The campaign for a female UN chief maybe a good try in a lost cause
UNITED NATIONS — As negotiations for the upcoming election of the UN Secretary-General gather momentum, one undeniable fact looms heavily over the final decision: the choice of a UN chief is the intellectual birthright of the five big permanent members (P5) of the Security Council, namely, the US, the UK, France, China and Russia. All [...]
Violation of remand law and rights
Malpractice of remand from inadequate judicial process has a debilitating effect on law and order. This is, perhaps, a matter of recent experience and growing by the day, as it were. The people have taken up this problem as ‘laymen’ reacting to this column on law and order. This article is therefore in response to [...]
Remembering Sir Lalita Rajapakse, LLD, QC
Forty five years ago, in May, Sir Lalita passed away in his residence in Horton Place Colombo 7,a property devolved from his mother’s mother, who built and presented to the Sasana Abeysingharamaya in Kolonnawa. Born in 1900, under a lucky star, in Galmangoda Maha Walauwa to an “old family” rooted in the South, he was [...]
Organic-fertiliser-only policy will plunge Lanka into a food crisis
The cabinet of Sri Lanka on the 29thApril, 2021 has approved a ban on importation of chemical fertilizers and other agrochemicals in the bid to become the first country ever to practice organic only agriculture. The policy document of the present government,“Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour”,which has been mandated by the nearly 2/3rd of the [...]
Rice is still politics in Lanka
When the last presidential election campaign was picking up with Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa trying to outbid each other in wooing the electorate, we commented that it reminded us of that old favourite of Doris Day in the fifties: ‘Anything you can do I can do better — Anything You can do I can [...]
The curious case of COVID-19 and India
It is indeed axiomatic that pandemics have differential impact across geographies. The same applies as much to COVID-19 as it does in respect of countries. At a broad level, there is consistency in terms of general principles applied by countries across different waves (after discounting wave-specific steps). This is particularly true in cases where the [...]