Columns
Home » ColumnsWildlife officers scoff at air rifles – ‘like toy guns’
A Government minister wants air rifles issued to guards at the country’s nature reserves to cope with poachers. Sustainable Resources and Wildlife Minister Gamini Jayawickrema Perera has said in a memorandum to his colleagues that poaching has been on the rise and pointed out that the print and web media had reports on this. The [...]
Questions over whether Government is going in different directions
VAT issue still simmering, SLFP-UPFA members say people are up in arms Joint Opposition and other groups planning protest march from Kandy to Colombo China back with a bang: Old projects revived, new projects launched with aircraft purchases also Joint Opposition and other groups planning protest march from Kandy to Colombo China back with a bang: [...]
A sitting Cabinet
My dear Shadow Cabinet Ministers, I thought I should write to you to congratulate you on your new appointments. After all, it is a great honour to be bestowed with ministerial responsibility, even if it is of the ‘shadow’ type. I am sure it will lead to greater things later although I do have a [...]
External finances fragile despite improvements in trade and services account
The external vulnerability of the country’s finances persists despite improvements in the trade and services account of the balance of payments in the first quarter of this year. This is owing to capital outflows, and large debt service payments this year. This is a fragile situation in view of the large debt servicing requirements this [...]
Asking ‘hard’ questions from the ‘yahapalana’ government
As ‘fashionable’ as this may seem at the moment, truth-telling in Sri Lanka should not be confined to the Northern conflict, its victims and its perpetrators. An essential link in the justice dilemma Rather, this effort needs also to be applied to properly understanding the undermining and near-collapse of democratic institutions in the South during the [...]
Efficiency: It is our duty by the country
Bribery corruption, cheating, laziness, dereliction of duty, wastage, revenge and crime dominate news these days in newspapers and news bulletins. An in-depth look into these stories will give us an idea as to under what conditions people live. In any society, there are young, old, sick, deformed, mentally deranged, learned, ignorant, capable and incapable people. [...]
May’s day and labour’s love lost
Last Wednesday was Britain’s “night of the long knives”. This Hitlerian analogy from the early 1930s might not be entirely apposite. All the same much blood has flowed since Theresa May took over the reins of government and her blood letting was still going on at the time of writing. In a day or so [...]
Shadow cabinet hits the buffers
JO’s shadowy world of make believe vanishes in a puff of scorn but one vital question still remains: Whose bright idea was it? In the manner of little children with nothing to occupy their time but play games of ‘Let’s Pretend’ saying to one another ‘Now today you be thaththa, you be amma, you be [...]