The Sunday Times Sri Lanka

Columns

Political Column

UNP at dead end: Karu cajoled to challenge Ranil

There was a grossly bizarre aspect to the latest crisis to engulf the country's tottering main opposition United National Party (UNP) this week. Either wittingly or unwittingly, its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe triggered off another battle for his position as party leader.

5th Column

Oh Karu, Judas would have blushed!

`My dear Karu J,
I thought I should write to you Karu, when I heard some people say you were ready to take up the leadership of the Green Party and you had said that you were ‘ready’. I must say I was not surprised, really, but I thought I should convey some thoughts to you on this issue.

The Economic Analysis

Debt and deficit: Deficit and debt: A vicious cycle

The public debt and fiscal deficit are inextricably connected. The size and composition of the public debt affects the fiscal deficit. Continuous large fiscal deficits accumulate into a large public debt. The servicing of a large public debt increases the expenditure of the government and leads to further deficits and borrowing.

Lobby

Not issued on this week

Focus on Rights

Holding back popular rebellion

During the past week, we have seen an incongruous if not remarkably imaginative theory being propounded by government propagandists. In brief, this theory attempts to interpret the defeat of the ruling party in local government elections in the north and the east to vindicate their argument that the regime is committed to a democratic Sri Lanka.

Talk at the Cafe Spectator

Islamophobia of the Western media

Most reader responses in Sri Lankan websites and newspapers to last week's mass Norwegian massacres that left at least 77 dead appeared negative. The views were based on the premise that Norway deserved it because it did not condemn attacks carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the separatist war in Sri Lanka. At best it expressed its "concern".

From the sidelines

Not issued on this week