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.

Editorial - From empty plate to empty stomach

A child, who learns to live on an empty stomach, if left with any luck to live, is most likely to turn into a pessimistic individual who won’t contribute to the country’s development.

The missing EU link

Last week’s talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterparts in Berlin and Paris were dominated by the catastrophic civil war in Syria, but the relations Russia has with France and Germany involve other significant issues as well.

Parched lives

Imagine your eight-year-old daughter carrying a five-litre pot of water on her head and making at least three trips a day in the scorching heat to the nearest water source. For those of us for whom water flows out of a tap, such a scene is unimaginable.

“Pulathup Puligal”(LTTE) protest against Mahinda in London

Mahinda Rajapaksa was let down badly by the London based Commonwealth Business Council that had invited the Sri Lankan President to deliver the keynote address in a symposium organized by it for  the Diamond jubilee of ascension to the  throne by  Queen Elizabeth II of Britain.

Give people their Right to Information

All decisions taken by the Government affects its citizens. So the citizen in a vibrant democracy has the right to know what’s happening. The right to information therefore is a fundamental right of the citizen constitutionally guaranteed by all modern democracies in the world. In its enactment it empowers the citizen, and as a focal right assures basic freedoms for the creation of good governance.

Art should never be about competition: Irangani Serasinghe

Veteran theater, cinema and television actress Irangani Serasinghe is a Lankan legend, with her grace, poise and warm smile she is the epitome of an ethereal “movie star”.

Abolish the 1978 Constitution - Editorial

We reported yesterday that Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa would appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee to probe the breakdown of discipline among parliamentarians including ministers and propose tough action against those found guilty.

Egypt: The return of the pharaoh with US support

In its more than 5,000-year history, Egypt last month had what the Western media called its first free-and fair election to pick a head of state. The election ended inconclusively...

Safeguard and advance the rights of children

Case number (SC FR 335/2010) was taken up to ensure that state run Remand Homes are able to ensure the “safe custody” of children placed there by courts and that they are organised to meet...

Issues on Tahrir Square

Tahrir Square  has no time to pause. The hundreds and thousands of people who flock to the venue that changed the tide of history in the Middle East have a cherished dream at heart...

Lanka needs religious unity in diversity - Editorial

Inter-religious dialogue and an all-religions solidarity alliance for unity in diversity appear to be the most effective way out of the current socio-political and socio-economic crises where most issues and transactions have been plagued by party politics or corruption.

I am prepared to compromise!

It has been described as disturbing, conufusing, and even provocative. Rajavarothiam Sampanthan’s speech at the 14th annual convention of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) has generated tremendous public interest,

Cynics who attach prices for our artefacts

Incidents of digging, stealing and selling of treasure have gone up in many folds during the recent past. The climax of these incidents is the theft of invaluable artefacts including ancient swords and gold coins from the National Museum.

Editorial - Media Terrorism

The manner in which its journalists reported on the wartime Sri Lanka, Channel-4 has long made clear as to where its journalistic ethics lay. The British-based Television channel...

Sarath Fonseka - Victim of a political process

Sarath Fonseka walked out of prison in the evening of May 21 to a rousing welcome of his supporters who had gathered in their numbers for several hours awaiting his release.

The Never Ending War, a Fait Accompli

The war is over at long last. The destructive battle that wreaked havoc for three decades causing catastrophic loss of precious lives, limbs and scores of privately owned as well as commercial properties including national assets, was brought to a decisive conclusion on 19th May 2009, by a successful military campaign executed by the combined military establishment of the country,

Editorial - Reduce pay and privileges of politicians

Responding to reports that India’s growth rate had fallen to 5.3 per cent, the lowest in more than ten years, and the value of the Indian rupee was plunging, the Indian Government last Friday ordered immediate austerity measures at the top.

Dissent is a virtue too

Often resistance, not obedience, is the only way civil servants can ensure that the law is implemented. The right to dissent is central to the idea of a democracy. This is true not just for ordinary citizens, but equally for civil servants in the employ of government.

It must come from within

The massacre in the western Syrian village of Taldou, near Houla, on May 25 has exposed, yet again, international divisions over the civil war in Syria.

Paraphrasing Prabhakaran

Professor Urmila Phadnis the late doyenne of Lankanology in Indian academia was utterly discerning when she concluded over two decades ago in her last book (‘Ethnicity and nation-building in South Asia’) that Lankan Tamil ‘sub-nationalism’ was unique in the region in that it alone displayed an ‘autonomist-secessionist continuum’.

Self immolation: an Uncommon Suicidal Method in Sri Lanka

Suicide is a complex behaviour that has biological, psychological and social implications. Marital disharmony, dispute among family members, broken love affairs, socio economical problems and underlying psychiatric disorders are some

Dambulla – Our Story

I refer to the article 'Dambulla - Untold Facts' published on 28.05.2012. The article refers to this so called mosque as not having any features of a mosque and states that there was no mosque in the location to begin with. This news is misleading.

Making a difference

The UAE, according to latest reports, has over 13,000 Emirati women entrepreneurs. Together, they call the shots at over 20,000 business establishments, a number of them small and medium enterprises.

Editorial - Taking a break with family

Most people are going through life on the fast tract. The rush seems to start from the time we wake up in the morning to even late at night. We need to become aware that our bodies are not programmed to go at the hectic pace they are going at.

‘Unite, Tamil-speaking people’ – but, how?

TNA-ITAK leader Sampanthan’s Batticaloa speech, calling upon all minorities in the country to unite as ‘Tamil-speaking people’ could not have come a day later. It is better now than never. Yet, the contours and consequences of such a course need to be discussed in detail before conclusions could be drawn.

A Journey to Replenish our Ethical Code

Poson full moon day is significant to the large majority of people in Sri Lanka as it commemorates the day on which Emperor Asoka’sson, the Arahat  Mahinda  officially introduced Buddhism to this island in the 3rd century BC (247 BC) and with his teachings Sri Lanka became the centre of Theravada Buddhism.