By Dr Garvin Karunaratne In my paper, ‘Dry Zone Drought and Empty tanks: A Blessing in disguise?’(Lanka Web 28/7/17), I had highlighted the plight of the small tanks in the Dry Zone, the bulwark our ancient forefathers had built up to enable the Dry Zone to become the Granary of the East. It has so […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Yahapalana election is still in the minds of the Sri Lanka public. Analysts see a clear connection between the 2010 election which featured Sarath Fonseka and the 2015 election which ousted Rajapaksa. They say that there has been US interference in these two Sri Lankan elections. The US intervention, in 2010 was […]

චන්ද්‍රසේන පණ්ඩිතගේ  මේ දිනවල සමහරකගේ ප්‍රධාන මාතෘකාව බවට පත්ව ඇත්තේ ඉහත සදහන් පැනයයි. මේ පැනය  විසින් සිදුකරන සමාජ සත්කාරය කුමක්ද යන්න අවබෝධ කරගැනීම මෙරට ජනතාවගේ ශුභ සිද්ධියට ඉවහල් වන කරුණක් බැවින් මේ සටහන ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට සිතුනී. මුළු මහත් සමාජයම ඒකාකාරී මිනිසුන්ගෙන් සමන්විත නොවේ. විවිධත්වය මේ සමාජයට ආරෝපණය කරන්නේ සුන්දරත්වයකි. සිංහල, දෙමල, මුස්ලිම් මෙන්ම බෞද්ධ, හින්දු, […]

Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka (RASSL) A Special Public Lecture    Combining Theory and Practice in Buddhist Meditation” by Keith Munnings PGCE MTH (Master of Theology), Buddhist Chaplain in UK on Thursday Sept 7th at 5.00 p.m. at the Gamini Dissanayake Auditorium No. 96, Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha, Colombo 07 ALL ARE WELCOME   Keith Munnings […]

Chanaka Bandarage Reports by the Parliament’s six sub committees Undoubtedly the reports published in 2016 by the Parliament’s six sub committees on constitutional reform are most damaging and frightening. They threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation. Among  the  proposals are giving land and police powers to the provinces.  This means the Chief […]

V.Anandasangaree Secretary General – TULF The Tamil United Liberation Front having gone through all aspects of the present Political situation have decided, to take a positive decision as regards the ethnic problem, that is getting dragged on indefinitely. During the last 60 years in politics, I have seen our ethnic problem coming very close to […]

Courtesy Dhaka Trbune Analysts blame Myanmar’s government for the conditions that led to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)’s creation Armed with machetes and rifles, a ragtag band of insurgents comprised of members of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority launched unprecedented attacks last week, triggering fighting with security forces that has left more than 100 people dead […]

By A. Abdul Aziz More than 41,000 people attend three-day convention in Karlsruhe  According to our International Press Desk U.K., the World Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the Fifth Khalifa (Caliph), His Holiness, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad concluded the 42nd Annual Convention (Jalsa Salana) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Germany on 27 August 2017 with an inspirational and […]

මාධ්‍ය නිවේදනය Road Development Employees Union  ගරු ලක්ෂ්මන් කිරිඇල්ල මැතිතුමා, උසස් අධ්‍යාපන හා මහාමාර්ග අමාත්‍ය, 9 වෙනි මහල මගනැගුම මහමැදුර, ඩෙන්සිල් කොබ්බෑකඩුව මාවත, කොස්වත්ත, බත්තරමුල්ල. ගරු ඇමතිතුමනි, මාර්ග සංවර්ධන අධිකාරියේ අධිෙවිගී මාර්ග ක‍්‍රියාකාරීත්වය, නඩත්තු හා කළමනාකරණ අංශය පෞද්ගලීකරණය කිරීම. (EOM&M) අධිවේගී මාර්ගය පුද්ගලීකරණය කිරීම හෝ ඒ සඳහා මග පාදන සියලූ ක‍්‍රියාවන් හෙලා දකින අතර ඒ සඳහා […]

Sri Lanka News On a recent visit to the deceased Uva Provincial Council member, Senarathne Aththanayaka, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe met with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The two of them have been sitting together and chatting to each other. , Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe looks old and feeble even though he is  3 years younger, […]

Editorial Courtesy The Island August 31, 2017, 12:00 pm President Maithripala Sirisena has told media heads and editors at a recent meeting in Colombo that he will complete his full term come hell or high water. He may be able to retain the presidency, but what guarantee is there that there won’t be any change in […]

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island Justice Minister Thalatha Atukorale yesterday stressed that her predecessor Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, had been removed solely due to him violating collective cabinet responsibility in respect of the leasing of Hambantota port to China. Sri Lanka and China finalized the agreement on a 99-year lease on July 29, 2017. Atukorale […]

Courtesy FirstPost Rameswaram: Seventy-six Tamil Nadu fishermen, arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in the island nation’s territorial waters, were on Thursday ordered to be released by a Lankan court, police officials said in Rameswaram. Representational Image. Reuters The Oorkavalthurai court set free the fishermen, lodged in a Jaffna jail following their arrest in […]

Courtesy  The New Indian Express RAMESWARAM: Eight fishermen from Tamil Nadu were arrested and their two boats seized by the Sri Lankan Navy in separate incidents today for allegedly fishing in the island nation’s territorial waters, fisheries department officials said. Four fishermen each from Rameswaram and nearby Mandapam were arrested when they were allegedly fishing […]

COLOMBO, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka will cut government expenditure to stick to its 2017 budget deficit target of 4.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and compensate for a fall in revenue, the top bureaucrat in the finance ministry said on Thursday. We will re-arrange and cut some expenditure to meet the deficit […]

Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal Courtesy  Reuters COLOMBO (Reuters) – International cocaine smugglers are increasingly turning to Sri Lankan as a transit hub in Asia, authorities say, after they made a series of seizures of the drug, some smuggled in containers of sugar from Brazil. Sri Lankan customs have seized six shipments of high-purity South American cocaine in […]

Courtesy The Daily Mirror Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa today said ‘hatred and jealousy’ are two qualities his predecessor Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga shouldn’t possess. Responding to a journalist following an event held at the BMICH, Mr. Rajapaksa said hatred was visible through former President Kumaratunga as she was aging. He said if there was an issue […]

Sarath Wijesinghe Solicitor/Attorney –At- Law and former Ambassador to UAE and Israel Complicated Legal System in Sri Lanka Legal system in Sri Lanka is complicated and controversial with a mixture of English Law, Property Law based on Roman- Dutch Law in addition to Kandian, Tamil and Muslim on Personal laws. Areas on Business and Commerce […]

Upali Cooray It is not possible to compose in detail an essay because the field is vast. Therefore this attempt is to highlight a few random examples of corruption in the ancient world. Ancient man’s difference was, during the evolutionary process from Ape to man his brain developed more than in other animals.His instincts as an animal was selfish and required survival in a competitive […]

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane  On 9 October 2016, hundreds of unidentified Rohingha Muslim insurgents attacked three Burmese border posts along Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh.  The attackers brandished knives, machetes and homemade slingshots that fired metal bolts. Several dozen firearms and boxes of ammunition were looted by the attackers from the border posts. The attack resulted in […]

ALI SUKHANVER Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the mystery-man of India at last got 20 years imprisonment for raping two of his disciples. He is known as the ostentatious leader of the Dera Sacha Sauda religious sect. Before the commencement of the court-proceedings a few days back, the situation in the northern town of Panchkula sparked […]

By untoldadmin Courtesy Untoldstory August 10, 2017 For those who are not aware, Sudha Murthy is a Philanthropist, a founding member and Chairman of Infosys Foundation and also associated with Gates Foundation. The following is an excerpt from her book ‘Three Thousand Stitches: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives’. Last year, I was at the Heathrow International Airport in […]

By Vishwamithra Courtesy The Daily Mirror To know nothing of what happened before you were born, is to forever remain as a child”~ Cicero Good Governance, however much it looks easy to shout about on platform and introduce, is incredibly hard to sustain even for a short period of time. The present government is proving […]

Malinda Seneviratne Courtesy The Daily Mirror Dr Harsha De Silva, Deputy Minister of Policy Planning and Economic Development, has come out strong on the subject of corruption. He has observed that the entire country is corrupt. The implication of course is that his government is also corrupt. He has said that he’s ‘sick of it all.’ […]

By Kelum Bandara Courtesy The Daily Mirror Joint Opposition MP Bandula Gunawardane, in an interview with Daily Mirror, spoke about the current economic situation in the country. The following are excerpts of the interview.      Under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Hambantota Port is the proverbial goose laying golden eggs MP Ravi Karunanayake held responsible […]

Courtesy The Daily Mirror The Police have recovered several posters alleged to have been left behind by an organized group identifying itself as an intelligence unit of the LTTE in Vavuniya. According to reports these posters were found on Tuesday on the roadside close to Kurumankadu and the TELO party office in Vavuniya. The posters […]

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island August 30, 2017, 11:01 pm President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday declared that whatever the challenges, he was confident of completing his full five-year term. The President who is also the leader of the SLFP stressed that he was in control in spite of various statements attributed to various political party spokesmen. […]

Editorial Courtesy The Island August 30, 2017, 9:52 pm President Maithripala Sirisena is reported to have asked at his meeting with media heads yesterday what would have happened to the country if the outcome of the 2015 presidential election had been different. Answering questions in the conditional perfect tense can be tricky in that it involves […]

– Kumar Moses Global Islamic terrorism has reached Burma after devastating Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi, Libya, Pakistan, Nigeria, Sudan, Bosnia and the list goes on. As Sunni ISIS terrorists have been defeated in both Iraq and Syria by USA and Russia respectively, they are escaping to other countries. Concurrently there is a concerted effort to […]

Courtesy JURIST [JURIST] Human rights groups on Monday filed suits against Jagath Jayasuriya, a former Sri Lanka army general, for alleged war crimes and human rights violations he committed during the 2009 civil war in Sri Lanka. The suits are based on his role as a commander in the Sri Lanka military during the final phase […]