The Co-authors Dr. R.M.K. Ratnayake and and Mr. S.A.C. Mohamed Zuhyle need to be commended for bringing out a beautiful Coffee table book on University of Peradeniya.

With legal issues being cleared, the Local Council Elections are now likely to be held in February with the possible date being February 10. Earlier the Elections Department had planned to hold elections 

Though formal talks aimed at uniting the factions within the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) failed to produce results last week as the two sides declined to soften their stances, it is revealed that fresh 

Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) General Secretary Arumugam Thondaman, in an interview with Daily Mirror, spoke about the current political environment and his plans to contest the elections. Following are excerpts of the interview done wi

Way back in the year 1988 an island-wide poster stamped in the public conscious the notion of political teaser advertisements. It was a simple question: (Who is this [and] what is he doing?

It’s learned that the proposed, imported ‘Mixed Voting System’, is designed to elect more than 225 parliamentarians through (First Past the Post) FPP and (Proportional Representation) PR on an adhoc 50:50 basis. The declared objec

A few days ago, I was watching Pathikada on MTV, the Bandula Jayasekara morning show that gave a good all-round insight into happenings in Sri Lanka.

A person open to new behaviour or opinions and willing to discard traditional values, that is the dictionary definition of a Liberal.  

If the talks between the official SLFP and the JO-SLPP conclusively fail, it will be because the SLFP (MS) is unwilling either to leverage the bond scam report and de-couple the PM from the governing coalition, or to vote against the “fast tr

We congratulate President Maithripala Sirisena for saying he has “no cheers” and would stop the 2018 Budget proposal to give big tax incentive to beer manufacturers, though Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera has justified it by saying

The alleged Treasury Bond scam is probably the largest financial scam to affect this country in its post-independence history. For sheer impunity and involvement of a wide spectrum of politicians in collusion with a section of the corporate sector an

Ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa is a gifted deal maker. His two- term presidency was a classic case of successful deal making: He got Velupillai Prabhakaran to prevent Northern Tamils from voting in 2005 and by virtue of that won his first term as the

  The Great Heroes Day (MaaverarNaal) observances this year in the Northern Province was notable, and perhaps path breaking too, in two ways: Firstly, a record number of people participated in the various events in public places including Hindu

“It is a good thing what your country is trying to do. Please don’t criticise that.” This was the advice of a friend of mine who was not very familiar with the Sri Lankan setting. “They are trying to convert hard spirit users

Beating BJP in Gujarat is next to impossible.That is not because it is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi though it....

The impact of stigma on women survivors of sexual violence during and after the war in Sri Lanka has received little attention.  How stigma...

The lessons from the modern world, of the tumultuous emergence of nation states, are often forgotten. We are again caught in the....

Sri Lanka continues to be hit by adverse weather and the existential truth of the 21st century would be the expansive reach of extreme....

The greatest expansion of prosperity in human history has occurred in the decades following World War II, supported by the international rules-based order that has been steadily built during that time.    This order – a web of allianc

If the Central Bank bond issue and the disclosures of names at the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, had seriously damaged the image of the United National Party, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s widely publicized statement in parliament

Today is World AIDS Day and the UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé in a statement says the UN is highlighting the importance of the right to health and the challenges that people living with and affected by HIV face in fulfilling that rig

Last Friday’s mosque massacre in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is yet another tragedy that has brought to the surface the crisis within Islam. 

In Zimbabwe, RM “walked in” as the PM of independent Zimbabwe, respected and revered as their liberator. In Sri Lanka, MR “walked out”, still honoured as the “Sinhala hero”, having won a 30-year-war against Tamil &

The recent amendments introduced to the Provincial Councils Elections Act and the Local Authorities Elections Act have made it mandatory for the political parties and the independent groups contesting elections to include 30 percent and 25 percent of

Former Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal in an interview with the Daily Mirror spoke about the Government’s Budget and its implications. The interview done with Cabraal follows. 

The late Justice C.G. Weeramantry, delivering the annual Lalith Athulathmudali Memorial Lecture in 2012 chose to speak on judicial ethics. He did refer to the key institutions of the state and how and why they need to be independent of one another,

Tomorrow December 1, we begin the Christmas season which has been commercialised to such an extent that some theologians are even suggesting that the name be changed, though the business world has already taken Christ out of Christmas and refers to

National Freedom Front leader MP Wimal Weerawansa in an interview with the Daily Mirror talked about the current political climate in the country and the plans afoot for the Local Government Elections. Following are excerpts of the interview done w

In an interview with Daily Mirror, United National Party (UNP) MP for the Puttalam district Hector Appuhamy speaks about the current status of the government and allegations against him about the Bond scam. He shared the following:

When Naomi Coleman says that she was “overwhelmed” by the Supreme Court Decision vindicating her rights and compensating her to the tune of Rs.800,000, one is hardly surprised. When foreigners, specially Brits visit Sri Lanka, they do n