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Home » ColumnsKachchativu: TN Chief Minister leads efforts for India to take back control
Since the 1974 agreement was reached between Sri Lanka and India on demarcating each country’s territorial waters and international maritime borders, there was burning resentment from Tamil Nadu that the islet of Kachchativu was handed over to Sri Lanka without the consent of the state government led by late Dravida Munnetra Kazhaham (DMK) leader Muthuvel [...]
The tools for the job?
My dear brand new Cabinet ministers, I thought of writing to you because you are the latest lot of ministers entrusted with saving our nation from what is being called the worst ever disaster it has faced since Independence from the ‘suddas’ nearly 75 years ago. You must be a really special group of people [...]
What happened to Sri Lanka’s plan to export electricity to India?
In 1976 when the then Power and Irrigation Minister Maitripala Senanayake laid the foundation stone for the Polgolla dam as the first phase of the Mahaweli Diversion Programme, he spoke of the possible export of electricity to India when the entire Mahaweli Diversion Programme was completed in 30 years. The programme was however accelerated during [...]
Foreign assistance imperative to revive the economy
Reviving the economy amidst political instability and social unrest, soaring import prices and negligible foreign reserves is a massive challenge. The economy can be revived to its potential only with substantial foreign assistance. Priorities While the resolution of the scarcities that are affecting the livelihoods of people are immediate tasks, the strengthening of the economy [...]
An infant’s death and Colombo’s talking mandarins
In Haldummulla, amidst Sri Lanka’s verdant tea-green landscapes of extraordinary beauty, an infant died this week as her desperate parents were not able to obtain sufficient petrol to run their three-wheeler long enough to take her to the nearby hospital. The distraught Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) at the Diyatalawa hospital went on record, stating that [...]
Will a half-baked 21A avatar pass the people’s acid test?
As the gathering clouds further darken not allowing a single streak of light to fall on this godforsaken island, where an economic crisis rages unstoppable in the backdrop of swirling mass unrest, it is increasingly self-evident that neither will a fair wind blow to chase away the clouds nor will the storm abate as long [...]
Crossing and double crossing to save the nation
If Sri Lankan politics looks like a marketplace for second and third-hand goods, should anybody be really surprised? From the time I could remember local politicians have been moving from one party to another without a by-your-leave. Many years ago it led one Sunday newspaper columnist to suggest sarcastically whether political parties should not install [...]
PM warns of horrifying situation to come
Chilling message that economic situation is worse than he feared it was; credit lines fast drying up Controversy over 21st Amendment; several positive aspects of 19A missing; Gota likely to stay on as executive president President forced to change his mind to forego defence portfolio, while PM gets finance,economic stability, and national policy portfolios CID [...]
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