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Home » ColumnsOpposition party shaken by President’s move to allocate funds for some of its MPs
The move to allocate more than Rs. 300 million from the decentralised budget funds to a group of MPs from an opposition party on the instructions of President Ranil Wickremesinghe has set off alarm bells within that party’s hierarchy. The funds had been allocated following “special instructions” from the President and given to several of [...]
A case of the blues
My dear Satellite, I am writing to you after some time. That is after seeing you back in the limelight after many years, dabbling again in the affairs of the Blue Party. The last we heard, you had intervened successfully in court to obtain an order preventing Aiyo Sirisena from functioning as the Chairman of [...]
Expedite investigations into Easter Sunday attacks of April 2019 even at this late stage
Father Cyril Gamini Fernando who is the editor of the Catholic weekly Gnanartha Pradeepaya and also the spokesperson of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith on matters relating to the Easter Sunday attacks, once again visited the CID last week on being summoned to give a statement. After completing his visit to the CID he told the media [...]
Celebrating the New Year amidst economic hardships and deprivations
The National New Year was celebrated this year in the traditional manner of observing nekath, or auspicious times, making kiribath and sweetmeats, and raban playing. From urban areas, workers returned to their villages and united with their families, relatives, and neighbours. It is a festive holiday season when the economy comes to a near halt. [...]
Sri Lanka’s ‘sacred and the profane’ – the privilege of monks who thumb their noses at the law
That a State Minister has called upon President Ranil Wickremesinghe to pardon Gnanasara Thero now serving his most recent sentence of four years handed down by the Colombo High Court last month for ‘outraging religious feelings’ of adherents of the Islamic faith in 2016, should surprise no one. Politico-military-religious impunity No doubt, the State Minister [...]
Tomb Palitha built for himself to spare family bother and expense
Former UNP Deputy Minister Paltha Thewapperuma had no pretensions of being an educated intellectual nor any claim to a distinguished pedigree. He was a grassroots son of the soil, a man of raw impulse who exuded a natural honest-to-goodness rustic air, who never failed to call a spade a spade. A man of the people [...]
India eyes empty island but is that all it wants
India’s new high commissioner to Colombo Santosh Jha is no stranger to Sri Lanka. He served here during the last years of the anti-LTTE war and a while after it ended. So High Commissioner Jha knows this country well enough, though he might need to catch up on the rather confusing state of Sri Lankan [...]
Contradictions over SLPP’s support for President at upcoming poll
Mahinda and Basil Rajapaksa appear to be backing Ranil, but Namal talks about a separate candidate Major parties prepare for May Day as a test of strength for the election SLFP losing its lustre and breaks up into rival factions; Chandrika and Maithripala at odds over who did what for Sirima; Wijeyadasa coming forward as a candidate [...]
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