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Home » ColumnsGone are those days of getting high while flying high
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many restrictions have been placed on the sale, consumption and serving of alcohol. The restrictions have been extended to the national airline as well and weddings by now. Recently, a passenger on the national airline who was travelling from London to Colombo requested the third shot of whisky [...]
Mockery most foul
Gnanasara haamuduruwaney, I thought of writing to you this week to congratulate you on your appointment to chair a Presidential Task Force on having ‘one country one law’. You must be thrilled with this news, especially when you have been chosen over and above many others who have been professionally trained in law. The first [...]
Task force headed by Gnanasara Thera; Pre-determined objectives
The appointment of Venerable Gnanasara thero to head a Presidential Task Force (PTF) raises several issues related to both governance and national reconciliation. An examination of the mandate of the newly appointed PTF reveals that it is required and empowered to (1) Make a study of the implementation of the concept ‘One Country, One Law’ [...]
How can Sri Lanka’s law reformers retain even a semblance of sanity?
Interestingly enough, this week’s Presidential appointment of a controversial monk who once served a jail term for contempt of court, as head of a Presidential Task Force to suggest law reform to bring about ‘one country, one law’ no less, has provoked freewheeling ridicule rather than fury in Sri Lanka. An unkind blow to the [...]
Bodu Bala Boss set to overlord nation’s one law for all concept
Controversial Bodu Bala Sena chief Galagoda-Aththe Gnanasara Thera was appointed this week as the head of a Presidential Task Force to revise the nation’s statute books and usher in an enlightened era of a multicultural, multiethnic society governed by the dictum: One country, one law.’ His appointment was made by an extraordinary gazette issued on [...]
UK tour: Foreign Minister run-out by home side
Poor Gamini Lakshman Peiris, “GL” for short. While his alma mater- the school-by-the-sea-was in the throes of playing the 142nd cricket encounter with a state school that almost did not come off but saved by our usual grit, the foreign minister was in London batting for Sri Lanka. Not that GL is known/for his cricketing [...]
Food shortages soaring prices and lack of fertilisers threaten livelihoods
Sri Lanka’s battered economy is facing several social and political upheavals that have been brought about by the deteriorating economic conditions, ill-advised economic policies, the mismanagement of the economy and the unscientific and impractical policy to suddenly switch to organic agriculture. Food shortages soaring prices and lack of fertilisers threaten livelihoods, while foreign reserves decrease [...]
Govt. seems shaky and on “Code Amber”, faces revolt within
Coalition partners say enough is enough; go public with criticism of Finance Minister for sneaking the Cabinet paper on the controversial deal with US energy firm Opposition parties hit out at appointment of monk as head of one-country-one-law task force, President’s move seen as total embarrassment to Justice Minister Sabry Two young SJB MPs resign [...]
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