Distant thunder

In remarks to this newspaper, President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka has said the elections to the country’s Northern provincial council will be held only in September 2013 because the government needs time to update 30-year-old electoral rolls.

Editorial - Alarm bells ring on unrestricted imports

Just as we swallowed wholesale the globalised capitalist market economy and are now paying a heavy price for it with a dangerous gap between the rich and the poor, we also appear to be swallowing the good and bad factors in information and communication technology.

Asia becomes flashpoint of big power conflicts

As tension builds up between China and Japan over disputed islands in the seas separating the two countries, one wonders whether the pawns are being moved to checkmate China...

An international conspiracy to block SL clergy?

The Bill to prevent Bhikkus from entering Parliament would have looked like just one of those heroic Bills by the opposition. Yet, the incidents that have come to light in the wake...

Finding the ‘right’ migrant

THE Olympic and Paraolympic Games are just around the corner and the United Kingdom is getting ready to host thousands of tourists from all corners of the globe...

Editorial - As I am their leader, I follow them

Whether political leaders and others acknowledge it or not, the most devastating or self-destructive crisis confronting them is selfishness, greed and the multitude of vices flowing from them.

Will the real socialists in Sri Lanka please step forward?

Once upon a time there was the CP, LSSP and other parties and they called themselves socialists. But, most of them like N.M. Perera, Colvin R. De Silva, Leslie Gunewardane, Peter Kenueman,

Can politics lead to emancipation?

Controversy surrounding whether Buddhist Monks should enter politics is a hotly debated topic today. It is a sensitive matter, since majority of Sri Lankans are Sinhala Buddhists who hold the order of Buddhist monks in high esteem.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa: Too full with Power to Exercise it?

The above excerpts need no elucidation. They are from two telephone conversations between the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Editor of the Sunday Leader Frederica Jansz as reported in the Sunday Leader of 08 July 2012.

Editorial - And then there is Tamil Nadu

The southern Indian state can decide when New Delhi should reprimand Sri Lanka on speeding up reconciliation. It can urge the central government to send back the group of Sri Lankan airmen undergoing training in India.

“Regular elections needed to gauge people’s pulse”

Senior Advisor to the President and Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa, in an interview with the , discusses the upcoming elections to three Provincial Councils and responds to some of the criticisms relating to the government’s management of the economy.

stray politicians -A BIGGER WORRY, NOT SO MUCH stray dogs

Every time one of our ruling politicians opens his big mouth making sanctimonious utterances condemning unlawful acts by members of the UPFA and threatening to take action against them, we have an urge, to hurl something at him, hard.

Cycling cities

Cities across the world are rediscovering bicycles. Pushed by increasing fuel costs, the compulsion to reduce commuting time, environmental concerns, and the need to make cities livable, many are back on better wheels.

Editorial - Make the world a better place

It was President John F. Kennedy who said, “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and the best hope for the future.” Indeed, they are the ones most capable of dealing effectively with problems of today’s world and also take it to greater heights.

Minimizing electrical energy waste on the streets

There are more than 700,000 street lamps in Sri Lanka consuming 150 Giga watt hours of electricity annually. Any commuter on the streets of Colombo or the outstation areas will witness a number of these lighting apparatus alight during broad daylight.

Law and Gurus of sleep

In 2003, people at the Institute of Human Rights (IHR) due to early stages of madness complained to the Human Rights Commission of human rights violations at the only State women’s home in Sri Lanka.

A damning indictment

In a damning indictment of the Japanese nuclear establishment, including plant operators, the government and regulators, a 10-member commission appointed by parliament to inquire into the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the worst nuclear accident in a quarter century

Editorial - Doing it like Federer

Call it complacency or resignation.In life there are times when one feels that one has already given it the best shots that they cannot be repeated, leave alone bettering them. The thought comes and goes as age catches up.

Between Govt abdication and TNA appropriation

Events and developments in post-war Sri Lanka have given the impression that mutual mistrust from the past continue to cause a deadlock in the peace process. What may be on hand is negative movement in the wrong direction,

Sri Lanka should take stern action against crude Websites

Certain websites and people who develop and write for them are in the news once again following the arrest of the owners behind it and placing the computers in custody by the authorities.

Fukushima report hides behind the cultural curtain

By claiming that the disaster was ‘made in Japan,’ an official report reinforces, without explaining, unhelpful stereotypes. More than a year after a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011,

Expose Arafat’s ‘killers’

When Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died under mysterious circumstances at a Paris military hospital, at the age of 75 in November 2004, many in the Arab world suspected something was amiss following the manner

Editorial - Rape of the innocents

Three years after the conclusion of the war against terrorism, the country is at a different war today. While many a cry is raised against the rampant rape rate of children, the law enforcement authorities as well as the parents seem equally helpless

FROM WELIKADA TO VAVUNIYA: Tale of Thamilini’s transfer -2

Monday July 2nd  2012 was a red letter day in the life of SubramaniamSivakamy alias Thamilini.The 40 year old former women’s division political chief of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)formally began her period of rehabilitation

Doing the right thing

Today, society is facing a wide spectrum of social, economic and physiological ills that are taking a heavy toll on human lives causing detrimental consequences.

Small is beautiful

The discovery of a new particle at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which in all likelihood is the Higgs boson — the particle desperately sought after by physicists for decades

Editorial - Who’s afraid of the Freedom of Information Bill?

If  Government  is serious and honest about restoring media freedom which is vital for the reactivation of democracy, then it must support the Freedom of Information Bill and implement it effectively.

US vs. Pakistan

Politics is sometimes an eyeball-to-eyeball game. The one who blinks first is out. In the game played by Pakistan and the United States, the question is: Who blinked first? If media reports are to be believed...

Forgiving and forgetting is it the solution?

Forgiveness has always been a sine qua non for reconciliation in every post-war setting, while some may assert that it is the reconciliation process itself that facilitates forgiveness. The act of forgiving can take place...

The apology finally arrives

The reopening of the Pak-Afghan border for regular movement of Nato supplies, hinged on one simple thing: a public apology by the US for NATO’s unilateral attack on Salala checkpoint at the Pak-Afghan border...