Development needs to be the development of righteousness

Q:There have been a number of reports of child abuse in recent months, do you think that the responsibility of curtailing these incidents lies in the hands of the police and that they are doing enough to control the situation?

TARGETING AN ICONIC SYMBOL OF PEACE

‘Secure the Sanctity of Life’ is a message for all times – not just in times of war. That was the message inscribed in Sinhala, Tamil and English on a brightly coloured street mural at the Kynsey Road / Rosmead Place intersection in Borella. For both pedestrians and motorists alike, it was an iconic image conveying a powerful message of peace that was hard to miss.

Do not terrorize the yellow robes - Editorial

According to the Tamil Mirror online, the sister on line of Daily Mirror online, the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem, at a meeting in Kalmunai had said that President Rajapaksa should defeat, ‘yellow robe terrorism.’

'I am a pilgrim in progress' Champika

Q: A menacing media campaign, burning of effigies and regular calls for protests against – you seem to have become the punching bag of a section of Indian politicians and media. Why this escalation of violence against a single Sri Lankan minister?

Healing the wounds of war is not limited to reconstructing roads

Christine Robichon, Ambassador of France to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, in an interview with the Daily Mirror, while commending the “huge progress” accomplished on the economic front, opines that economic development alone is not sufficient to achieve a just and lasting peace.

Farewell to arms?The US ambassador in Jaffna

Thus the American ambassador in an article by an employee of the US government gives insights into her legacy. It places her in a charming light although the article notes ‘the US Government played out its most controversial engagement so far in Sri Lankan affairs in the history of US-Sri Lanka

Abuse of girl child - Criminals are roaming free

Q: At your party convention last week parliamentarian Ven. Atureliye Ratana Thera came hard on the government’s failure to run a strong campaign to counter child abuse. The JHU is very much part of the government and does that mean part of the blame should go to the party as well?

Editorial - Experience of the mysterious

Albert Einstein said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He,to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”

Executive passing the buck to the judiciary: Sarath N. Silva

FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE SARATH N SILVA SPOKE TO THE DAILY MIRROR ON THE PEOPLE’S CONFIDENCE IN THE JUDICIARY AND THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL SYSTEM. HE ALSO TOUCHES ON THE MANNAR INCIDENT AND THE PERSONAL CRITICISMS AGAINST HIM.

RENOUNCE THE UNITARY STATE, PREACHES TNA

When a leading English-language Sunday newspaper in Colombo, hardly supportive of the incumbent administration and known instead for its pro-western and pro-Opposition orientation,....

Disinformation and deception - Editorial

More than 231,000 students are sitting this year’s GCE (A/L) examination on the new syllabus and up to 31,000 on the old syllabus with their minds not fully focused on the subjects but more on last year’s Z-score fiasco over which tension and controversy still prevail with thousands of students uncertain as to whether they will be able to enter university.

LLRC: One for the Road!

The timely announcement on the setting up of official mechanisms for the implementation of the Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) should be welcome for more reasons than one. On the face of it, the Roadmap on the LLRC Report implementation seeks

Farewell to Patricia Butenis:

Despite the established mind-set of two groups of American foreign service officers, in Colombo and the other in Washington's state department, on Sri Lanka's perceived national issues such as governance, ethnic relations and national security since the eighties during counter-terrorism operations,

The Turk factor in Syria

Aleppo is well into a civil war. The government forces and the rebels are busy mastering their skills for a guerilla warfare that could rage for a long time, taking into account the geography and demography of the strategic metropolitan.

Editorial - CPC in an oily mess

Our sister paper, The Sunday Times, yesterday reported that more than 150 complaints were received by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation(CPC) about cases of vehicle and machinery break downs, as a result of the stock of substandard diesel released to the market.

Changing dynamics of Tamil nationalistic politics in sri lanka

The Tamil political landscape with the exclusive Tamil Congress and the emerging alternative voice of the Federal party had great legal luminaries as GG Ponnambalam and SJV Chelvanayakam . The Late Sivasithamparam was a unique blend of all these greats filling the knowledge gaps and emerging as a personality in his own right. That is the picture I glean from rereading his work.

Use of Z – Score instead of raw marks

The university education in Sri Lanka was in the English medium at the inception.  The students sat for the qualifying examination in the English medium.  After the switch over to the mother tongue students are educated and sat for the GCE A Level examination in  either the Sinhala or Tamil language.

Hold fast to the Lokpal

After it failed to come up for vote in a fractious Rajya Sabha last year, the Lokpal Bill — referred to a select committee that is still examining it — seems to have been mothballed for all practical purposes

The criminalisation of party politics - Editorial

The allegedly blatant threats to a Magistrate to change his verdict and the attack on the court house, increasing incidents of rape, child abuse and brutal murder are signs that society is degenerating into the criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of crime.

Big talk on small arms

When nations cannot agree on an environment treaty that will save the planet and ensure the survival of...

Pakistan’s schizophrenia

Pakistan is a country that seems sometimes to be on the verge of collapse- a scenario that frightens the US, Europe...

Editorial - Dalai Lama’s wisdom for our leaders

One of the most respected Buddhist leaders and philosophers the Dalai Lama has often spoken words of wisdom that stung people into...

war crimes ?

It has been reported that Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has demanded that Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner Thisara Samarasinghe be expelled from Australia.

Child abuse and death penalty

The subject of imposing the death penalty revives every time brutal and heinous crimes are committed in the country. The death penalty has not been executed in Sri Lanka after 1978. However with the recent wave of crime against children,

North Korean apathy

Pyongyang perhaps never believes in change. Its obsession to maintain the iron-jacket status quo has become a laughing stock. Such an impression was reinforced as North Korea strongly denied the euphoric views expressed

Editorial - Some heroes die twice

Sadly, Shakespeare was proved wrong. The news about vandalizing the Mahatma Gandhi statue in a community hall in Jaffna, hits the newsrooms at a time when the state of safety in the country is constantly questioned.

Editorial - Austerity and a simple lifestyle

The Central Bank has confessed that export earnings have dropped drastically. Our expenditure on imports is double the amount we earn from exports. This means we are spending twice as much as we are earning, and surviving on loans.

Independence of the Judiciary

In the year 1983, Vivienne Goonewardene filed a Fundamental Rights Application against Hector Perera and Others. The Supreme Court held that the State was liable for the transgression of fundamental rights the police committed when he was enforcing the law and ordered the State to pay Rs.2,500/- as compensation to Vivienne for infringement of her fundamental rights as safeguarded by Article 13 (1) of the Constitution.

Romney’s boo-boo

Mitt Romney has blundered on the foreign policy front. Hardly out of the woods for not being a politician in his credentials to lead the world’s superpower, the Republican presidential candidate seems to have walked the suicide path of his career.

25 Years of India-Sri Lanka Agreement

Not all, but some of the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora consider it as India’s diplomatic failure. The Agreement represented a strategic rather than a mere diplomatic initiative. The Agreement was signed after India arm-twisted Sri Lanka's President JR Jayewardane to sign it. He had little option but to do so as no external help was forthcoming particularly after India carried out Operation Poomalai when Indian air force planes dropped much