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The Kandyan Kingdom descends on CIABOC

The “Kingdom of Kandy”-or so it would seem-descended upon the Commission Investigating Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) on Thursday when former Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa went there in response to summons. Angry protesters, led by Buddhist monks and Parliamentarians from the United People’s Freedom Alliance, converged on the road alongside the Commission at Malalasekera Mawatha [...]

Mayday! Mayday! For 19A as MS rallies the UPFA

Mayday! Mayday! For 19A as MS rallies the UPFA

One final attempt will be made by Parliament, in the coming two days, to pass the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, after two previous attempts failed due to disagreements within the UPFA, as well as the fracas caused over the decision to summon former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the Bribery Commission. The 19th Amendment will be [...]

Vital week for Sirisena: Will he make or break the SLFP?

Vital week for Sirisena: Will he make or break the SLFP?

Weeks of political uncertainty that thrust Sri Lanka on the road to instability are to end for good or for the worse next week. The good is if the 19A is passed in Parliament after a two-day debate due to begin tomorrow. It is to be followed by electoral reforms through a 20A within weeks. The bad, [...]

Basil’s beeline into political babel

Basil’s beeline into political babel

My dear Basil, I thought I must write to you at first to welcome your return but then I realised I would have to send this letter to prison. Now, even that has changed, so I am thinking of sending a ‘get well soon’ card, while you recover in hospital. Honestly, Basil, I was taken [...]

The Opposition’s midnight feast

The Opposition’s midnight feast

Greater hypocrisy hath no men than this, that men lay themselves down on the plush red carpeted floor in the Well of Parliament and have a rollicking good midnight feast, singing songs, playing cards and doing a spot of mimicry whilst ostensibly keeping an all-night vigil of protest in the name of their fallen leader. [...]

Policies for boosting industrial and agricultural exports

Policies for boosting industrial and agricultural exports

Sri Lanka’s export growth has been unimpressive. The Institute of Policy Studies, (IPS) in its State of the Economy Report 2014 states: “Despite higher GDP growth in recent years, what appears to be an inexorable decline in the ratio of exports to GDP-falling to a low level of 15.5 per cent in 2013 is a [...]

Nihal Fernando: the legend will live on

Nihal Fernando: the legend will live on

“Traveller, there is no path. You have to find your own.” The line on the frontispiece of Nihal Fernando’s book, “Sri Lanka – a Personal Odyssey,” is typical of the author, as much as it characterises, at both literal and figurative levels, the life he led. Sri Lanka’s most famous wildlife and nature photographer, the [...]

Hundred days of palanaya, never mind yaha

Hundred days of palanaya, never mind yaha

So 100 days have come and gone. There are of course those who will say aye but not yet gone as the soothsayer told Caesar. The day is not done and there is still time, diehards will insist, saying that had all sides in parliament cooperated then the 100-day programme would have been done and [...]

Presidential powers and the craving to be slaves

Presidential powers and the craving to be slaves

It appears that the President of Sri Lanka likes vivid imagery. Not so long ago, he compared the members of his party to crabs dancing in a boiling pot of water. This prediction came uncannily true this week when some of these members discarded even the stipulated parliamentary dress and slept in running shorts on [...]

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