Is it Algeria’s Arab Spring? After weeks of people-power protests across the country, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Wednesday resigned, ending his 20-year autocratic rule. The news was welcomed by noisy celebrations by millions....

Today, April 04, marks the UN Mine Awareness Day. It provides an opportunity to focus on affected countries, such as Sri Lanka to recognize and take action to meet the needs of the affected people, and to assist them. Almost ten years after the end o

April 4th marks the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action. On this occasion the Sri Lanka Campaign to Ban Landmines (SLCBL) congratulates Sri Lanka on its continued dedication towards Mine Action.

The Buddhist clergy has time and again bestowed politicians with titles underscoring the fact that the relationship between lawmakers and the temple should continue. Just days ago State Minister of Housing, Construction and Cultural Affairs Sajith Pr

President Maithripala Sirisena, who was in Kandy last Sunday, visited UNP stalwart Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama at his residence. While he was there exchanging pleasantries with Samarawickrama, Prime

The UN’s top human rights official, High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet has expressed disappointment regarding ‘the spin that had been put’ on her ‘discussion with the Sri Lankan Government delegation.’ Apparently, it was reported that the

The new rules and regulations introduced on April 1 by the Western Province Road Passenger Transport Authority (WPRTA) makes it compulsory for all private buses in the Western Province to be in blue instead of the garish colours some of the buses are

OnApril 5, 1971, a political movement known popularly then as the Che Guevara Group, made an unprecedented and unexpected attack on all the Police stations and other crucial state institutions in a bid to grab political power in a single night. Their

The government has introduced revised traffic fines from April 1, and it is absolutely a welcome sign. Fines and penalties can minimize the traffic violation that the laws cannot, could not. Due to the current competitiveness, the bus operators are s

Millions of people are suffering and most are blaming the government for the current four-hour daily power cuts in most parts of the country. Difficult times or times of struggle are widely known to be the time when we should deeply ponder on what we

Sri Lanka is guilty on many counts like committing war crimes, aiding the narcotics industry and squandering state funds and as of now not being committed to solving its power crisis. This could be why Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the other da

The centerpiece of President Maithripala Sirisena’s war against drugs and narcotics will take place when the nation takes a pledge to create a ‘Drug Free Country’ this morning. The main event of taking the ‘April Pledge’ for a Drug Free C

The present power crisis is not the first of its kind in the country. We have been running into such crises occasionally for the past several decades including long drawn power cuts in the late 1990s and in 2001, during the height of the ethnic war.

When the Second State Council met for the first time on March 17, 1936, the 30-year-old Double Doctor N. M. Perera, who defeated Molamure Kumarihamy of the Meedeniya Walauwa in Ruwanwella, seconded the name of Duraiswamy for the post of Speaker.

As of today, billions of people in the world still live without safe water – their households, schools, workplaces, farms and factories struggling to survive and thrive. Marginalized groups including women, children....

Inequality is now one of the most internationally researched and debated social issues. Rising income inequalities between and within countries after the neo-liberal turn of the 1970s gained further attention with the global economic crisis of 2008.

As the month of April dawns this morning, many of us will be pranking our friends, relations and fellow citizens with ‘April fool jokes’. Yet, in the month of April we celebrate many more serious events. For us Sri Lankans....

Lester James Peries is regarded by many including this writer as Sri Lanka’s greatest film director. The birth centenary of the master film maker born on April 5, 1919 will be commemorated this week.

This week the United Nations marked the International day for the right to the truth concerning gross human rights violations and for the dignity of victims. In a statement, the world body says, the right to the truth is often invoked in the context

President Donald Trump has been exonerated of collusion with Russia. As I wrote a while back I expected this conclusion from the investigation carried out by Robert Mueller.

Sri Lanka may consider being granted two years to implement outstanding matters from the previous UNHRC 2015 resolution (30/1) as a slight victory, but it has to sort out the tussle in progress between parties supportive of the commission’s...

In yet another blow to international law, the United States President Donald Trump, with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his side, on Monday signed a proclamation, officially recognising Syria’s Golan Heights as Israeli territ

The Daily Mirror on Thursday 21 March, carried a very detailed and exhaustive analysis on Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Agreements (FTA) and their returns in terms of economic gain titled Sri Lanka FTA debate: What have we gained and what can we achieve.

Both the current and the former Governments have been lying to the people in respect of their respective dealings with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Both the governments have been attempting.....

Sri Lanka boasts of one of the most advanced free health care systems in Asia. Whatever the drawbacks are, our government health system is well standardised and attempts to integrate high tech medical advancements. Our life expectancy at birth is 77

It is time that a debate of classical genre between freedom and discipline emerged in the socio-political spheres in Sri Lanka. Engagement of the country’s learned ones, academics, intellectuals, professionals and thinking politicians is an indispe

Sri Lanka is a proud Buddhist country and it’s a well-known fact that the island even attracts foreigners who wish to get ordained here as novice monks and learn the rudiments of Gautama Buddha’s philosophy.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe turned seventy on March 24, and hosted his MPs and political party leaders for a birthday dinner on Monday. In his short address to the audience, he drew inspiration from iconic Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. He s

On the face of it, the intervention by Foreign Affairs Minister Tilak Marapana at the Geneva sessions of the UNHRC, appears apt and even laudable. He has stated, on behalf of the Government, certain incontrovertible truths pertaining to the post-conf

Most of us are familiar with Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s lines in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, where a sailor on a becalmed ship is surrounded by salt water saying, ‘Water water everywhere nor a drop to drink’.