The Sunday Times Sri Lanka

Columns

Political Column

It was past noon on December 1, the day when the countdown to Christmas begins. Freezing temperatures and thin sheets of ice on the streets, some covered with snow, lent the ideal storybook backdrop for a white Christmas in Britain. At London's plush Mayfair district, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was in the Harlequin Suite at the five-star Dorchester Hotel. It was in this very suite that Elizabeth Taylor received the news of her record-breaking, multi-million pound deal to star in the epic Cleopatra and the suite still glows with Hollywood glamour.

5th Column

Blaming is so easy; convincing so difficult

My dear Karu,

I thought of writing to you because you seem to be in the news these days, being branded as the latest ‘deshadrohiya’ that has betrayed our country.

The Economic Analysis

Economic policies for rapid growth

Does the Budget for 2011 give a clear indication of the direction of the economic policies of the government for the rest of its regime? The answer to this question is more important than the details of the Budget proposals. Whatever be the ideological orientation of the government or its promises at election time; and no matter what the expectations of the people are, the stark reality is that the government has accepted basically the economic policies that it condemned earlier. However there are some internal inconsistencies too in its policy strategy.

Lobby

Treachery charge a red herring at debate

President Mahinda Rajapaksa may have lost the opportunity to address the Oxford Union due to protests by his detractors but when he came to Parliament on Friday to wind up the debate on the 2011 Budget, he did not shy away from pointing the finger at whom he thought was responsible for sabotaging the event.

Focus on Rights

Did we have to leap at Oxford’s invitation?

Certainly, the unholy glee displayed by this government when the Oxford Union invited President Mahinda Rajapaksa to address the Union for the second time around, sat oddly with its much vaunted homespun rule from Medamulana, not to mention the manifest dismissal of all things western with immediate contempt.

Talk at the Cafe Spectator

Pottinger: The bell tolls for Lanka

Kevin Murray, Chairman of the Bell Pottinger Group, hired by the Government of Sri Lanka to do public relations and diplomacy in Britain, just side by side with the High Commission in London, has this to say to his 600-odd clients: "Our clients come to us when they need to build great reputations, win more customers, increase sales and build brands. We have helped them to be talked about positively in the print and broadcast media and on the web, and created active brand advocates in social media…."

From the Sidelines

Britannia waives the rules - selectively

The ripples caused by the sudden cancellation of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s scheduled Oxford Union address are yet to subside. The usual deadpan, poker-faced denials were duly issued by the British High Commission in Colombo, asserting there was no British government involvement in the fiasco. The British authorities could not have been unaware of the trouble that was brewing and that it related to arrangements connected with a visit by a Commonwealth head of state, but they chose to avert their eyes.

Column By Gomin Dayasiri

Learning lessons at Oxford

Lessons Learnt and Reconcile. It's not the commission sitting at Horton Place rather a lesson of a lifetime learnt at Oxford. Pilgrimage to Oxford is a trek to a colonial bygone; paying homage to an educational enclave for kittens of fat cats with stuffed purses mostly of mid-eastern breeds that attracts more gravitation than heavy academic magnets.