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 […]

Malinda Seneviratne Six years ago, I wrote about Prageeth Ekneligoda in the state-owned ‘Daily News’. This around the time he was picked up as the poster-boy of NGO racketeers strutting around as champions of human rights.  Ekneligoda, as someone recently observed, was no journalist.  He drew some cartoons and they were nice, but there was […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE They say that if you give some people enough rope they will hang themselves with it.  On March 19, 2012, in Geneva, no one needed give any rope to several individuals who came to talk about ‘Rule of law and human rights violations in Sri Lanka’.  They came with enough rope and […]

MALINDA SENEVIRATN​E “And there’s history.  A history of India meddling in the affairs of Sri Lanka.  There’s the whole story of supporting terrorism with arms, money and training (before the idea backfired).  Then there’s the Indo-Lanka Agreement.  That’s important and relevant because it was thrust down Sri Lanka’s throat. No discussion.   No entertainment of query.  […]

“මම රාජ කුමාරයෙක් නෙමෙයි…මම ගමේ කොල්ලෙක්!’ — මෛත්‍රිපාල BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE  ප්‍රශස්ති ගීත සාහිත්‍යයේ “ලැජ්ජාසහගතම” ගණයට වැටෙන “අභිමාන පුලතිසි මහා පැරකුම් විජයබා කුලයේ…බ්ලා බ්ලා බ්ලා” සින්දුව මෛත්‍රිපාල විසින්, මෛත්‍රිපාල සමග, මෛත්‍රිපාල සඳහා කළ නිර්මාණයක් බව ඔප්පු වී හමාරයි. එසේ නොවේ යැයි කීමට ගොස් ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ ජනපති ද ඔහුගේ පරිවාර වන්දිභාට්ටයින්ද තව තවත් නා ගන්නා බව […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE As Vithanage documents, the two women are raped by a judge presiding over cases involving their husbands as accused parties.  There’s no one to entertain their grievances.  Those institutions which shut the door on them include the Judiciary Services Commission and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka.  It is in desperation that […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE  This should have been easy.  It has been easy all these years.  Hold election, release results, count numbers, pick the leader of the party which returned the most candidates to Parliament and appoint him/her as Prime Minister.  Then Parliament convenes, the Speaker is elected, the Leader of the Opposition is selected and […]

By Malinda Seneviratne A question was asked from the former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, during his final breakfast meeting with media heads last year.  ‘Who is your real opponent, Maithripala Sirisena, Ranil Wickremesinghe or Chandrika Kumaratunga?’  He did not hesitate in responding: ‘Chandrika!’ This became the lead story in all newspapers the following day.  The headline […]

By  Malinda Seneviratne Courtesy The Nation Sometime late last year Maithripala Sirisena effectively left the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).   As predicted, he was installed as the leader of the party he ‘left’ the moment he was elected President.  He became the leader of a party whose entire membership almost campaigned against him.  It certainly didn’t […]

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE When son-in-law makes a killing on moves made by papa-in-law, it’s fishy.  Arjuna Mahendran is on the spot and he cannot pass judgment on himself or his son-in-law. Financial irregularity was one of the many charges leveled at the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime.  The ‘rot’ so to speak began at the top, according […]