With the prices of essential items rising and the cost of living soaring, Colombo’s Main Street which normally
bustles for the National New Year, was almost empty yesterday as shown in this picture. Pic by Mangala Weerasekera.
The Executive Board of Directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meets tomorrow (Monday) for a crucial session to decide on the final tranche of a US$2.6 billion loan to Sri Lanka.
The political leadership in any other institutional democracy would have fired General V.K. Singh in the wake of his relentless fusillade of revelations targeting the government -- the latest salvo being the leaked letter to the Prime Minister in which he presented a grim picture of the force's battle-preparedness.
The sun is scorching, beating down on the turf with merciless fury. There is no wind and the air is still. A heart-stopping silence deafens the Galle International Cricket Stadium as the ball meets the willow of the bat, soars through the air…and is caught by an English fielder. The crowd erupts and the loudest of all cheers comes our way.
Once a cricketing higher-up speaking ‘off the record’ was explaining how the Indian delegation came to the ICC executive committee meeting and spoke against the Decision Review System (DRS) with its own version of defence and called the new system the ‘Dravid Removal System’.
On the 7th March 2012 the Interact Club Of Stafford International School (ICSIS) embarked on ‘Health Camp 2012”,set in the remote village of Nammuwawa in Nikaweratiya. Yet a project forecast to be a simple service to the less fortunate turned out to be more phenomenal than any interactor expected.
The annual “Health Camp” has been a Community.
Now that the dust has almost settled, following the hectic campaign to first ward off and then to defeat a US-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC in Geneva, the question that keeps popping up is; "what is the Government's position vis-à-vis the LLRC report?"
If the debacle at Geneva last week was bad enough for President Mahinda Rajapaksa, some of the things some of his Ministers are saying in public are making matters worse for him.
So now the truth is plain to see, unvarnished and appalling in its consequences for Sri Lanka. The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), says the Government at a press briefing this week, has exceeded its mandate and therefore only those recommendation that are 'feasible' will be implemented.
So geographically close, but politically so far. A whole generation had grown up unable to visit the North and parts of the Eastern province of Lanka, during the 26 years of civil war. It is therefore not surprising that the region which was out of bounds, holds a special interest for all Lankans.
I rumble along the
unending track, along the iron rails,
Far below, a solitary truck leaves a wisp of smoke in its trail,
As I pass a massive gnarled tree,
Wistful recollections
awaken within me.
