Columns
Home » ColumnsMPs’ Swiss sojourn bared: Study on federalism as a form of reconciliation
The key focus of the visit undertaken by a delegation of a 12-member cross-party delegation of MPs to Switzerland recently was Swiss federalism and the interaction between different political levels in Switzerland, according to Swiss media. A report on the visit published in swissinfo.ch, the international online service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), has [...]
Irksome gestures
My dear Ramith, I thought of writing to you because everyone is talking about how you ‘gave the finger’ as you left court this week. We know ‘giving the finger’ is an obscene way of showing contempt and saying ‘I don’t care’. Still, I can’t understand why there is such a fuss about your actions. [...]
Budget 2026: Smooth sailing but Opposition MPs breaking rank to say aye, aye spring surprise
By Sandun Jayawardana The passage of the Second Reading of Budget 2026 on Friday was notable for several opposition MPs breaking ranks to vote with the National People’s Power (NPP) government in support of the budget. The Second Reading was passed with a crushing margin of 118 votes, with 160 votes in favour and just [...]
Plantation workers’ wage increase: Doing the right thing the wrong way
The Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) government’s 2026 budget has generated debate across Sri Lanka’s political and economic spheres. However no proposal has attracted as much broad moral approval—as the decision to substantially increase the daily wage of plantation estate workers more recently increasingly referred to as Malaiyaha Tamils. For decades, the plantation community has remained [...]
Challenges on the path to reforms: Reducing fiscal deficit and enhancing growth
Three important features of the 2026 budget—now being debated in parliament after President Anura Kumar presented it on November 7—stand out: it attempts to implement a wide range of reforms while reducing the fiscal deficit through higher revenue collection and follows a strategy of private-public partnerships. The extent to which the reforms would be effectively [...]
Of men, monsters and the swinging of the legal pendulum
‘We are here because we lost and you won. It is not because you are morally superior’ thunders Reichmarshall Herman Goering to United States Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley entrusted with the fiendishly difficult task of decoding the DNA of ‘a monster’ in the run up to the trials of key Nazi leaders for war crimes [...]
The Cardinal’s wrath
Battle between Church and State over sex education in schools The Head of the Catholic Church in Lanka, Cardinal Ranjith Malcolm, in a pulpit blast last Sunday, made a scathing attack on government plans to radically reform education and enthrone literature promoting LGBTQs as the third sex of the human species in school classrooms, with [...]
Working class rebels against their one-time leaders
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, once known as a Marxist-Leninist—possibly for the lack of a more appropriate appellation or the wit and repartee of another Marx—seems to be heading to discard his attire from his previous avatar. Of course he now looks more chic in his Savile Row attire. He could not go round shaking hands [...]
All roads lead to joint opposition rally — or do they?
Main opposition SJB stays out, so do Wimal and Champika; Sajith says he won’t share stage with corrupt politicians Undercurrents loom for Harsha amid damage-control moves in the party over Sajith’s India visit controversy JVP commemorates founder Wijeweera; NPP leaders conspicuous by their absence As ruling party faces budget defeats in local councils, President showcases [...]
Read More