With three weeks to go for the National New Year, if there is one word that would encapsulate the preoccupation of Sri Lankans in the past many months, it is 'war'.
External shocks were very much the causes for the sorry state of our external finances. This is indisputable. Recent external shocks came in two waves that were diverse and dissimilar. At first it was the sharp rises in oil and commodity prices.
The growing disunity among members of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) found its way into parliament chambers last week, with government members having a field day at the expense of an opposition that seems to be in disarray.
Erskine May's classic definition of parliamentary privilege as the "sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by (the) House collectively and by members individually in order to enable the proper carrying out of constitutional functions," (Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, 22nd Ed, London Butterworths, 1997) fits a parliamentary order that we are unfortunately quite unfamiliar with.
When a Sri Lankan expatriate invites his friends for a family wedding in the US these days, he is likely to provide two options on the invitation card. The request is to check one: ( ) will attend or ( ) unable to attend (read: lost all my savings with Madoff and/or Kotelawela?).
