Corporal punishment not a deterrent for indiscipline

Corporal Punishment perpetuates a cycle of violence. Perpetrators of corporal punishment often tend to justify their action by reasoning that being subjected to corporal punishment as children did not do them any harm. However, they are oblivious to the stark reality that they themselves are inadvertently trapped in a vicious cycle of violence. Adults resorting to corporal punishment, teaches children that it is acceptable to use violence as a la

Election Reforms a Must for Democracy and Rule of Law

The recent incident at Mulleriyawa resulting in several deaths and serious injuries to others, which took place when an election was in progress, depicts the spiral of violence that has engulfed our electoral process. The incident involved high ranking politicians of the ruling party itself and their heavily armed security personnel. They were empowered and armed by the government which is wholly responsible for the terrifying incident. If that b

Political solution is not about the problems

Whatever turn the off-again-on-again negotiations between the Government and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) takes whenever the talks are back on the track, they are often stymied not by the solutions that have to be thought about, but by the problems hat have haunted the nation almost since Independence. This owes not only to the mutual suspicions that are inherent to the decades-old mistrust, but possibly to an inherent unwillingness not to a

Seoul’s nuclear temptation

Lee Byong-Chul (WORLD VIEW) Talk of a nuclear option was anathema in South Korea only a decade ago. Any official expression of nuclear-weapons development in South Korea was once viewed as political and diplomatic suicide, and the policy was long welcomed by American defense and diplomatic elites.

I’m not a threat to anybody; Gota

Q:Is there a conspiracy behind Baratha Premachandra’s death? His family alleges against a move to obstruct justice from within the government, with a finger pointed directly at the President.

The dice are loaded: 1000:1 for Israel

The prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas this week has underscored and highlighted a warped measure that weighs the value of life. One Israeli life is equal to more than thousand Palestinian lives. The picture is complete or the balance is even with Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit standing on one side of the scale and 1027 Palestinians on the other.

J&K: a road map for progress

Fourteen months after a tear gas shell arced over a Srinagar street, killing a teenage bystander who became the first of over a hundred young protesters to die in clashes with the police, New Delhi has something like a road map for progress. Last week, a three-member panel of interlocutors appointed by the central government to engage political actors in Jammu and Kashmir...

The proposed Local Government Bill

The preferential voting system has been called in to question in recent years for causing a disconnection between those elected into power and their constituents. This method of democratic election has also been blamed for intra-party conflict. Therefore, the government has concluded that a new system incorporating the preferential voting system...

There is a greater and more inclusive Sri Lanka to be imagined

By Natale Dankotuwage The end; is there an end in sight? The Sri Lankan Conflict has penetrated into my life-time like an unwelcomed genetic trait. I didn’t ask to be born into a community, with a history of conflict. Yet, it is inseparable from an identity I am still trying to grasp. I am a child of the war generation. It is all I have ever known and, probably, all I will ever know. Yet, I hope to live to see a change; a fresh new way to

Clouded skies

The skies over the Arab Spring are not yet blue and cloudless. The focus shifts on a daily basis from Syria to Yemen and Egypt with Libya now simmering in Sirte but unable to bring closure to the Gaddafi era and start rebuilding.  Even as the battle of Sirte fluctuates between reassurances of success and fallbacks there seems to be some concern now about exactly how strong the Libyan leader is despite his beleaguered condition. Until he is

Gota is a very noble man: Dayasiri

Q: You raised the issue in Parliament that there was a lot of violence in the Kolonnawa area before the election, do you think that the government was unaware of what was taking place? I think the ministers actually knew about it and they could not do anything, because it was kind of a rivalry between members of the same party. If the situation was between the government and the opposition I think that they could have done something more. In th

Gota didn’t know about Duminda’s underworld links: rajitha

Q: As a senior cabinet minister, are you angered by the incident that took place on Election Day? Yes actually, because no one likes this type of situation. When you are sitting in the government and members of the government are involved in an incident like that, you have to understand that we are not comfortable; not only just me but the president himself is very upset about the situation. Everyone is blaming the President, but the President w

A law unto themselves

It has once again been proved that Sri Lanka is a lawless country; where political rivalry between members of the same party has gone beyond the ethics of political culture and resulted in the death of a leader. This is a very pathetic and sad situation.When people in a country begin to act with scant regard for the law, it is inevitable that the country turns out to be a grave yard.

Do anything you can to make a difference

City beautification projects, the Colombo Port extension as well as proposed infrastructure projects such as a domestic airport in Kandy are testament to the present administration’s attempt to make Sri Lanka the “Wonder of Asia.”However, sustainable development cannot be achieved simply through massive economic development projects alone.

The LLRC and the road to reconciliation

When the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission was established, I thought its most important function would be with regard to the future. Through a study of what had happened in the past, it would report on how best all the people of Sri Lanka coud live together amicably, and productively, instead of engaging in the rivalries that had dogged us previously.

Nothing to gain from violence

Corporate greed was put on the global mat Saturday but the methods adopted by Occupy Wall Street, the movement that wants to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, took a fork in the path that literally destroys that bridge.

THE JVP FISSURE

The JVP contains perhaps the smartest, most media-genic group of younger politicians and parliamentarians in the country: Tilvin Silva, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Vijitha Herath, Bimal Ratnayake, Sunil Handunetti, and Lal Kantha. (The UNP’s Sajith Premadasa, Sujeeva Senasinghe, Dayasiri Jayasekara and Buddhika Pathirana form a similarly able cohort in the mainstream democratic Opposition). That’s the JVP’s strength.

Justice- at what cost?

The deadly Mulleriyawa shootout claimed four lives. Culminating in a month-long campaigning of a violent trend of electioneering that local elections have today come to, it occurred on Election Day when two high profile government figures clashed on barely minutes in to closure of polling.

''We see little being done by this government to listen to its people''

Q: What was the ICG's motive for organising the screening of the controversial Channel 4 documentary, 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields' in the European Parliament together with Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) last week? We co-sponsored the screening of the Channel 4 documentary because we believe that it accurately depicts many incidents that potentially constitute war crimes and that require a fair and thoroug