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Home » ColumnsA lack of leadership prevails
My dear Gota maamey, I thought of writing to you because many people are worried about what is happening in Paradise – and as the captain of the ship of state, most people are blaming you. Of course, the coronavirus is not your fault, but the way it is being managed is what is causing [...]
Typos in WHO report trigger fake news; Health Minister hails removal
Something strange occurred when the World Health Organisation’s Sri Lanka office took down two critical reports compiled by an Independent Group of Experts from its website. WHO-Sri Lanka issued a notice on Wednesday saying; “WHO has not released any recommendations on the COVID-19 quarantine curfew or issued any statement to the media on the matter. [...]
Jacinda Arden’s inspirational and humane leadership worthy of emulation
The incident in which a ‘Lone Wolf’ attacker stabbed and wounded at least six shoppers at the Countdown Supermarket at Lynn Mall in the Auckland district of New Lynn on Friday afternoon, rightly earned universal condemnation. According to media reports the unnamed and unidentified individual had been a person of interest since 2016 and the [...]
Trade-off between containing COVID and keeping the economy functioning
The choice between a complete shutdown of the country for an extended period to contain the spread of COVID or not to do so to keep the economy functioning is a hard choice. People must work to live but people must live to work. This is the dilemma countries all over the world are faced [...]
Emergency; from a ferocious lion to a grinning Cheshire cat?
In decades of the dreaded Public Security Ordinance (PSO) in Sri Lanka, this is perhaps the first time that the use of this law has been justified by the Office of the President as necessary to ensure the availability of staples such as rice, dhal and sugar to the populace at reasonable prices. ‘Does it [...]
Economic emergency to squash food hoardings
On Monday, by midnight gazette, the President invoked the provisions of the Public Security Ordinance, effectively placing the country under a state of emergency. The proclamation stated that this was being done to ensure the supply of essential food. Accordingly, in terms of Section 5, imposing Part II of the Ordinance took effect throughout [...]
Judges seminar leaves unanswered questions
Justice Minister Ali Sabry’s remarks to the media about the recent controversial seminar/webinar for lower court judges and magistrates left enough loopholes to drive a couple of bull elephants through. Either he had a bad brief or his defence was as leak-proof as a sieve. Whichever was the case, it not only left a bad [...]
Oil prices: No short-term solutions in Gammanpila’s booklet
Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila in preparation to face the No -Confidence Motion against him by the Samagi Jana Balawegaya had prepared the groundwork for the challenge by publishing a 56-page booklet called the ‘Indana Mila Sanshodanaye Eththa Kathawa‘ or the ‘True story of the fuel price revision’. Minister Gammanpila circulated the booklet not only among [...]
How will the economic crisis be resolved?
Everyone is aware that the country is in an economic crisis. Especially that we are facing a severe crisis in foreign finances. Low foreign reserves have to meet foreign debt repayment obligations and pay for essential imports. When and how will the Government resolve the crisis in external finances? Problems compounded The difficulties in external [...]
Farmers’ goosebumps as fields go cold turkey
If expectations had been raised to fever pitch among farmers that Basil Rajapaksa’s return to Lanka last month to assume the nation’s financial reins would see reversed a presidential ban on chemical fertiliser, they were swiftly flayed when the Government’s media division announced two weeks ago that the new Minister of Finance had no intention [...]
Opposition gets kicked in its butt
These days when allusions to military doings of one sort or the other seem quite au fait, a reference to the charge of the Light Brigade is quite in place surely. Especially so if it refers to the ill-conceived and thoughtless actions of the SJB-led opposition that charged at the solid phalanx of the government [...]
The very great harm of the PTA and lessons from history
To a protesting (Sinhalese) Stalin, (or for that matter, a Marx or Lenin), who is released along with comrades following public outrage and street anger after unjustifiable detention by the police using Sri Lanka’s covid-19 health protocols, there are a hundred others who languish in squalid detention under the country’s savagely inhumane anti-terrorism laws. Health [...]
SJB, UNP leaders pow- wow in the making?
Nuwara Eliya Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Palani Thigambaram has been missing from Parliament in recent months. It turned out that he had been abroad on a personal visit and on three-months leave from sittings. He returned to the country early this month and attended a meeting at Sirikota, headquarters of the United National Party [...]
How will the economic crisis be resolved?
The country is in a multiplicity of inter-related and intertwined crises and widespread social upheavals. Apart from solutions to the specific grievances, drastic changes in economic policies are required to ensure financial and economic stability. Social unrest Protests and social upheavals due to severe economic difficulties, unavailability of fertiliser, protests against the charging of fees [...]
On militarised universities and a government’s harebrained folly
Friday (July 16th) was an eventful day for Sri Lanka. Just as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was holding forth to obediently head-nodding members of the Maha Sangha comprising the Government’s Buddhist Advisory Council gathered at the Presidential Secretariat, on his firm intent to proceed with enactment of the Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) Bill before Parliament, students [...]
Litro Gas fiasco yet to be resolved
It is both inconceivable and incomprehensible that laws are applied selectively in a democratic society where the Constitution itself postulates that all are equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection of the law. When such selective application applies to individuals the norms of justice stand violated. When such violations relate to larger [...]
Government hoping for near normalcy by September amid multitude of challenges
Plans to vaccinate all under 30 within next 75 days; military playing key role in battle against pandemic Basil moves fast into forefront of policy making and diplomacy; meets top envoys for a balancing act vis-à-vis China Govt. throws full weight behind Gammanpila as he faces no-confidence motion next week; Cabinet reshuffle put on hold [...]
Saving the gentleman’s game
My dear Namal baby, I thought I should write to you because everyone is concerned about something that is very near and dear to most of us and they are relying on you to ensure that it stays that way. No, I am not thinking of the ‘Royal family’ of which you are the Crown [...]
Govt’s ‘Aloysius Special’ poured back to the bottle
A whopping one for the road was offered on the house by the Excise Department two weeks ago to ‘bond scam’ first accused Arjun Aloysius to help the fallen financial magnate revive his ailing liquor firm W.M. Mendis & Company Ltd and get his arrack distillery back on the production line. The deal done with [...]
Course correction on the cards
Cometh the miracle man: Accolades and bouquets from members and supporters of the party that the new finance minister put together from scratch continue. Like the three “Wise Men” who followed the star to Bethlehem, envoys from countries near and far have trekked to the Finance Ministry to meet the man tasked with uplifting the [...]
Proactive professionalism the need of the hour as public unease on the rise
Foreign Ministry slow in handling Sri Lanka’s response to tough resolution in the US Congress Has the Ministry outsourced policymaking to the Pathfinder Foundation? Cardinal launches his strongest attack on the Govt; calls for course correction before further damage is done to the country Medical specialists say death toll and casualty figures are underreported in [...]
Waiting for that second opinion
My dear Sudarshini, It is not often that I write to two doctors in two weeks, but I had to write to you this week, after writing to Doctor Padeniya last week. That is because these are difficult times when medical issues have brought the country a standstill, and you are one of the many [...]
Promoting organic agriculture: Repercussions of the fertiliser ban
The Government’s decision to ban chemical fertiliser and pesticides immediately to promote a green agriculture in the island has serious repercussions on the economy and livelihoods of people. The Government should consider the economic consequences of banning chemical fertilisers immediately and adopt a phased introduction of organic agriculture on scientific principles. Economic consequences An immediate [...]
Use electoral reforms at local government level to promote national unity
Sri Lanka was one of the earliest countries to be granted universal franchise. Since 1931 all citizens above the age of 21, (and since 1959 all those above the age of 18)have got accustomed to electing their representatives to the different arms of government at periodic elections. With the voters’ willingness to defeat incumbent governments [...]
Sri Lanka’s version of Dante’s inferno and the ruination of this land
As the stricken X-Press Pearl lays waste to Sri Lanka’s marine environment including one hundred and twenty five kilometres of prized coastline from Chilaw and Negombo to Bentota and Galle in a veritable modern replay of Dante’s Inferno, is there enough money to calculate as fair compensation? Will no one punish these wastrels? The country [...]
Lanka: The burning pearl
A raging inferno at sea and disaster clusters on land: Has all hell simultaneously broken loose in Paradise? It seems as though this once thrice blessed nation has been rendered bereft of its four guardian deities and left, naked and bare, to the mercy of incessant calamities to strike at will with wanton impudence. Such [...]
It is madder than you think
As though Sri Lanka’s Government did not have multiple problems in its hands that appear to be getting more complex by the day, there enters a ship into our territorial waters. That is not surprising, for Colombo Port accommodates many from different parts of the world, even a suddenly surfacing Chinese submarine as happened in [...]
As public discontent mounts, bungling in diplomatic issues
Moragoda goes to India as High Commissioner, but New Delhi refuses to accept his ‘cabinet-rank’ status New York mission chief Mohan Peiris not present at important August sessions of UNSC where India presided and took up key issues of concern for Sri Lanka Emergency declared to provide essential food items at affordable prices, but traders [...]
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