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Home » ColumnsFive-star Cinnamon Bey and no star kiosks gone with the wind
The fence made from cinnamon sticks – after their bark is scraped and cured as a spice – separates the seafront and the five-star Cinnamon Bey in Beruwala. In many ways, this idyllic location is the microcosm of what the country’s once burgeoning tourist industry faces after the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. This is not just [...]
Sealing in the power
My dear Gota maamey, I thought I must write to you when I saw that you had proposed a 20th Amendment to the Constitution. The details of the amendment were revealed this week and the chances are that, given the two-thirds majority that your ‘pohottuwa’ party now enjoys in the new Parliament, it will see [...]
Progressive taxation vital to reduce fiscal deficit
The reduction of the fiscal deficit is of utmost importance to achieve economic stability, economic growth and social development. The high fiscal deficit has to be reduced by enhancing government revenue through higher direct and indirect taxes that are progressive and fall on the rich and the affluent. VOA 2020 The Vote on Account (VOA) [...]
From lofty ‘vistas of prosperity and splendour’ to ‘elected autocracy’?
When Justice AP Shah remarked recently that, ‘India is moving towards some form of elected autocracy’, he may have been speaking for the entire region and perhaps, swathes of the world in turmoil as it were. Returning Sri Lanka ‘forward to the past’ But the fact that we are not the only comfortless creatures facing [...]
Will the man from death rowkeep his date in Parliament?
Speaker orders Jayasekera to be brought to the House to take his oaths as MP; AG points to constitutional bar A constitutional storm is brewing and is set to explode this week over the vexing question: Can a man found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to be hanged until pronounced dead, walk free from [...]
Trying to trump China
That was a mighty decent thing to do. Though millions of people in his own country and round the globe would seriously decry the use of the word decent, there will be many Sri Lankans, including some of the political fraternity, who would breathe a sigh of relief at Trump’s gift of 200 ventilators to [...]
19A no impediment to smooth functioning of Government
At the time the 1978 Constitution was enacted, the left parties led by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party pointed out the dangers that could befall a developing country like Sri Lanka from the governance structure that the J R Jayewardene Constitution envisaged. Left leaders like Dr N M Perera and Dr [...]
Assertive executive president will officially be given unlimited powers under 20A
New Amendment likely to be presented in Parliament next month; opposition and other groups may challenge it in Supreme Court Experts panel appointed to draft new constitution; TNA concerned that PCs may be abolished; questions over how India will react If soldier-turned-politician Gotabaya Rajapaksa remained President of Sri Lanka for almost ten months with his [...]
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