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Home » ColumnsField Marshal gets his forex back, but termite shock in bank vault
The Finance Ministry recently granted permission to release USD 527,000 and 100 Sterling Pounds that Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka had received as campaign donations when he contested for the presidency in 2010. The money had been held in a private bank account, and the funds were later frozen. Field Marshal [...]
Still a dependent nation
My dear Mother Lanka, I am writing to you today as you mark 76 years of ‘independence’ from Britain. I don’t think we can call it a celebration because, we were ‘dependent’ only on that country then whereas now, we are dependent on India, China and the IMF, so I don’t know what this ‘independence’ [...]
SLT Chairman’s resignation raises questions with regard to role of professionals
The standoff between President Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sri Lanka Telecom Chairman Reyaz Mihular leading to the reconstitution of the Telecom Board made headlines last week and caused ripples in the business sector. Mihular one of Sri Lanka’s top professionals showed professionalism and courage in refusing to withdraw the case filed by Sri Lanka Telecom against [...]
76 years of economic and social development: Failures and achievements
On this 76th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s independence, there are many reasons to be disappointed about the country’s economic performance, political developments, and social conditions. It is a tale of missed opportunities and underperformance. Expectations The hopes and expectations for the country’s economic, political, and social development were high at independence. It was a model [...]
A minister’s arrest amidst a new law promising political vengeance, not online safety
Amidst furore over the long delayed arrest of Sri Lanka’s former Health (and currently Environment) Minister implicated with his senior officials in the scandalous procurement of substandard human immunoglobulin, the certification of the Online Safety Act, No 9 of 2024 by the Speaker this Thursday plunges the country into new and dangerously untried depths of [...]
Was old man Lanka scraping coconuts for 76 years of life?
Lanka won freedom in India’s pain, at the cost of perishing in her own For the last 76 years, we have been celebrating an independence won in India’s pain, with the prospect, as these last seven decades of being the sole masters of our fate have amply shown, of perishing in our own. Today’s celebrations [...]
New faces in new places and more political mallung
Well, that was not a bad idea after all. Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, whichever part of the political hotch-potch he occupies right now one cannot be sure, told a state-run newspaper the other day, that this country’s political landscape surely needs some weeding and pesticiding, to coin a word. At the tail-end of an interview published [...]
CC and President on collision course again
Constitutional Council rejects President’s nominee for vacancy in Supreme Court; tussle looms between executive and legislature President meets SLPP and other pro-Govt. groups for election-related talks; SLPP wants one-on-one with him SJB protest draws smaller crowd than expected, but police attack and Online Safety Act portrayed as anti-democratic By Our Political Editor For a second [...]
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