BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Elections are fought over all kinds of issues.  The winners typically secure the rights to interpret mandate.  This election was about A, B, C or D,” they would say and often give their own interpretation of A, B, C and D, amending the same as per prerogatives of the particular political moment.   If you […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE How many times have we heard that there’s no room for any third party in Sri Lankan politics?  ‘Third party’ as in an entity other than the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United National Party or else coalitions led by one of both.  True, parties with extremely modest strength have on […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Calamity is responded to with horror.  It produces grief and helplessness. It prompts anger and finger-pointing.  The blame game is a constant undercurrent which gradually rises to the surface, often obliterating tragedy, the need to address post-tragedy relief and rehabilitation issues and the ultimate need to ensure there’s no repetition.  There’s blame […]

Malinda Seneviratne  Exactly thirty years ago something happened which altered the course of history in Sri Lanka.  Wrong.  ‘Happened’ is a bad word for it implies an agency-less occurrence.  It’s like saying ‘it rained yesterday,’ which of course is different from ‘there was a flood’ since the latter phenomenon at least in the case of […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE President Maithripala Sirisena was hopeful.  He said the Cabinet reshuffle will provide a new impetus to Sri Lanka’s development.  Prof G.L. Peiris was generous.  He said that it is unfair to blame Ravi Karunanayake for the economic failures and fiscal shortcomings of the government since he operated with clipped wings considering that […]

 BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Whoever is against SAITM should also be opposed to fee-levying institutions such as private nurseries, tuition classes, outfits that offer all kinds of certification and practices such as channeling services.  This is an argument that is widely tossed around by those opposing opposition to SAITM.  The flak that Dr Anuruddha Padeniya of […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE ‘At least there’s freedom now!’  This has been the stock (consolation?) response of those who defend the yahapalana regime whenever it is pointed out that corruption, nepotism, abuse of state resources for political purposes and other wrongdoings have not ceased after the January 8 ‘revolution’.   No more white van abductions, true.  Journalists have […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE May Day (in Sri Lanka) is not about workers.  It’s about show.  This time it was about challenges thrown and accepted, oneupmanship and bragging rights. The regime-thinking was abvious.  They believed the JO could not fill Galle Face Green.  They did.  Although the Joint Opposition (JO), perhaps in the permissible magnanimity of […]

by Malinda Seneviratne Courtesy The Island ‘At least there’s freedom now!’  This has been the stock (consolation?) response of those who defend the yahapalana regime whenever it is pointed out that corruption, nepotism, abuse of state resources for political purposes and other wrongdoings have not ceased after the January 8 ‘revolution’.   No more white van abductions, […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Any conflagration and especially one marked by the clash of arms that lasts over several decades can be defined in multiple ways.  For some, the conflict in Sri Lanka, was a matter between the Sinhalese and Tamils.  They call it ‘Ethnic Conflict’.  Others could say that it was a battle between state […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE The stench from Meethotamulla, metaphorically speaking, is being matched by the stench of political rivals lobbing chunks of political garbage at one another.  The politically dispassionate pointing out that there are countries where such disasters resulted in the resignation of relevant subject ministers or officials, called for the resignation of those responsible.  […]

Malinda Seneviratne  There’s saber-rattling in Washington.  There’s saber-rattling in Moscow.  Tit-for-tat talk.  Rattle-for-rattle. Neither the USA nor Russia is under attack.  Neither country can claim that there is a threat to its security. It’s all about a country that is located almost 11,000km from the USA and about 5,500km from Russia. Syria. It all followed a chemical attack […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE  There was a time when victory over enemies was about bashing heads in, seizing their women and enslaving their children.  It still happens of course.  The cost-effective way is for the powerful to dictate, the weak to submit, hands to be shaken with the key representatives of the respective parties facing the […]

Malinda Seneviratne A highly successful lawyer was once asked why he was not interested in becoming a judge.  He had laughed, ‘I would rather talk a load of rubbish all day than listen to a load of rubbish.’  Judges have to listen.  That’s their job.  And one of the things they have to listen to […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE It has become a tradition for Ranil Wickremesinghe to visit various signature tents at the Royal-Thomian and respond to questions put to him.  It’s all light-hearted.  The questions are often tongue-in-cheek stuff and the responses are calculated to generate some laughter, one feels. It was no different this year.  Two questions stood […]

by Malinda Seneviratne March 18, 2017, 5:53 pm Arjuna Mahendran, the former Governor of the Central Bank, is reported to have transferred out some 500 members of his staff.  The Government is all set to demarcate specific areas for protests.  The Government got some egg on its face with the appointment and removal of judges.  […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE  Way back when Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government was getting slammed left, right and centre by the ‘international (sic) community’, especially at the UNHRC, his detractors were thrilled.  Little did they care that the accusers were tainted in ways that made Sri Lanka look pretty innocent in terms of (alleged) ‘war crimes’.  Rajapaksa was […]

by Malinda Seneviratne March 11, 2017, 7:05 pm Way back when Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government was getting slammed left, right and centre by the ‘international (sic) community’, especially at the UNHRC, his detractors were thrilled.  Little did they care that the accusers were tainted in ways that made Sri Lanka look pretty innocent in terms of […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE What’s the difference between this government and the previous one?  Ask some random person on the street and the most likely answer would be ‘nothing’.  That’s a perception of felt benefits.  In fact some might even say ‘this lot is worse’ and if pushed might explain, ‘they said they would be different […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE  Leader of the Opposition and the senior citizen of Tamil Nationalism R Sampanthan in an adjournment motion has made some interesting points.   All people who lived in Sri Lanka, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, or any other difference, whether Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher made their fullest contribution to the achievement […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was conferred an honorary doctorate by Deakin University, Australia. He’s not the first premier thus honored and he probably will not be the last.  However, an honor it is and as such warranted media coverage.    What was newsy, though, was not the event but a statement he had […]

Malinda Seneviratne  Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara’s recent comments on Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran contained valid observations, old news delivered as though it was new, half-truths and some uncalled for insults.  Wigneswaran’s response was, in contrast, quite sober though not unproblematic. In Jayasekera’s opinion, Wigneswaran is ‘nothing but a bhoothya’.   An evil ghost […]

Malinda Seneviratne When the Government’s staunchest apologists sound disappointment it is a sure sign that things are more than ‘pretty bad’.  According to one yahapalanist, Jehan Perera (see “Going back to an alliance that can win elections” published in ‘The Island’, February 14, 2017) the public perception is that the Government has not (cannot?) tackle corruption, […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE  Grievances.  ‘Grievances?’ rather.  A word and a question.  The former implies a list or at least two issues that somehow cause distress.  The latter, the question that is, is something that has been customarily ignored or caused much shy-making, toe-watching and navel-gazing.  At best it prompts a highly emotion and even highly stylized narrative which is marked […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Ven Athureliye Rathana Thero, quite silent and almost a non-factor in the public domain for almost a year, made the headlines of all national newspapers last week.  ‘Rathana Thero goes independent,’ or versions of this, made the headlines.  The truth is that Rathana Haamuduruwo had already been made independent.  He had been unceremoniously evicted from the Jathika Hela Urumaya.  […]

 Malinda Seneviratne JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has made two statements regarding reconciliation via constitutional reform. Firstly, he has said that a referendum on a new constitution should not be approached the way the Presidential Election was fought. In that election, the Northern and Eastern Provinces overwhelmingly voted for President Sirisena, who was the default […]

By Malinda Seneviratne Courtesy The Daily Mirror  A self-proclaimed Marxist recently listed 12 things that the Yahapalana Government cannot achieve. He should have put it this way: ‘Should but cannot achieve’. As someone who once said ‘we must hope that the Government will not defeat the LTTE’ when the latter’s invincibility braggadocio was being put to […]

Malinda Seneviratne Small nations typically do not have much by way of bargaining power vis-à-vis powerful nations; ‘small’ meaning economically and militarily weak rather than land size.  Weak, however, does not mean helpless. Indeed there are very few if any relationships between the powerful and the weak that are not characterized by contestation and continuous negotiation […]

By Malinda Seneviratne  First they offer help and then they enslave ‘First they had the book and we had the land. Then they said close your eyes, let us pray”. When we opened our eyes, we had the book and they had the land.’ — Bishop Desmond Tutu on the relationship between invader and missionary in […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE  “කැකිරිලන්තයේ මීළඟ පුවත්” ශීර්ෂය යටතේ මූණු පොතේ විටින් විට පළ කරන ලද ‘ප්‍රවෘති’ එකතුවකි මෙලෙස ඉදිරිපත් කරන්නේ  “කිරිඇල්ල ගේ දේශපාලන විද්‍යාව” කෘතිය විශ්ව විද්‍යාල සඳහා නිර්දේශ වේ  උසස් අධ්‍යාපන ඇමති ලක්ෂ්මන් කිරිඇල්ල කැළණි විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයේ දේශපාලන අංශ ප්‍රධානියා ට ලියා ඇත්තේ එම අංශයේ ‘තාවකාලික කථිකාචාර්ය’ තනතුරක් ඔහුගේ හිතවතෙකුට ලබා දෙන ලෙසයි. මේ වනාහී […]