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Home » ColumnsNew post: Def. Sec. surprised
Defence Secretary Engineer Karunasena Hettiaratchchi must have raised his eye brows the other day when he opened a letter that had arrived addressed to him from P.B. Abeykoon, Secretary to the President. It conveyed the news that he has been named as Sri Lanka’s next Ambassador to Germany. His personal details, known in diplomatic parlance [...]
Galle Face blues: Rajapaksa’s May Day force jolts Govt.
Crowd at JO rally bigger than both UNP and SLFP rallies President, PM taking action to stop internal battles; joint meeting of parliamentary groups proposed High-powered committee of ministers and officials to prevent disruption of essential services By Our Political Editor Neither leaders of the ruling coalition nor those in Opposition envisaged last Monday’s main [...]
Winding up parliamentary life
My dear Geetha, I thought I must write to you when I heard the courts had declared that your election to Parliament was null and void because you also happen to be a citizen of Switzerland. This must have come as a shock to you because you had been protesting your innocence ever since you [...]
Economic performance in 2016: Analysis and reflections
Economic performance is mostly judged by the annual growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Accordingly, the lower economic growth of last year of 4.4 percent compared to 4.8 percent in 2015 is a setback. It is not this dip that is of significance. It is the inadequate performance in vital sectors and subsectors of the [...]
A Popean caution and the counter-terror comedy of errors
In one respect, there may be a smidgen of truth in former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s bitter lament in the immediate wake of his election defeat in 2015. Continuation of sordid political bargains He complained that he was ‘set on the wrong path’ at the urging of certain prominent political figures close to him who craftily [...]
Govt. continues its love affair with luxury vehicles with another Rs 329m
For a government that came to power promising to cut back on extravagances and high spending of the past regime, there seems to be no letup in the massive amounts of money it is splurging on the import of luxury vehicles for its members. This week, for the third time in two months, the Govt [...]
Playing pandu with the press
Overawed by the May Day public display of support for their political opponents and even for their partners in government and perhaps exhausted by their own efforts to convince the people that promises made two years ago have not been forgotten, our ruling elite seem to have forgotten one important event. May 3rd was World [...]
THE SUNDAY PUNCH VESAK TRILOGY: The Birth, the Enlightenment and Nirvana of Gautama the Buddha
Morning had broken. The dawn the world and the heavens had for epochs waited to break upon the land, had finally come to pass. And on that Vesak full moon day 2640Â years ago, in the year 623BC, the rising sun sheds its tender early morn light to reveal the scene of a royal litter [...]