By Witness

I traveled to the Vanni on 17th September, with the hope of getting a lorry load of foodstuff from Vavuniya to Vanni, but it was impossible, as the Killinochchhi Government Agent’s convoy had been stopped at that time.

From Omanthai exit - entry point to Killinochchi, the situation was very different than when I had traveled in the previous months. There were no people on the road up to the Killinochchi hospital.

As I approached Murikandy I observed that everything was burnt and smashed. While I was passing this place last week, it was full of people and the place looked very busy, but now it has become a no man’s land. The people have vacated from there due to bombing …

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In the past week, the name ‘Sakvithi’ has been causing ripples in Sri Lankan society and creating numerous news headlines — for all the wrong reasons.

Sakvithi Ranasinghe, a populist tutor of English turned millionaire businessman, has fled the country after duping thousands of unsuspecting people to deposit their life’s savings in his investment firm. Media reports have variously placed the number of victims between 1,500 and 4,000 — and some estimates place the total worth of his loot to be a whopping Rs. Nine billion (over USD 83.5 million).

Since it broke around September 21, the scandal has consumed a good deal of newspaper space and broadcast time. Editorialists and TV pundits have been having a field day, some simply …

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Siri Hettige
Professor of Sociology
University of Colombo

Education is recognized the world over as a means of achieving wider social and economic objectives. Modern education systems are designed in such a way as to facilitate the achievement of such wider objectives.  On the one hand, we provide  youngsters with a basic education that enables them to fit into a society that is based on modern ideas and values so that they eventually become active citizens of a modern state. It is also in the context of general education that some of the traditional divisions in society are relegated to the background making it possible for young members of society to forge bonds that transcend their primordial identities.

On the other hand, education …

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People don’t realize that there is as much corruption in the private education sector as in the public sector for the corrupt counter party that offers the bribe or corrupt payment is in the private sector.

There is corruption in all its forms- favoritism, nepotism, bribery and influence peddling in the education sector, which is now taking first place in the Corruption Ranking.

Corruption occurs among many groups of actors from policy makers at the government level to providers of education at the school level, such as teachers and principals. Corrupt practices in the educational sphere can include bribes, illegal fees for admissions and examinations, examination frauds, preferential promotions and placements for teachers and charging students for ‘tutoring services’ to cover the …

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Seven years after 9/11, we’re in between world orders.

And winds of systemic change grip all nooks of the globe: the overstretch of America, geopolitical quicksand which is the Middle East, the benign growth of Brazil and Japan, rise of China and India, resurgence of Russia, expansion of EU and NATO, petrodiplomacy of Venezuela, nonviolent nuclear politics of Iran and North Korea.

In this changing world order, for whom is the geostrategic asset of Lanka more important: China or U.S.-India? If Eelam IV’s end date pushes well into 2009, is U.S.-India intervention plausible?

World order changes imply a post-Bush II America, in addition to continuing its “War on Terror” in the Middle East, will seek to reinvigorate its engagement policy toward Latin America …

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AJ Gunawardana and Lester James Peiris

September 2008 marks 10 years since the sudden death of Dr Ariyasena Jayasekera (A J) Gunawardana, an outstanding university teacher, writer/journalist, cinema personality and art critic. When he failed to regain consciousness from open heart surgery, at the relatively young age of 65, we lost a rare intellectual who had his feet firmly on the ground, and constantly built bridges linking media, culture and society.

AJ’s academic and professional accomplishments are well known and remembered. Having started as a journalist with Daily News, where he was a noted arts and culture correspondent in the 1960s, he went on to obtain a doctorate …

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“I write this article as a tribute to my late father, K.S. Gunaratne, a teacher, mentor and a true pacifist”  

A few weeks ago while in the Uda Walawe area I met an opposition party MP who had come to help in the provincial election campaign for the local candidates.  As I listened to the interesting stories he was relating, I could not help but be amazed as to what we have come to accept as normal, even if the behavior was total unacceptable to civilized society.  He told me of the impending violence, the gangs of thugs coming into the area to support the government party and at the same time how they were mobilizing their own thugs to …

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One of our top listed companies which was picked for a top award by a Business Magazine was recently faulted by the Supreme Court in the case filed by Mr Vasudeva Nanayakkara re the privatization of Lanka Marine Services. The bunkering business was a government monopoly carried out by a government owned company- Lanka Marine Services. The government had decided to privatize it but not before liberalizing the bunkering business which was to be done in one year. The Cabinet had decided to recommend the issue of 3 licenses to carry on the business. But the Chairman of PERC had decided to privatize it before such liberalization. The Chairman Dr P.B Jayasundera says the Supreme Court in its judgment “instead …

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The day before yesterday, the government of Sri Lanka ordered all humanitarian organisations to cease all operations and remove all personnel (except Vanni residents) and assets from the LTTE controlled part of the Vanni. The question this observer wishes to explore is why the Government of Sri Lanka after ensuring the welfare of its citizens in the LTTE controlled Vanni for the last 18 years, is now is renegading on its responsibilities, even on the verge of an apparent victory.

The Government of Sri Lanka, to its credit, has treated its people, many who are forcibly kept in LTTE controlled areas, as citizens; therefore, it provided them with normal government services (education, healthcare) and also emergency aid (rations, non-food relief items). …

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