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Home » ColumnsSri Lankan party crasher and impostor rattles New York
When a young, up-and-coming actress met Priyantha De Silva at a party at The Plaza Hotel in 2017, she thought she’d hit the jackpot. De Silva told her he had been working in finance and used connections from that to fund the movies he produced. Swarthy and well-dressed, he invited her to the film premieres [...]
Whilst Ranil and Sajith duel, the UNP fights for dear life
Ranil Wicremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa are poles apart. If Ranil is cheese, Sajith is chalk. If Ranil is morn, Sajith is night. It has been so from their respective births. Their one common heritage is the UNP and, though they are both fiercely loyal to it, there is, certainly, no love lost between them. A [...]
Elephants stuck in the mud
My dear JR and Preme, I thought I should write to both of you now even though you are in the Land of Never Return. That is because JR, your nephew, and Preme, your son, are fighting with each other while the Green party that you both worked hard for continues to decline, facing poor [...]
Declining trade deficit could improve external finances
There is a prospect of a larger balance of payments surplus this year owing to the reduction of the trade deficit. The decrease in the trade deficit by US$ 2.1 billion in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year could result in a higher balance of payments surplus and [...]
The fault lies not in our constitutions but in us
President Maithripala Sirisena’s remarks in Jaffna this week that the 19th Amendment’s transfer of some powers of the Executive President to the Prime Minister while conferring supervision over Sri Lanka’s constitutional commissions to the Speaker has created three power centres, making the political process unworkable and unsustainable is a thin gloss over far more unpalatable [...]
Democracy in peril or what?
As college students many decades ago, we were taught that Ceylon’s parliamentary system was largely based on the practices and conventions of the British House of Commons. The Commons, we were told, is the Mother of all parliaments. Boris Johnson, Britain’s current prime minister went to Eton College and Oxford University very much later. But [...]
UNP crisis deepens; SLFP, SLPP wrap up new SLPEP Alliance
Mahinda scuttles last ditch attempt to abolish Executive Presidency Ranil says party disunity favours Opposition Sirisena to back Gotabaya The crises for the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), two of the oldest parties in Sri Lanka, have reached politically asphyxiating levels due to infighting as the tempo peaks over [...]
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