Columns
Home » ColumnsWhitewashing his sins with his version of “Uneven Justice”
Calling himself the “respectful founder” of the “iconic” hedge fund, Galleon Group, he shamed the Sri Lankan-American community by what he did. Now, he tries to ‘whitewash’ himself by saying he was framed by corrupt FBI agents who wiretapped him, New York’s prosecutors who accused him of “greed” but went on to work for private [...]
Pandora Papers should galvanise campaign for change in the global financial regime
Less than two weeks have passed since the story of the Pandora papers hit the headlines. Practically all sections of the media focussed on the story which was the result of intensive and meticulous tracking by the International Consortium of Journalists (ICIJ). As the two weeks end the sensational revelations no longer even occupy the [...]
Where’s that brain of the bunch?
My dear Basil maamey, I thought I must write to you this week because your name is being heard in relation to several issues that are being talked about in the country these days – and most people are looking to you to solve these issues because we have been told that you are the [...]
Fresh economic thinking and pragmatic policies imperative
Economic difficulties reaching crisis proportions are clear evidence that the Government’s policies have failed. Some commentators have said that we are in a predicament that can lead to situations like in Myanmar, Argentina or Lebanon. Fitch Ratings has downgraded the economy to a cc- level, close to one of insolvency. Recognition of crisis Recognising the [...]
‘If they do not have rice, let them have milk rice?’
If the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition of 2015-2019 was tone deaf to outraged mutterings of the citizenry at the time, surely the Rajapaksa-Rajapaksa-Rajapaksa government of 2020 onwards must be wholly dumb, deaf and blind to the roars of fury exploding in their favoured constituencies in Sri Lanka. On splendid ironies and political victories As farmers who once [...]
Will the new constitution be worse than the known devil?
Ever since President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga damned the present J.R. Jayewardene constitution in the late 90’s as a ‘bahubhutha’ or the devil’s constitution, the notion has festered in the collective public conscious that the stumbling block preventing Lanka’s leap to prosperity from the pits of poverty is the 1978 supreme charter. Since then, every successive [...]
Creating more confusion over Pandora
Now that there is far less accumulated garbage as families buy less household needs even if commodities are available, that yawning gap is being filled with verbal garbage spewing from the lips of our political worthies. Not that political garbage emanating from that great Hall of Fame by the Diyawanna Oya is something new. Oh [...]