Editorial -Rio Summit: Small steps to save Sri Lanka

Going from country to country for various reasons including astrological precautions, President Mahinda Rajapaksa is in Brazil for the much-awaited Rio environmental summit where the issues discussed and consensus reached could make or break the future of the earth.

Saved by the bell

International financial markets heaved a sigh of relief after Greeks in a crucial election gave the conservative New Democracy party a slender edge, clearly rejecting the leftist Syriza that was determined to take not just Greece, but even Europe over the edge of a dangerous precipice.

Democratizing reconciliation – from rhetoric to reality

Whoever said that demand must drive supply was certainly not talking about reconciliation. However, the relevance and applicability of the philosophy and its wisdom in a post-war reconciliation setting cannot be overstated.

“Bring back the Child”

As a developing country with limited resources and a per capita income of US$2,368 (2010), Sri Lanka made its policy of “zero tolerance” of child recruitment a non-negotiable condition.

Intriguing games

From the time Pervez Musharraf suspended him and placed him under house arrest in March 2007, through his first restoration later that year and the second in 2009, to present times,

Economic growth: Rhetoric and realities

In the past few years we have had an overdose of empty political rhetoric and gobbledygook by government spokesmen and politicians about successful development projects.

From ‘incremental devolution’ to ‘calibrated evolution’?

It is not always that the President’s Secretary chooses to be named in news reports. This is particularly so about incumbent Lalith Weeratunga. His recent charge that LTTE elements in London may have tried to target President Mahinda Rajapaksa...

Nobel peace prize ‘showed the world had not forgotten Burma’

Aung San Suu Kyi calls on humanity to never stop in the pursuit of peace during moving acceptance speech in Oslo Under the vast murals of Oslo’s City Hall, the traditional venue for the Nobel peace prize lectures,

HONESTY IN DENYING DEVOlUTION OF LAND AND POLICE POWERS

A never ending controversy between the Government and the TNA on devolution has resulted from the former refusing to grant the above powers to provincial councils, despite its earlier promises, at several international meetings,

Obama’s Trump Card

America’s illegal immigrants are back in the spotlight. US President Barack Obama played his trump card as he announced an immediate end to the deportation of hundreds and thousands of men in shadows who were on the verge of expulsion.

Editorial - Death By Dengue

No doubt, for a government it is always easy to seek public assistance to curb certain situations. Be it tracking down the perpetrators of a killing or netting the robbers who broke into the National Museum, the help of the public is amply sought.

Laws must protect, not prey on the vulnerable

One of the books on ‘the laws pertaining to women’ launched recently at the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs is a Commentary on the provisions of the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, which came into law in 2005.

Rio+20, Sri Lanka and the Future We Want

Following the Copenhagen talks, the former President of Asia’s smallest country- the Maldives emerged as a spokesman for small island states affected by rising sea levels. What followed next was phenomenal. From underwater publicity stunts to his documentary film ‘the Island President’ President Nasheed saw a sudden rise to a pop star-like status within the global environmental movement.

A War in Disguise

War is not a term with the meaning restricted to denote an armed conflict. The word war could be used in a variety of contexts to denote a situation of conflict, hostility, contention or contest involving nations, communities, business enterprises or any other entities or groupings vying for superiority over their opponents.

Just and fair society essential for progress - Editorial

During the past year the cost of living has gone up by an unprecedented and unbearable 50%, while salaries of public servants have been raised by only five per cent.

Iraq-Iran alliance upsets US agendas

More than 60 people died in a series of bomb blasts across Iraq on Wednesday. The endless violence indicates that Iraq’s problems are far from over though the United States withdrew its troops...

Lending a human hand a going concern

Making a difference in the lives of the underserved, excluded and persecuted is equated with missions of many faiths as was Mother Theresa’s. Great Countries need great schools...

The rights of the Roma

The latest survey on the status of the European Union’s largest Roma minority should be seen as an occasion for stock-taking on the effectiveness of the racial equality legislation. Conducted by the...

Law Faculty sets a precedent

As we all know, currently, a non-academic strike is underway in all the Universities in our country. According to Sri Lanka’s Inter University Trade Unions Federation, this strike has been called islandwide to force the government to rectify the salary anomalies that have been there for a long time now.

Rio+20 and Beyond

The United Nations Rio+20 summit will be held with the participation of large number of heads of a States including the President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapakse from June 20 to 22 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

Jaffna Challenge(r)s

Two contrasting insights into reconciliation were on display in the past few weeks– one in the field of sports and the other in the field of politics.  The former relates to the Carlton Super Seven Rugby Tournament and the latter to the ITAK or Federal Party convention in Batticaloa.

Editorial - Legend of Karunatilake’s Chinaman

Perhaps that is why Shahan Karunatilake’s feat of winning the Commonwealth Writer’s Award is a true reason to rejoice over as a nation. In a country where English is a second language and the readership of English Literature is not very many,

We cannot afford to under or overestimate the dangers we face

Tamara Kunanayakam, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative (PR) to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva, has accused Navanethem Pillay, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, of playing the political agenda of the US and Western powers.

Editorial - Don’t fiddle with free education

With the gradual and now extensive privatisation of the health sector, the cost of warded treatment in private hospitals is so high that it is beyond the reach of more than 85 per cent of our people. In addition to five-star hotels, we now have five-star hospitals where helpless unsuspecting patients are plundered and their families lose most of their savings.

Not just the planets, but a practical crisis

Ayubowan, vannakam, assalamu allaikum and best wishes as you face some sort of battle with the planets with astrologers giving different guidelines which ended up in a horror-scope in London.

Golden memories, silver tears and colonial villas

Tucked away in the southwest corner of Sri Lanka’s coastline, away from the hustle and bustle of the busy town of Galle lies the quaint old peninsula that is the Galle Fort. Originally built by the Portuguese and then modified by the Dutch in the 17th century,

Accountability Only God Knows!

Statistics are like bikinis. What they expose is revealing what they conceal is suggestive. Accountability is to reach an authenticated number of civilians dead and not act silly with fairy tales of a zero civilian casualty number or become traumatized with horror stories of over 40,000 civilian deaths.

Editorial - Don’t play with the lives of people

The Senior State Counsel -- apparently not properly briefed on the vested interests involved in the issue – had time and again told the Supreme Court the Bill to implement the National Medicinal Drugs Policy (NMDP) would be presented soon.

loss of face in UK: It’s politics, not diplomacy…

Normally, it should have been termed ‘suicidal’ or hara-kiri tendency. Something is rotten. In contemporary Sri Lanka, the attempts by whoever it is to embarrass the Government and President Mahinda Rajapaksa overseas time and again, and with unfailing periodicity,

Mission of the Tamil Political Leadership

If the mission of the Tamil political leadership is fulfillment of the genuine aspirations of Tamil speaking people in this country as professed by senior Tamil speaking politicians, its actions and strategies should be designed to realise that goal.