No more scantily clad foreign cheerleaders at cricket matches in Sri Lanka as it goes against our “culture”, the Minister of Sports and Public Recreation Gamini Lokuge recently decreed. He was awakened to this “foreign evil” by the Minister of Cultural Affairs Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, after seeing them at the first one-day match between India and Sri Lanka at Dambulla on August 19th. So instead of foreign dancers, the Sports Minister suggested hiring Sri Lankan dancers in keeping with our traditions.

My view is that the action of the Cultural and the Sports Ministers stink of the worst kind of duplicity and mirrors the reaction of the other political parties in Sri Lanka.

The Tourism Ministry sponsored the much-hyped Hikkaduwa Beach Carnival …

continue reading

If there is one thing that is crystal clear about the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, it is that it rewards wrong doers and punishes the righteous.

The President’s decision to include the Treasury Secretary P.B. Jayasundera in his delegation to China for the opening ceremony of the Olympic games days is a case in point. Just days after the man found guilty of corruption in the privatization of Lanka Marine Services Limited by the Supreme Court and fined Rs. 500,000, the President’s action illustrates that anybody has a place in the regime’s inner circle as long as he is a “yes man.”

The Court upheld the findings of a the report released months earlier by the Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) which …

continue reading

An interesting advertisement by a tour operator caught my eye in a daily paper last week. It said “Get away during the SAARC summit” as a part of an advertisement promoting overseas holidays costing between Rs. 38,000 to Rs. 70,000 to get away from the country or more aptly the city between July 23rd to August 3rd, the scheduled days for the ministerial as well as Heads of State summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC). The idea that people must get away from the country or more aptly form the city of Colombo has been prompted by the extreme security measures that the Government is planning to put in place as its hosts eight Heads of …

continue reading

The country got a new Inspector General of Police (IGP) on July 1 with Jayantha Wickremaratna’s appointment to the highest position in the Police Department. His predecessor Victor Perera was not left much time to be twiddling his fingers because he was almost immediately appointed the Governor of the Northern Province. Mr.Perera’s predecessor Chandra Fernando too did not get much time to enjoy his retirement. He was appointed as the Advisor to the President on Eastern Infrastructure Development.
 
Now if one comes to the conclusion after reading my opening paragraph that the two latter men while they were in office were pandering more to the whims and fancies of the government in power than looking into the best interest of the …

continue reading

In the Republic of Sri Lanka, sovereignty is in the people and is inalienable. We elect a President, Members of Parliament, and Provincial Councilors etc using the powers vested with the people to exercise and enjoy that sovereignty through them.  But what is happening today is the reverse. We elect a bunch of people into office and instead of being the servants of the people, which is what they rightfully should be; they have all become our masters, a law unto themselves, from the top to the lowest Pradeshiya Sabha member.

Take the issue of VIP movement on our already depleted, over burdened roads that have become a menace to thousands of people, particularly those having to commute to the city …

continue reading

“True party politics is a bad idea. It causes one more division among the people of this country who are already divided on very other possible divisible factor.  But changing sides to enjoy personal privileges is not the solution that the people of this country are looking for. They want all political parties to get together and work for the good of this nation but they can do so while sitting on any side of the Legislature and minus ministerial perks.”

President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in as the 5th Executive President of Sri Lanka on November 19th, 2005. Soon after the event, the main architects of Rajapaksa’s victory Mangala Samaraweera and Wimal Weerawansa along with SLFP stalwarts like Maithripala Sirirsena and Nimal Siripala De Silva …

continue reading

When President Mahinda Rajapaksa met with some editors and senior journalists recently, he was asked about the attack on the Associate Editor of the Nation. His reply was,” You know me, I didn’t care about what is written against me but other people are not like that.” One can conclude that his comments are a dead give away on who he thinks was behind the attack on Mr. Noyhar. The newspaper and many others have not shied away form pointing the finger at those who they believe are the prime suspects in this cowardly attack but as things go in Sri Lanka, there can be evidence screaming in the face of the law enforcement authorities but if the accused …

continue reading

Journalists in Sri Lanka are trying to recollect whether they had a worse time under the regime of President Ranasinghe Premadasa when during the height of a crackdown on a JVP insurrection many media personnel were killed or simply disappeared, or if the regime of President Mahinda Rajapaksa is moved ahead of that dark era and is fast creating a special niche for himself as the biggest suppressor of whatever media freedom is there in this country.

Journalists in Sri Lanka have to admit, especially those in the private media that how much ever we may like to fool ourselves into believing we are truly “independent” journalists, this is far from the truth. All journalists have to work within limits and it is …

continue reading