Columns
Home » ColumnsForeign Ministry: Up, up and away
Records are tumbling at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Minister Mangala Samaraweera who was away from Sri Lanka for 20 days returned to Colombo for only one day. The next day he went to South Korea. This time he was accompanying Foreign Employment Minister Thalatha Athukorale who was in Seoul to find more employment opportunities [...]
Sirisena isolating Rajapaksa, also brings UPFA under his fold
SLFP and joint opposition led by Dinesh work together on Constitutional and other important issues PM taking charge of economy for crisis management Zeid says coming months important for Sri Lanka; contradictory claims on foreign involvement in alleged war crimes probe It has been an important and significant week for the eight-month-old United National Front [...]
At what cost poetic justice?
My Dear Akila Viraj, I thought of writing to you because you seem to be the man mostly in the news these days, much more than Yoshitha, Champika or even Mahinda maama and that too without even being remanded or summoned before a commission of inquiry, so you are a lucky, lucky man! Akila, many [...]
Attracting foreign direct investment vital for economic development
Getting adequate foreign direct investment (FDI) of the right types has eluded the country for many decades. While former communist countries like Vietnam have attracted sizeable amounts of FDI, Sri Lanka continues to get an inadequate flow of FDI. The statistics of the amount of FDI received are flawed as they contain other capital inflows. [...]
Recognising many months of ‘darkness’ in Sri Lanka
A bold initiative took place this week when a collective of Sri Lankan women from the north, east, south and up-country areas publicly announced their decision to boycott International Women’s Day. Putting specific demands forward Declaring March 2016 as a ‘month of darkness,’ specific demands were outlined by the Womens’ Action Network to Sri Lanka’s [...]
Charity begins at the House as lawmakers help themselves at taxpayers’ expense
There was bad news for Sri Lankans from Parliament this week. It came in the form of an announcement on Tuesday by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that the Government is readjusting several taxes including the Value Added Tax (VAT), a move which has already driven prices of goods up, with more hikes likely to follow [...]
Will they clean up the mess from our diplomessy?
So it was another mess-up by that once-sacred institution that houses the brains that oil our diplomatic machine. Last Sunday this newspaper referred to the embarrassing episode when the New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and his aides on an official visit to Colombo were almost stopped from leaving the hotel they stayed-in for non-payment [...]
Will the nation’s Finance Minister please stand up
If the former president’s astrologer Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena got it wrong and came a cropper predicting Rajapaksa’s political future by gazing at the stars then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was spot on — as he says himself — and hit the bull’s eye when it came to prophesying the doom that awaited the Rajapaksa regime by [...]