Last week, this column referred to President Mahinda Rajapaksa taking a record delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, and how some dictators used to take their entire Government --Security Chiefs and all -- so that they don't indulge in a coup at home and oust the dictator.

"Thaaththa," Bindu Udagedera asked, "what is all this fuss about Mahinda maama's trip to New York?"

Commandante Fidel was so delighted to see fellow presidante Mahinda that he almost fell off his hospital bed. Or so the story goes.

So it seems the Non-Aligned Movement is finally has got some leaders with backbone to steer it on a course independent of big-power interference.

Management is the magic word. It is the preferred option for undergraduate study. Engineers are turning to study management; other scientists and graduates in humanities and social sciences are doing postgraduate studies in management.

The recent appointment of a one-man commission to inquire into the spate of killings, disappearances and abductions in Colombo and other areas is, like many of the other current happenings in Sri Lanka, an absurdity in the most simplistic sense.

NEW YORK- The attacks on the United Nations and the politically anachronistic Security Council were stinging -- and mostly on target.