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An Indian website reported this week that on August 2, former Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan Tamils living in western capitals will gather in Switzerland to publicly acknowledge for the first time that LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is dead.

They will gather in Basel, Switzerland, for the meeting to acknowledge Prabhakaran’s death, according to federal.com.

The acknowledgement comes nearly 15 years after Mr. Prabhakaran’s death, which has been continuously denied by his supporters, some of whom illegally raised vast sums of money in the West from gullible fellow Tamils under the pretext that the LTTE leader was still alive, the website reported.

The ‘Prabhakaran Memorial Uprising Forum,” a newly formed body coordinating the event, is primarily driven by former LTTE leaders based in Britain, Switzerland, and Australia, along with some other people from the Tamil diaspora, the website reported.

Hot debate over shades of white paper

The request by Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa to present the white paper on proposed education reforms to Parliament instead of a PowerPoint presentation led to some amusing exchanges on what constitutes a white paper.

House Leader and Minister Bimal Rathnayake took it upon himself to explain what a white paper is, stating that the reference is to a tradition in the British Parliament during a time when printing was not available and only white paper was available for use, and hence all reports were compiled on such paper. “Today, we are in the digital era, where information can be shared through PowerPoint presentations or other technological means,” he said.

The UK parliamentary delegation meeting Speaker Jagath Wickremaratne

NPP Parliamentarian Samanmalee Gunasinghe, the wife of Minister Rathnayake, had another take on a white paper. ”They (the Opposition) are saying we bought a blank white paper and presented it to the House. The white papers they have brought so far have been deleted by the people,” she said during the parliamentary debate on the proposed education reforms.

For all those confused with what a white paper is, and at least some in governments obviously are, it’s good to take a look at the House of Commons definition. “White Papers are policy documents produced by the Government that set out their proposals for future legislation. White Papers are often published as Command Papers and may include a draft version of a Bill that is being planned. This provides a basis for further consultation and discussion with interested or affected groups and allows final changes to be made before a Bill is formally presented to Parliament.”

Incidentally, a parliamentary delegation from the United Kingdom was in Parliament on that day. There was something for them to learn on the latest interpretation of white papers, it seems. The delegation met Speaker Jagath Wickremaratne.

Sri Lanka Police now armed with YouTube medal

The way to go: Police officers admiring their social media feat

The Sri Lanka Police has officially gone viral. Crossing the 100,000 subscriber mark on YouTube, the service has earned the coveted Silver Play Button from the platform.

While they are more used to handing out warnings than receiving awards, this digital milestone signals a growing public interest in their online presence, with a variety of content from podcasts to traffic and crime prevention clips and even showcasing their talent.

PM’s Office rolls out high-end vehicles for auction

Despite the lifting of the vehicle import restrictions early this year, the demand for secondhand vehicles remains significantly high due to the high duty levied on the imported vehicles.

The government is also disposing of some of the high-end vehicles in its fleet due to heavy maintenance costs and as a cost-cutting measure.

The latest batch of used vehicles up for sale comes from the Prime Minister’s Office. Five high-end vehicles, including three Toyota Land Cruiser V8s and two Ford Everests, are to be auctioned.

This is the second instance of used vehicles auctioned by the PMO since February, when thirteen high-end vehicles, including an Audi Q7, a Mercedes-Benz S350, and a BMW 5 series, were auctioned.

Army sergeant’s marksmanship triggered Deshabandu’s fall

The report of the three-member Committee of Inquiry, which probed charges of misconduct and gross abuse of power against Inspector General of Police (IGP) Deshabandu Tennakoon, submitted its report to Parliament this week, unanimously finding him guilty of 19 of the 23 charges laid against him.

A majority of the charges relate to the fatal shooting outside the W15 Hotel in Weligama in the early hours of December 31, 2023, which left an officer from the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) dead.

The committee that probed the matter had concluded that the CCD team had been engaged in an “unlawful mission” sanctioned by Mr. Tennakoon. The report reveals that as the CCD team, who were in a van with false number plates, were firing on the hotel, they encountered a joint police-army night mobile patrol of the Weligama Police. They tried to flee the scene, whereupon the sergeant in command of the Weligama police’s mobile patrol ordered his men to open fire at the fleeing van.

It was an army sergeant who was part of the patrol who fired his T56 at the fleeing van, hitting it several times and striking two of the CCD officers inside, one of whom later died. The officers from that mobile patrol, who gave evidence before the Committee, testified that after firing on the van, they had tried to chase after it but were unsuccessful in catching up to it “due to the poor mechanical condition of the police jeep.” The poor condition of their vehicles has been a matter of frequent complaint among the lower ranks of the police.

The fleeing CCD van was later stopped by police officers at the Imaduwa entrance to the Southern Expressway. That led to an entire sequence of events that eventually led to the truth coming out during investigations initiated under the new government and that now looks to result in IGP Tennakoon being stripped of his post.

One wonders how history would have turned out had the army sergeant been a poor shot.

Short pants in President’s Office: On people’s behalf

In shorts we go to President's office

A political activist who is closely associated with the ruling National People’s Power (NPP) government posted a photo on his social media page on Friday showing him seated at the Presidential Secretariat in a pair of short trousers.

The activist, identified as Ajith Perera, had included a caption in Sinhala in the photograph stating that he had gone wearing his shorts to the “highest place that a country’s citizen could visit.” He claimed he had done this deed not for himself, but for “my dear people.”

Social media reaction was mixed, with some praising the gesture while others ridiculed him.

PS member fulfils his promise

During the campaign for the recently concluded local government polls, promises galore were made—some so wild, it was hard to believe—with candidates pledging to build and repair lanes and roads and to work without a salary for the benefit of the people.

However, once in office, they have realised that implementing the promises is a Herculean task. They have to grapple with the bureaucratic red tape even for local-level issues.

Amidst these difficulties, a Manipay Pradeshiya Sabha member stuck to his pledge of not taking a cent from the state as salary or allowance and diverting it for welfare projects in his ward under the initiative ‘Taxpayers’ fund is for public.’

Using his first month’s salary, Councillor Hallock Gananathan Ushanthan distributed uniforms for children of a preschool in the area.

Rice tycoon’s hotel in hot water

Agriculture Minister K.D. Lal Kantha is all out to get the encroachments into irrigation tanks cleared.

One of the areas he expects to be cleared is a hotel owned by rice tycoon Dudley Sirisena. It is alleged that the hotel has encroached on the Parakrama Samudraya reserve area in Polonnaruwa.

This week the minister said that he expected Mr. Sirisena to call a news conference and announce that if his hotel was on a portion of land belonging to the Irrigation Department, he would evacuate from that land.

The minister made these remarks while addressing the gathering at an event held to mark the inauguration of four irrigation canals and a tank restoration.

He said that when the law was implemented, Mr. Sirisena would be compelled to “go”.

“According to the information I received, Dudley had obtained the hotel from the Tourist Board on a lease basis, but they had also utilised the land belonging to the tank reserve for hotel activities. The same area is fenced,” he said.

Therefore, he added that the government’s task is to let the hotel remain and remove the fence of the area that has encroached on the tank reserve. “The land where the Araliya Hotel is built does not belong to the Irrigation Department,” he said.

He added that when they started the programme of cleaning Nuwara Wewa in Anuradhapura, he had learnt that a few NPP members, too, were residing near the tank reserve. The minister told them to call a press conference and say that they too would be voluntarily leaving their places.