Cabinet posts, no pound of flesh for SLPP

Can Lanka rise from the ashes of July 1983 - EDITORIAL

Today July 24, we remember with sadness one of the most shameful days in our more recent history. A day when the lawfully elected government of the country permitted hooligans and thugs carrying....

Corruption, Health Ministers and Pharma Mafia: Understanding the Presence of Undertakers Near Hospitals

Some funeral directors operating in hospital environs, pay bribes to hospital minor staff, including mortuary workers. These ‘undertakers’ are non-professionals who provide ‘services’ to poor families...

Sri Lanka and the Road to Mediocrity

Domestic Debt Optimization (DDO) has been cannibalizing the commentary in recent weeks but I invite the reader to zoom out of this specific aspect of the recovery to focus on the big picture. The current....

Tamil Political Leadership criticised by Tamil Civil Society

In a significant political development last week, some influential members of Tamil civil society in the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka took the initiative to write directly to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking India’s help in urging the Sri Lankan Government to hold Provincial Council elections as early as possible

The significance of President’s India tour

President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s two-day visit to India on Thursday (20), exactly one year after he was elected President by the Parliament might have kindled many hopes in many groups

The President’s visit to India and balancing strategic interests

President Wickremesinghe in his own words is a man on a mission. His mission ‘...to steady the Lankan ship which just brief year ago was floundering.’

Merrill Joseph Fernando: The ‘tea maker’ who left behind a remarkable legacy

Merrill Joseph Fernando, the visionary founder and CEO of Dilmah Tea, the world renowned Sri Lankan tea brand, passed away on July 20, 2023, at the age of 93. Born on May 6, 1930, in Negombo....

The best next step for improving tax collection

In 2021, the country’s tax revenue as a share of gross domestic product (GDP)reached its lowest level since 1959 – dropping to just 8%. Increasing tax-to-GDP ratio is one of the most important measures....

Are we seeing a rejuvenation in athletics and cricket?

The recent performances of our athletic team has been an eye-opener. For long years, except for a few individual brilliant performances of individual athletes, we have trailed behind other Asian nations in the field.

Teach the people, change the system Educating simple voters to demand a genuine and simple electoral system is a social responsibility

Our simple voters, as main stakeholders of a General Election, primarily want to know the Winning Party and the number of seats they have won; Secondarily, the names of the ‘225’ who will represent them in the Supreme Parliament. They are not keen to know how the number of seats were calculated but accept the result like the ‘Bible truth’. Even if they were keen, they would have given up halfway, unable to digest complex factors such as ‘Relevant

Unbanning Extremism

The Government has decided to lift the ban on five of 11 Islamic organizations that were proscribed after the Easter Sunday attacks on April 21, 2019, according to our sister newspaper Sunday Times. Accordingly...

Nelson Mandela: A giant of our times

Sri Lanka has witnessed many political insurrections, a 30-year ethnic conflict, and class struggles up until the most recent people’s resistance (Aragalaya). In each of these uprisings, the oppressed communities sought justice. Or equality, in other words. Against this backdrop, it is quite apt to remember Nelson Mandela, an individual who was determined to end the apartheid era and bring about a multiracial democracy.

July - the most momentous month Many landmark events have marked July in recent Sri Lankan history

The month of July has had an uncanny relationship with landmark events in recent Sri Lankan history. The latest took place only last year. A cataclysmic mass movement (“Aragalaya”) resulted in an elected President fleeing the country and being replaced in an unprecedented manner by one whose party had been comprehensively defeated in the preceding parliamentary elections. However, the truly epoch-making series of events took place way back in

Growing hospital deaths and charges of corruption - EDITORIAL

Not so long ago -in the late 1990s the health services of our country was praised by organisations such as the World Health....

Shifting Allegiances: From Rilaw Monkeys to Crudia

Monks, politicians, and environmentalists often exhibit a tendency to extend their passion beyond rational boundaries. Their focus....

Sri Lanka’s health crisis: Can the President deliver for the people?

Someone in Sri Lanka, right now as I write, is distraught because a child, a parent or a loved one has died, is dying or is seriously....

The inglorious exit of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa known as Gotabaya or Gota Rajapaksa made a glorious entry to the pinnacle of political power through a grand victory at the presidential election held on 16 November 2019.

Sri Lankan debt crisis to get worse if IMF prescription is heeded

On July 1, Sri Lanka’s Parliament approved, through a majority 122-62 vote, a plan to restructure the government’s domestic debt, which totalled 15.4 trillion Sri Lankan rupees at the end of March 2023.

Deteriorating health services deaths among patients and exchange crisis

Just a few years ago, the health service in our country was among the best in the world. Our country provided free medical examination, hospitalisation, and medicines, not only to all of our citizens but even to foreign visitors irrespective of their wealth or social standing. The medicines provided were of high quality.

Who is afraid of the Mahavamsa?

A few weeks ago UNESCO inscribed the Mahavamsa onto its ‘Memory of the World (MoW) International Register for 2023. It was not exactly a declaration of the extensive chronicle as a ‘world heritage,’ although....

‘It can be done’ attitude needs promotion - EDITORIAL

Sri Lankans have a general attitude that this nation cannot be refined and made a developed country. This thinking or attitude surfaced when former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa- before stepping...

ANTI CORRUPTION Act

According to reports, several amendments are to be suggested and made at the Committee stage in Parliament on the 19th July, 2023. We, the public are unaware of these amendments.

Subsidies, wages, corruption and the financial meltdown - EDITORIAL

Our country is gradually pulling itself out of the financial crisis of yester-year. Even though the foreign debt restructing process is not complete, government has pushed ahead with the domestic debt restructuring....

Calculating the Loss to the EPF from Proposed DDR

Justice and good decision-making flows in part, from the discipline of public reasoning. The belief in democracy is anchored in the hope of harnessing the power of reasoned decision making that is openly....

sri Lanka railways: trains that drain the Treasury

An enduring feature of tourism in Sri Lanka has been the Westerners’ fascination with the Sri Lanka Railways (SLR). Foreigners go into raptures over SLR’s old-world carriages, its quaint British-era stations...

A year ago, twin revolutions within Aragalaya. Thank God, one lost!

A year ago, on July 9th, hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans, dispossessed by the economic destruction unleashed by a government they elected not long ago, descended on the Capital, Colombo. They stormed the President’s House while President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was hurriedly evacuated to a waiting naval ship. Three days later, Rajapaksa resigned

Who are the culprits behind the economic crisis?

Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena on Thursday named a 14-member Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) under the Chairmanship of MP Sagara Kariyawasam, the General Secretary of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), to probe the country’s financial bankruptcy.

Reflecting… 40th Anniversary of ‘Black July’: Have We Truly Learned from History?

July 2023 marks the 40th anniversary of ‘Black July,’ acknowledged as the most horrific episode of ethnic violence in Sri Lanka. Around 300-450 lives were lost, more than 40,000 people were reduced to refugee....

Inflation is easing, but the poor are left behind - EDITORIAL

Economists, including the Governor of the Central Bank tell us that inflation is down. (When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; inflation corresponds to a reduction....