no-confidence. Officially, they have now said they will all support Mahinda [...]
PC polls not likely until major elections are held
Provincial Councils Elections before the year ends, in the wake of the ruling coalition partners’ drubbing at the February 10 local polls, are turning out to be a distant dream. Though the official machinery is moving tardily towards such an event, there were a number of other factors that add to strong uncertainty. One was [...]
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