චන්ද්‍ර ධර්මවර්දන විසිනි

මේ නොබෝ දා පුවත් පත් වල පල වූ ශීර්ෂ තල අනුව මුලතිවු (මූලදූව ) සහ ජාපනය උසාවි මගීන් “මාවීර අනුස්මරණ උත්සව” පැවැත්වීම තහනම් කොට ඇත. එම අන්දමේ පුවත් පල කරන විට එවැනි ත්‍රස්තයන් ට  “මාවීර” වැනි ගෞරව පූර්වක නාමයන් නොදිය යුතුය. ඔවුන් හින්සාව සහ ත්‍රස්තයෙන් වියරු වැටුනු, එනම් පිස්සු වැටුනු, මාර චේතනා වලින් උසිගැන්වූ  පුද්ගලයෝ බව සලකා ඔවුන්ට “මරුවියරුවන්” යයි නම් කිරීම සුදුසු ය.   

දෙමල බසින් පවා මොවුන්ට “மறவெறியன்” හෙවත් “මාරවෙරියන්”  යන නම පාවිච්චි කල යුතුය.

මෙම උත්සව ඇත්ත වශයෙන් දමිලයන්ගේ “අයිතිවාසිකම් සංදහා නැගී සිටි අය” අනුස්මරණය කිරීමට පවත් වන්නේ නම්, අමිර්තලිංගම්, කනගරත්නම් ආදී, කොටි ඝාතනයට යට වූ දමිල නායකයන් අමතක කොට ඇත්තේ ඇයි? ජාපන සරසවියේ කටයුතු කල  ආචාර්‍ය  තිරානගම, හෝ නීලන් තිරුචෙල්වන් වැන්නන් අනුස්මරණය නොකරන්නේ ඇයි?

TULF, TELO, EROS,  EPRLFආදී අන් දමිල ඊලම් වාදී පක්ෂවල නායකයන් අනුස්මරණය නොකරන්නේ ඇයි? කොටි ඝතනයට බිලි වූ හෙයින් ඔවුන් ගැන කථා කිරීමට  මරුවියරුන් අනුස්මරණය කරන මොවුන් ඉදිරි පත් වන්නේ නැත.

ජාපන සහ මුලතිව් (මූලදූව ) උසාවි වලින් දුන් තීරණයන් අනුව, තව දුරටත් මෙවනි මරු-වියරු ත්‍රස්තයන්ට ගරු කිරීමට ඉඩ දිය නොහැක.  මානව අයිතිකම් සහ දමිල අයිතිකම් රැකින්ට ඉදිරිපත් වූ උතුමන් ලෙස සැලකීමට ඉඩ නොදිය යුතුය.

ලිපි ලියන මාධ්‍යවේදීන් මේ ගැන වෙසෙසින් සැලකිය යුතුය.

By Raj Gonsalkorale

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make them mad

Donald Trump has taken the USA down an abyss of despair and duplicity. Domestic divisions and international disorder dominated the Trump era. Many questioned the sanity of Trump’s approach to governance, nationally and internationally. Now, more than 80 million voters and popular vote majority in excess of 7 million, and 306 electoral college votes has given Joe Biden a clear victory over Trump. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will have a tough time resurrecting some trust and confidence that their own people, and others in the rest of the world, had with the USA.

In the age of information technology, the world has become smaller and closer to each other whether one likes it or not, and whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. Various social media platforms link people with each other before one could blink an eye and millions are inter connected. There is computer hacking, listening in, cyber spying and all the evils of this information technology bringing out the worst in human beings. In this environment, internationalisation today is inevitable and the world has to find ways and means of capitalising on the positives and taking collective action against the negatives. Countries cannot crawl into the cocoons and pretend they can live happy ever after by doing so.

The rest of the world has no choice as to who sits in the White House. However, even if that person sneezes or coughs, the effect reverberates throughout the world. Stock markets can go up and down and oil prices could fluctuate wildly. In this context, it does matter to the rest of the world who sits in the White House. Due to the inability of the rest of the world to decide on this, they are probably hoping and even supporting alternate world leaders and emerging powerful economies to cushion the blows they get when the incumbent of the White House behaves irresponsibly and irrationally. Many in the world today who are so interconnected would want a Vladimir Putin or a Xi Jinping or an Angela Merkel or a Narendra Mody to help keep the world more stable even if they are not supporters of such leaders or their modes of governance.

What characterised the Trump era was his own belligerence and the increasing counter belligerence of leaders like Xi Jinping. Many Nations distanced themselves from the USA, and they are doing that with China. Belligerence is not a strength and it is well for both the USA and China to remember this. China does have the money to buy friends and influence people. However, what money buys are not genuine friends. In contrast, despite all its negatives, the money spent by the USA, not just its government but by Billionaire philanthropists like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and a host of others have helped to fight decease, and supported causes like providing potable water for millions of human beings living in deplorable conditions. Comparatively, the government of China nor its many billionaires have done little to support impoverished countries ridden with avoidable catastrophes.

The world does need a strong and decent USA. Not a USA that has destroyed the lives and livelihoods of millions in the Middle Eastern region on the pretext of hunting for non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The world need a kinder USA that recognises the limitations in trying to introduce democracy to countries who have never known democracy. The USA has to work with authoritarian regimes and work towards gradual reforms and human rights improvements.

When an incumbent challenges its own democratic choice, questions are raised about democracy in the USA. The voice of the USA becomes less credible if what it practices is not what it preaches. It cannot be the stone thrower who is in a glass house.

Unknowingly and unwittingly, COVID has given the USA, China and the rest of the world an opportunity to recalibrate and reset the pathway towards a kinder, less avaricious and a more humanitarian world that realises it is part of a whole that includes the natural environment that sustains all living beings. If the worlds powerful nations do not recognise this and save the environment, they will not have a world they could dominate

The change of leadership in the USA gives an opportunity for Australia to do their own resetting as far as its relationship with China is concerned. While Australia’s steadfastness about its values is commendable, it needs to be pragmatic about the realities in China. Human rights abuse is levelled against China, however, there is no recognition that more than 850 million Chinese people have been lifted out of extreme poverty in the last three decades according to the World Bank. China’s poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015. In 2019 it had been reduced to 0.6 percent. For those who have visited China in recent times, these changes are quite evident.

China could get on the pulpit and talk about the human rights of Australian Aboriginal people. They could wheel out statistics about the health status, life expectancy, literacy rate and other social indicators of Australian indigenous people. They could also talk about the 1.2 million children who are said to be in poverty according to the charity organisation, the Smith Family.

Australia might be in a defence pact with the USA and also have a long standing relationship with the USA. However, Australia needs to look after its people whose economic wellbeing had got closely intertwined with the trading relationship that had developed and grown with China. This trading relationship has now got seriously threatened due to belligerence on the part of both countries. Australia needs to do be pragmatic and stop being the Deputy Sheriff of the USA for the region. They need to practice diplomacy as it should be practiced.

Perhaps it is time for the government to send an emissary to China to help thaw the heated relationship between the two countries. If such a thawing does not happen and things get worse, many Australians will face the economic consequences of biting the hand that has been feeding it.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

Economists agree that China has made a spectacular rise from a very poor nation in 1949 to very rich one in 2019. Chinese banks are among the largest cross border lenders in Asia, said Economist in 2019. Seven of the top 20 equity underwriters in Asia In 2018 were Chinese. Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway had invested USD 232 million in BYD, a Chinese energy products company, in 2008.  In 2019, China had the world’s largest high-speed rail network of 29,000 kilometers. This is about two thirds of the world’s total high-speed rail network.

China is now due to become the biggest economy in the world, ousting the US from that position, analysts said in 2019.     In 2020, China had become the world’s largest economy in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). China’s economy had reached a stunning 25.4 trillion USD in 2020, said analysts. By 2030 China will be the leading economy. By 2030 China will also have the largest navy and the most powerful aircraft carrier, they said.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a massive global network of ports, railways, roads and industrial parks spanning Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe, with trillions invested in new infrastructure.  China’s B&R is supported by a bank, unlike other similar ventures. Sri Lanka is a member.

More countries are joining it. Iraq announced in September 2019 that Iraq will join China’s “Belt and Road” project.  Iraq is grateful to China for its valuable support and is willing to work together in the ‘One Belt, One Road’ framework,” said the Prime Minister of Iraq during a state visit to China.  Beijing is Baghdad’s biggest trade partner, while Iraq is China’s second biggest oil supplier.

This November (2020) China and 14 other Asia-Pacific countries signed the world’s largest trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. (RCEP). China has joined forces with more than a dozen countries across the Asia Pacific region to sign a huge free trade deal nearly a decade in the making, said analysts.

 The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership spans 15 countries and 2.2 billion people, or nearly 30% of the world’s population. Their combined GDP totals roughly $26 trillion and they account for nearly 28% of global trade based on 2019 data. The deal includes several of the region’s richest countries, China, Japan, South Korea. It also includes New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The trade agreement was first proposed in 2012 as a way to create one of the world’s largest free-trade zones. Tariffs and quotas would be eliminated on 65% of the goods that are traded in the region.  The economic benefits are modest and would take years to materialize but this was a coup for China, said Citi Research analysts.

The Communist Party intends to keep a firm grip on its capitalist economy.  Keeping big business in check is part of that plan, said analysts. There was a crackdown on global spending. Anbang Insurance was nationalised, putting the Waldorf under the ownership of China’s Ministry of Finance. Baoshang was taken over by the state. Acquisitions of European football clubs by Chinese groups came to an end. HNA, an airlines and logistics group that bought a large stake in Deutsche Bank and Hilton Worldwide, faced difficulties. . (Economist)

 China’s overextended financial conglomerates and China’s tech billionaires were brought to heel. Six of China’s 20 most valuable listed companies are tech firms with billions of users.  In addition, firms were asked to launch Party committees that will oversee corporate decisions. Also set up monitoring units that would allow the Party to audit company managers. (Economist)

The Republic of China celebrated its   70^th anniversary with a very impressive, very long parade which included an ‘awesome display’ of military equipment. In the military parade in 1949, only 70 planes could be found so they had been ordered to fly past twice. In 2019 there were 160 aircraft and 580 pieces of military equipment on display. China has developed military abilities that can reach potential adversaries across the globe, said experts. 

The military parade was broadcast live, so everybody now knows that the China has invented powerful new weapons. China has no recent experience in sea or air battles, observed critics, but they are developing

[effective]

missiles and asymmetric systems.

The military parade showed off China’s most advanced weapons, some being shown for the first time.  They included the following.  The J-20 supersonic stealth fighters,  the H-6N with an aerial refueling probe added,  that could be used to deter US aircraft carriers venturing into the South China Sea  and the DF-26 ballistic missile which, fired from land bases, is believed to have the accuracy to strike at US Navy’s aircraft carriers.

Also on display was the DR-8 or WZ-8 supersonic drone, a reconnaissance drone that that could potentially be deployed by aircraft, to infiltrate enemy airspace and gather intelligenceincluding determining the damage done by China’s missiles. It could be used to spot distant targets on very short notice and hit them with a conventional ballistic strike.

The Dong Feng  41, or DF-41, is an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 15,000 kilometers, allowing it to reach anywhere in the United States in about 30 minutes.  It is capable of hurling multiple nuclear warheads all over the United States, said experts.” It could be moved around by road and fired quickly.

 Its range of up to 15,000 kilometers would make it the world’s longest-range military missile. Some analysts say it can travel up to 25 times the speed of sound. It could carry as many as 10 independent warheads, which can hit 10 different targets over a wide area.”

One of the most closely-watched weapons was the Dongfeng-17, a new hypersonic ballistic nuclear missile believed capable of breaching all existing anti-missile shields deployed by the U.S. and its allies. Experts say it can breach any defence system.  The DF-17 missile is thought to be able to travel at more than five times the speed of sound. It’s designed to bypass enemy missile defense systems by traveling at speeds more than 3,400 miles per hour at low altitudes. 

DF-17 is a nuclear-capable glider that is designed to maneuver at high speed to evade anti-missile defenses. The glider is believed to be able to carry conventional and nuclear devices. The emergence of such a system would have a considerable impact, highlighting China’s progress in designing hypersonic non-strategic gliders, a segment in which Russians and Americans are lagging behind, said experts.”

China kept up its contact with Sri Lanka during the USA-controlled Yahapalana rule of 2015-2019. Tianjin Symphony orchestra played at Nelum Pokuna in 2017, to a full audience. Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the Beijing Chamber of International Commerce signed an MOU to promote trade and commerce between the two countries in 2015.

 In 2014 Beijing Foreign Students University signed two memoranda with University of Colombo to set up a China Sri Lanka study Centre and a Confucius Institute. China said that there is a high demand for Sinhala degree courses at the Beijing Foreign Students University, due to the increase of Chinese investments and business groups. The university has facilities for PhD programs in Sinhala too. Chinese international broadcasting service had a Sinhala channel, they added.

China did not relax once Pohottu came to power. China remained watchful. Two criticisms of Port City were made. China replied. CHEC Port City Colombo (Pvt) Ltd wishes to draw your attention regarding, a misleading reference about Port City Colombo, in an article, titled ‘Did Expert Committee use similar standards in evaluating MCC and Port City loans’, by Harim Peiris, published on  09/07/2020, and subsequently another opinion article titled ‘Saving nation from Chinese loan strategies’ by G.A.D Sirimal, on  11/07/2020.

Both articles say “the issue that arises is whether the SLPP and its experts use the same criteria and standards when evaluating the MCC grant with Port City loans and project.”  Port City Colombo is not a Chinese loan. Port City Colombo is purely a commercial trade agreement and a 100% direct investment.

After the Eelam victory of 2009, Mahinda Rajapaksa wished to embark on a development progamme. The only country that came forward to invest in Sri Lankan infrastructure in a big way was China. Therefore, it wasn’t a foreign policy shift but an economic necessity, said Colombage. West had boycotted us on the grounds of human rights violations. So China filled the vacuum.

China became the biggest foreign investor in Sri Lanka, dwarfing foreign inflows from other countries by a significant margin. According to a March 2020 study by the London-based Chatham House think tank, Chinese infrastructure investment in Sri Lanka amounted to $12.1 billion between 2006 and July 2019.  Beijing is the largest foreign source of investment in Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Maldives, according to a 2018 study by Mumbai-based Gateway House think tank. Although the US is Sri Lanka’s biggest export market and a major development partner, it has been unable to match the Chinese economic might.

Since the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the President last year, the government has once again deepened its relationship with China.  We have always had excellent relations with China, said President Gotabaya.  Sri Lanka relations with China is mainly economic, he observed.

China has offered to help mitigate the financial crisis faced by Sri Lanka. Pohottu asked for a $700 million loan. China gave US$500 million  on a 10-year concessionary loan. China also provided generous support towards controlling Covid-19.

Pohottu has bluntly pointed out to its pro-US, anti-China critics that it is China that has the most amount of cash now”. In different times in world history, different countries have had the most amount of cash. And now it happens to be China, Pohottu explained.  However, Sri Lanka is exploring different options to repay its debt, in addition to loans from China, currency swap facilities with India and China, and Samurai and Panda bonds, Pohottu added.

Despite the fact that Chinese loans to Sri Lanka remain below 10 percent of our overall debt burden, and those loans are concessionary loans with an interest rate around two percent, Pompeo and other US officials have tried to portray that China has Sri Lanka in a ‘debt trap”, complained Pohottu.

Pohottu dismissed the accusation that China is setting up “debt traps” in developing countries. China is Sri Lanka’s largest creditor but Sri Lanka is not caught in a China debt trap. 90 percent of Sri Lanka’s debt is in fact owed to western and multilateral financial institutions,   Pohottu said.

This statement has received support from abroad. Min Ye, Professor of International relations at Boston University has stated that studies conducted by scholars and researchers at US-based institutions have disproved the charge of a debt entrapment policy by China, whether it refers to Sri Lanka or Pakistan, or elsewhere.

China’s support was to enable Sri Lanka to pay off debt to other lenders. This could leave Sri Lanka completely in the hands of China, said . Mick Moore. At any moment, China could decide not to extend further loans to Sri Lanka.  On the other hand China could agree to give very large, low cost loans to enable the government to pay its debt to other lenders, he added.

Epithets like Trojan Horse” and Greeks bearing gifts” have been used to refer to offers of assistance by China to Sri Lanka.  Pohottu has ignored these warnings”. Analysts observe that Pohottu has pulled the plug on a light rail transit system that was to be financed and constructed by Japan. It is believed that the construction of the project will now be handed over to a Chinese company. (Continued)

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA.

Although the chicken-brained lingerie designer cannot understand the economic progress being made by this government it must be pointed out despite progress affecting in many firlfd of economic development inflation for which the opposition rabb;e-rousers make even poojas for a steady increase is reported to be dwindling appreciably,  Inflation in October reached 5.5%, which was a reduction from 6.4% in the previous month. The Census and Statistics Department said that the reduction was largely down to changes in food prices.  

We now present fitting responses given to the chicken-brained lingerie designer who attempted to mislead the people about the visionary futuristic budget thinking that the people of this country are economic liliputs similar to him.

National Chamber welcomes 2021 Budget; stresses on implementation

The National Chamber of Commerce (NCCSL) welcomed the 2021 Budget presented on by Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and stressed its success hinged on effective implementation.

Following is the full text of the NCCSL statement:

The National Chamber at the outset acknowledge and appreciated the Government efforts to maintain consistency in taxation policy framework commenced last year with introduction of certain tax cuts and relaxations, without resorting to ad-hoc revenue enhancement measures in the midst of extremely difficult times confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic on behalf of the membership, business community and general public at large. 

We observe the Budget proposals deliberated under agriculture, local diary industry, fishery economy, plantation, etc., with budgetary allocations under the Ministries of Agriculture, Irrigation, Water Supply, Plantation, Trade, Fisheries and Land, etc., together with a wide spectrum of tax exemptions extended would augur well for SMEs of the economy where the National Chamber has a remarkably high level of representation. 

The National Chamber is cognisant that the budgetary framework revolves around the sustainability of local entrepreneurship under ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’ while keeping certain import restrictions in order to maintain economic stability of the economy as elaborated under foreign trade and national economy of the Budget speech. We sincerely expect that the Government would endeavour to reconnect with global value chain eventually starting with the regional trade collaborations at the appropriate time moving forward.

We are of the view that up-skilling of the technical knowhow of the local work force would be of paramount importance in order to improve productivity level and quality of the output of the local entrepreneurs. While appreciating Budget proposals directed towards in the areas of technological infrastructure, connect Sri Lanka, techno parks, distance education, and specifically opportunities for vocational education and expansion of university facilities we stressed that such efforts need to be continued under ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’ vision of the Government in order reap the benefits in the medium and long term horizon.

Finally, we are of the view that the successful implementation of the Budget proposals of 2021 hinges on achieving the revenue targets of the Government which would be challenging under current prevailing circumstances and expect more light will be shed in this area through deliberations within the next few days finally extending the assurance in the minds of rating agencies, investors and foreign financing agencies.”

CCC welcomes ‘growth-oriented’ Budget

• Awaits timely implementation and private sector consultation 
• Wants engagement on holistic labour reform, change in retirement age and COVID insurance fund 
• Says wage reform should rely on time-tested collective bargaining and Govt. reconsiders plantation wage in Budget 
• Wants focus on debt management and SOE reforms

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce said it welcomed the proposals put forward by the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in the National Budget 2021 which it termed as business friendly, production-oriented and demonstrative of policy continuity. 

The Budget has focused on boosting economic growth by enhancing exports, providing investment relief for key thrust sectors supplemented by public investment proposals, promoting capital markets and supporting the growth of startups and SMEs,” the Ceylon Chamber said in a statement. 

The emphasis on tax policy continuity and measures announced to strengthen tax administration demonstrates a strong commitment to policy consistency while strengthening and broad basing revenues. 

The Chamber said in its pre-Budget proposals highlighted the importance of the Government maintaining the current tax laws and rates at least for the next five years or so thereby providing the necessary consistency in tax policy. The adoption of a consistent tax policy under the National Budget 2021 would not only provide a platform for proper planning for business but would also help the Government in long-term cash flow planning and strengthening fiscal consolidation.

The Chamber also welcomed the tax relief for investment in machinery and equipment for domestic manufacturing and exports and the relaxing of import restrictions on certain sectors in line with past recommendations by the Chamber. 

Proposals on enhancing digital governance, investments in technology and infrastructure including rural connectivity to facilitate digital inclusion are also notable.

We trust the commendable proposals in the Budget will see timely implementation and will continue to involve private sector consultation.” 

The Chamber said it looked forward to the facilitation of further stakeholder engagement with respect to holistic labour reform and the placement of the proposals related to the extension of the retirement age and the contribution of 0.25% on turnover towards an insurance fund, within the context of the said broader reform agenda.  

With respect to wage reform, the Chamber recommended the placing of continued reliance on the time-tested mechanism of collective bargaining which has so far been adopted consistently across industry sectors and encompasses factors related to productivity and worker welfare, and as such that the Government reconsiders the budget based wage intervention for the plantation sector. 

The incorporation of productivity linkages within the proposal to increase wages of plantation sector workers is also a subject which merits further consultation. 

The Chamber said it trusted that the positive benefits accrued from the macro stability set out by National Budget 2021 would provide a foundation for sustainable growth acceleration over the medium and long-term as envisaged. 

The Chamber is also hopeful that the Government will pivot on the growth foundation established, to continue its progress in reforms on several key agendas including but not limited to those related to Local and Foreign Investment, Debt Management, Export Promotion, State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), Capital Market and productivity enhancements in the public sector. 

The Ceylon Chamber in its capacity as the premier representative of the private sector, looks forward to an ongoing engagement with the Government, and for the opportunity to play a meaningful role alongside the private sector at large, with respect to the implementation of the Budget proposals. 

The Chamber will continue to support the Government’s initiative to effectively execute a public-private shared vision for accelerated economic revival and social sustenance,” the statement added.

2021 Budget more significant given COVID-19 challenge: – CEO of Standard Chartered Bank.  

CEO of the Standard Chartered Bank Sri Lanka Nr.Bingumal Thewarathanthri said that the National Budget of 2021 was more significant given the challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

He emphasised that Year 2020 has been challenging. Extended lockdowns in Sri Lanka contributed to a loss of business, affecting both domestic production and the import-export economy. Needless to say, this adversely affected the banking sector, both in terms of (necessary) loan moratoriums and a rise of NPLs.  In this backdrop, the National Budget plays a significant role as compared to any other time,”  

According to him, all over the world successful governments have accepted stress on fiscal deficit to support the industries and Sri Lanka is not an exception. However, Sri Lanka will have to balance its ambition with medium-term debt sustainability. 

After a long time, we have seen some assurance on policy consistency with this Budget, which will support the FDI agenda for the country and will also boost the domestic companies venturing into sectors specified by the Strategic Development Projects Act,” Thewarathanthri pointed out.

Now, the banking sector needs to boost confidence in the market, repurposing financial instruments to suit the unique needs of the economy and innovate more holistic value propositions to respond to differing circumstances. Whilst financial sector stability is a top priority, it is imperative that banks offer unconventional financial services with calculated risks,” the SCB Sri Lanka CEO emphasised.

With the Government flagging the national need to change the Sri Lankan mindset to a production-based economy that supports exports and domestic production capabilities with less imports, the onus is on the banks to assist the Government to kick-start the economy, for businesses to thrive and the nation to progress,” Thewarathanthri added. 

New era for local motor vehicle assembly with 2021 Budget,

claims Sri Lanka Automative Component Manufacturers Association (SLACMA)

In appreciation of the Government’s efforts to encourage entrepreneurs in the automobile industry engaged in vehicle assembly using locally-manufactured brand-new auto components, SLACMA President Dimantha Jayawardena said the 2021 Budget had proposed local automotive assembly using 30% of locally-manufactured brand-new parts; promotion of local automotive products by giving them preference in Government tenders (domestic preference) and elimination of unfair competition for local auto manufacturers by preventing under-invoicing by importers.

SLACMA has submitted a 10-year master-plan to the Finance Ministry as a crucial step to take the local assembly industry and component supply to the next level, as they seek quality certification from their regional counterparts to boost growth. 

The association reiterated the role of the Ministry of Finance under the Prime Minister, Ministry of Industry and Supply Chain under Wimal Weerawansa and Dilum Amunugama, MP, the State Minister of Vehicle Regulation, Passenger Transport Services, Railway Carriages and Automobile Industries, the Department of Motor Traffic, Export Development Board and the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka for their active support in driving this policy forward. 

The SLCMA said it was currently in talks with seven world-renowned automobile companies, in order to supply locally-assembled and manufactured automobile components. Jayawardena expressed confidence in a better future for the industry in creating many jobs in the months to come.

EDB lists key 2021 Budget proposals and impact on export sector

The Export Development Board (EDB) said it was pleased to see an export-focused budget, which will support strong export growth led by investment, value addition and maximising Sri Lankan natural resources. 

This is a pivotal change in Sri Lanka’s growth strategy, which will be led by the exporters,” the EDB said.                

Following is the list of export focused proposals of 2021 Budget, it said..

 Corporate Income Tax

Exports, Tourism, Education, Medicare, Construction and Agro processing – 14%

Manufacturing – 18%.

Trading, Banking, Finance, Insurance, etc. (Standard Rate) – 24%. Manufacture and Selling/Import and Selling Liquor, Tobacco, Betting and Gaming – 40%.

Income generated from the supply of Health Protective Equipment to arms of Government and similar products by BOI companies on the request of Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medical Services, Department of Health Services, Tri-Forces and Sri Lanka Police to be considered “Deemed Exports” (Tax rate – 14%).

VAT rates.

Standard rate – 8% (effective from 1 December 2019).

Supply of Financial Services – 15%.

Export of goods and services – Zero Rated.

Exemptions apply for speccified goods and services.

Economic Service Charge (ESC).

ESC was abolished with effect from 1 January.

Nation Building Tax (NBT).

NBT was abolished with effect from 01 December 2019. 

Impact of Budget 2021 on the Sri Lankan IT/BPM industry

The potential for exponential growth 

The National Export Strategy of Sri Lanka aims to generate $ 5 billion of revenue creating 200,000 direct jobs and establish 1,000 IT/BPM startups via the IT/BPM industry. This Budget clearly codified this message through incentivising the IT/BPM industry as a thrust or core industry.

Imran Furjhab, the CEO Tresync stated that thre The IT/BPM industry requires little capital, can grow exponentially very fast and can help prevent brain drain while offering the capacity to grow internationally and boost efficiency of every other industry as well. 

Signals to IT/BPM industry

The Budget proposals signalled that Earnings from both domestic and foreign sources by those engaged in businesses in Information Technology and enabling services and also their earnings when made while being resident or non-resident will also be exempted from income taxes”.

Removing all taxes would influence more people to get in to the industry while also be helping to attract Sri Lankan diaspora to invest in Sri Lankan startups plus physically return to the country to work in this industry.

Additionally, it gives long-term certainty for larger projects as well. Investments exceeding $ 10 million with potential to change the landscape of the economy, in the areas of export industries, dairy, fabric, tourism, agricultural products, processing and information technology will be provided with concessions up to a maximum of 10 years under the Strategic Development Law.”

Therefore, the Budget meets the requirements of the IT/BPM industry in terms of generous tax exemptions. 

Encouraging listings of IT/BPM companies

Many local startups such as PickMe are now ready to list hence the incentives such as to provide a 50% tax concession for the years 2021/2022 for such companies that are listed before 31 December 2021 and to maintain a corporate tax rate of 14% for the subsequent three years” will encourage more listings of IT/BPM companies and let the general public benefit from the growth of the IT/BPM industry. 

Enabling legal framework

The intention to introduce laws relating to data security, cyber security and intellectual property rights, which I have been personally pushing for will protect IT/BPM stakeholders and help establish the country as a favoured investment destination. 

Enabling telecom infrastructure framework

Creating a ‘technology-based society and digitally-inclusive Sri Lanka’ is the Government’s vision. Under this the ‘Gamata Sanniwedanaya’ (Communication for the Village) aims to grow the telecom infrastructure to provide high speed access across the country, which will permit the IT/BPM industry to be located anywhere. 

Continued ………….

A.J.M. Muzammil Media Unit

ඌව පළාත් සභාවේ අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශයට බඳවා ගනු ලැබූ අධ්‍යාපනවේදී උපාධිධාරීන් 26 දෙනකුට ගුරු පත්වීම් පිරිනැමීම අද දින ( 26-11-2020 ) ඌව පළාත් ආණ්ඩුකාරවර ගරු ඒ.ජේ.එම්. මුසම්මිල් මැතිතුමන් ගේ ප්‍රධානත්වයෙන් ඌව පළාත් සහා ශ්‍රවණාගාරයේදී  සිදු කෙරිණි.

මෙහිදී කොළඹ, කැළණිය සහ පේරාදෙණිය යන විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයන්ගෙන් අධ්‍යාපනවේදී උපාධිය ලැබූ උපාධිධාරීන් සහ භික්ෂුන් වහන්සේලා දෙනමකට ද ගුරු පත්වීම්වලට අදාළ පත්වීම් ලිපි පිරිනැමීම ආණ්ඩුකාරවරයාගේ අතින් සිදුවිය.

මෙසේ බඳවා ගනු ලැබූ උපාධිධාරි ගුරුවරුන් විසි හයදෙනා මොණරාගල, බිබිල, වැල්ලවාය, තණමල්විල, වැලිමඞ, පස්සර, මහියංගනය හා වියළුව යන අධ්‍යාපන කලාපවල පිහිටි පාසල් වෙත අනුයුක්ත කර ඇත.

මෙම ගුරු පත්වීම් පිරිනැමීමේ අවස්ථාවට ඌව පළාත් ප්‍රධාන ලේකම් පී.බී.විජයරත්න මහතා, ඌව පළාත් රාජ්‍යසේවා කොමිෂන් සභා සභාපති විජිත මල්ලැහැව මහතා ඌව පළාත් ආණ්ඩුකාරවර ලේකම් නිහාල් ගුණරත්න මහතා,පළාත් අධ්‍යාපන අමාත්‍යාංශයේ ලේකම් සන්ධ්‍යා අඹන්වල මහත්මිය ඇතුළු නිලධාරීන් පිරිසක්ද එක්ව සිටියහ.

Courtsey Ceylon Today

Rear Admiral (Retired) Sarath Weerasekara has taken oaths as the Minister of Public Security today (26).

The President established two new Ministries under an extraordinary gazette recently.

By Rathindra Kuruwita Courtesy The Island

A powerful foreign country or an agency was behind the Easter Sunday bombings and the National Thowheed Jamaat (NTJ) leader Zaharan Hashim, former President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday told the PCoI investigating the Easter Sunday attacks.

I also do not believe that Zaharan was the leader of that organisation. Because a leader would never have initiated a suicide attack and died during the first wave,” Sirisena said.

The former President also said that Islamic extremism had spread rapidly in the country due to the support extremists received from Muslim politicians.

Sirisena also said that the military and intelligence officials had been demoralised by harassment they suffered during the yahaalanaya administration. This was the reason why local institutions failed to uncover NTJ’s plans. But this incident is a conspiracy because it appeared that Zaharan was being manipulated by some foreign hand,” the former President said.

The President further said that during the previous administration, UNPers had headed the Ministry of Law and Order for several years that they had significantly weakened the intelligence services. Although he had taken the Ministry of law and Order in the last stages of the yahapalana government, he had not been able to undo the damage the UNP had done in four years, the witness said.

Commissioner: Did you know that during your tenure as President, Muslim MPs and ministers were forcible acquiring land in Vanni and Batticaloa and they were constructing Muslim villages and mosques there?”

Sirisena: Some ministers used their political power to clear forests and cultivate lands. Some ministers were angry with me when I tried to stop them. I tried hard to control those actions. But it was difficult for me to deal with that situation. Fundamentalism rose due to the protection given by Muslim political leaders. Certain political parties are based on religion, race and language. This is disastrous. I tried to stop these people but my decisions were not implemented.”

Courtesy Adaderana

The Ministry of Health confirms that 211 new cases of novel coronavirus have been detected today.

All new cases are close contacts of COvid-19 positive patients from the Peliyagoda cluster.

A total of 553 new cases have been reported so far today.

Meanwhile the tally of coronavirus cases from the Minuwangoda and Peliyagoda cluster has now increased to 18,491.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Director General of Health Services has confirmed three more deaths of Covid-19 infected persons, increasing the total number of coronavirus deaths in the country to 99.
 
One of the deceased is an 87-year-old male from Colombo 08, who passed away at the Colombo National Hospital today (26). The cause of death is cited as a bacteria infection with Covid-19 infection and chronic lung disease.

An 80-year-old resident of Bambalapitiya who was receiving treatment at the Mulleriyawa Base Hospital after being identified as a Covid-19 patient had passed away on November 25. The cause of death is reported as high blood pressure, pneumonia and a heart attack caused by Covid-19 infection. 

The other is a 73-year-old woman from Peliyagoda who had passed away at the Colombo National Hospital on November 23. The cause of death is cited as high blood pressure, diabetes and a stroke resulting from COvid-19 infection. 

Ada derana

By Rohana R. Wasala

I do not normally speak as a Sinhalese, and I do not think that the leader of this council ought to think of himself as a Sinhalese representative, but for once I should like to speak as a Sinhalese and assert with all the force at my command that the interests of one community are the interests of all. We are of one another, whatever race or creed.

• D.S. Senanayake, 1945 (‘Don Stephen Senanayake’ by H.A.J. Hulugalle, 1970)

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in his address to the nation, on completion of his first term in office, on November 18, 2020, touched on a number of crucial points. Any less committed executive president would normally choose to fight shy of the foremost of these: the ever growing threat to the survival of the Sinhalese as a race, their country, their Buddhist religious culture, and their ancient archaeological heritage; he also made mention of the challenges of extremism and foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs. These are directly connected with national security. He called for investments rather than loans from friendly nations; the president also briefly outlined how the government is managing poverty alleviation, Covid-19 containment, and improvement of public administration. Excerpts from the president’s speech as gleaned from the media (some parts of the following two paragraphs are my own renderings – unmarked – from the Sinhala spoken text as I heard it, with my own comments in parentheses):

‘A year ago, more than 6.9 million voters in this country elected me as your new President. It is no secret that the majority who voted for me then were Sinhalese. They rallied (round me) because they had legitimate fears that the Sinhala race, our religion, national resources and the heritage would be threatened with destruction in the face of various local and foreign forces and ideologies that support separatism, extremism and terrorism. The main appeal made by the people to me was to, Protect the Country’. (There is overwhelming evidence to show that, throughout their very long history, the Sinhalese fought to protect the country from invaders for all those who lived there; they have always been real patriots, not racists. The minorities didn’t trust him under the influence of the few racists among minority politicians.This was in spite of both Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa bending over backwards to please the minorities and plead with them for their support during both elections. – RRW)

‘During this short period of time we have taken steps to ensure the security of the country as requested by the people. The public should not have any apprehensions in this regard any longer. …..We have contained the danger of any kind of extremism raising its ugly head. There will be no room for indulging in drug trafficking or directing the underworld from within the walls of prisons as happened in the past.  The era of betraying our war heroes, of accepting any agreement for short-term gain, of allowing foreign forces to interfere in the internal affairs of the country, has come to an end…… I act on the principle that the post of president is not a position of privilege, but that it is an onerous responsibility….. An administration that protects the rights of all citizens regardless of racial or religious differences will be established during my tenure. I have always acted in accordance with the pledge I made in the sacred precincts of the Ruwalweli Maha Seya to protect the unitary status of the country and to safeguard and nurture the Buddha Sasana as per the Constitution, the supreme law of this country. I meet with an advisory council comprising leading Buddhist monks of the Three Chapters every month to seek their advice on matters pertaining to governance….It was because the people highly rated the manner in which I performed my duties within this period that they gave a two thirds majority in parliament. Public opinion is the perfect measure of my success, not the organized false propaganda spread by political opponents through the social media………I am a person who has constantly faced challenges and successfully dealt with them. I am not afraid of empty threats. I am not used to running away from problems instead of solving them. I don’t want to please anyone in expectation of votes. What I want is to usher in an era of prosperity  for the people as promised. I will not hesitate to take any step in accordance with my conscience in pursuit of that goal. I love my country. I am proud of my country. Teruvan Saranai!’ (End of direct reference to the President’s speech. The following comprises this writer’s reflections.) 

Post-independence politics in Sri Lanka has been characterised by a continuous struggle between exclusive minority communalism and inclusive majority nationalism, in the form of roughly thirty years of cold war between the two and another thirty years of open conflict, which ended with the defeat of armed separatism in 2009. (In the same breath I would like to emphasize this fact: In each of the minority communities – mainly Tamils and Muslims – only a handful of politicians act as communalists, but they contrive to electorally dominate the community while their really progressive, often younger, rivals get sidelined. The vast majority of ordinary Tamils and Muslims, like ordinary Sinhalese, are not racial extremists or religious fanatics.) Minority communalism (found only among opportunistic politicians) has gradually acquired a religious dimension with intensifying fundamentalist Christian and Islamic subversive activities targeting Buddhists and Hindus; Islamists have been active particularly since the early 1970s. On top of this, Sri Lanka’s strategic geographic location has led global and regional superpowers to be actively engaged in exploiting these anti-majority movements to their advantage, thereby condemning Sri Lanka to constant political destabilization, economic stagnation, and deterioration of national security, sovereignty and independence. 

Sinhalese politicians (like most ordinary Sri Lankans) have always been true to the idea of continuing as the united nation and the unitary state that the British left them. This was the vision articulated by D.S. Senanayake, who came to be revered as the Father of the Nation as he had provided the final victorious leadership to the independence struggle. Senanayake didn’t believe in claiming any special status for the Sinhalese although he was not unaware of the horrendous discrimination that the Sinhalese were subjected to by the Euroean colonialists as the conquered in need of being kept under control; 1915, for example, was not such a distant memory to him. Every prime minister from 1948 to 1978, and every executive president since then have been extra-careful not to violate that ideal. President Gotabaya is reasserting the same principle of national unity, without which there will be no national security nor economic development nor political independence. 

It is a fact that in Sri Lanka there is a simmering problem of religious fundamentalism, which is an incubus that takes away the peace of mind of the majority of the people and disengages their attention from the more vitally important problems that the country is facing as a nation. It is being used as a weapon of destabilization by the powers that be that want to exploit Sri Lanka’s strategic location in the Indian, lately Indo-Pacific, Ocean.  There are numerous fundamentalist Christian and Islamic sects that have been active in the country for several decades. For a long time we thought that they are not of the type that is likely to set the traditionally peaceful mainstream Christians and Muslims against Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils. But we were wrong. It is now clear that religious fundamentalists are a problem to the respective mainstream Abrahamic religions as well, giving rise to internecine doctrinal disputes within those communities. This particularly applies to the Muslim community, sections of which seem to have been radicalised under the influence of foreign sponsored Jihadist groups. It was reported that some young Muslims travelled to Syria to join the IS, and even got killed there. The monks said that they were approached for help by some persecuted Muslims who told them that  there were clashes between Jihadist and traditional Muslims, involving attacks on the mosques of the latter and even murders in the eastern province, where all three communities live together peacefully, though Muslims dominate.

Unlike in the case of traditional Christians and Muslims, the fundamentalist attitude to Buddhists and Hindus is not one of peaceful coexistence. They treat the latter as spiritually misguided subjects  ripe for conversion. The twofold fundamentalist  menace shows no sign of abating in the near future. The most virulent form of religious fundamentalism that is posing a formidable challenge to Sri Lanka’s intercommunal unity and peace right now is Islamist extremism. Activist Buddhist monks and their lay followers allege, based on evidence as they claim, that Jihadist agents have already infiltrated practically every department of life in the Sri Lankan state. (It is upto the authorities concerned to check the veracity of these claims.) The problem could worsen if politicians of both the main parties choose to follow the Three Wise Monkeys’ example: See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil where evil is seen and heard, but nothing is said against it. Unfortunately, successive governments have failed to grab the bull by the horns for reasons that are not far to seek. The expedient political correctness policy of the UNP/SJB and the SLFP/SLPP is a boon to racists and religious zealots, while it betrays the monk and other activists who expose them and oppose them, and the up and coming progressive young Tamil and Muslim politicians who make common cause with those patriotic elements. 

An online Sinhala news website, Lankacnews, reported October 24, 2020 that, according to government sources, there was a possibility that state minister portfolios will be given to two of the nine MPs of the Opposition who voted for 20A. I, for one, originally believed that this was not true; the website could have been reporting an unfounded rumour or somebody’s fabrication. But, another online publication, Colombo Telegraph, which is usually critical of the present government, lamented in a headline: ‘20A Once Again Proved: Muslim Political Opportunists Are Up for Sale’. Meanwhile, the more authoritative and reliable website referred to at the beginning, Lankacnews, again reported (26) that Dayana Gamage, one of the nine SJB MPs who voted for 20A with the government, as saying that she would like to accept, if offered, the post of minister for child and women’s affairs though she did not support 20A in expectation of a ministerial portfolio or any other reward. This faintly hints at such offers having probably been made, after all. If that is true, isn’t it possible that the Muslim MPs were enticed with even bigger quid pro quos? The marked cordiality that minister Chamal and MP Rishad greeted each other with in that picture that shocked us all would not help neutralize such speculation. 

But there was absolutely no need for horse trading with questionable characters in the circumstances. What is the use of legislation passed with assistance from wheeler-dealer politicians whom the majority consider duplicitous? (In the case of 20A, however, their help was not critical; their votes were actually redundant.) Besides, these MPs were (and still are) in a politically vulnerable situation of their own making in which they didn’t know (and still don’t know) which way to look. The latest news I read about Hakeem was that he wanted to launch an internal inquiry into why his four MPs violated his party’s policy of opposing 20A! This is in spite of the fact that he had given his four MPs tacit permission to vote for the amendment. National list MP Dayana Gamage of the SJB told a You Tube journalist that her leader Sajith Premadasa knew beforehand that she was going to vote for the amendment, for her husband had phoned him and told him the night before about her decision, though, later, like Hakeem in the case of his MPs, Premadasa threatened to take disciplinary action against her. There is no doubt that both Premadasa and Hakeem are partly trying to salvage the little prestige that they ever had and that they have now irretrievably lost. Be that as it may, until the government establishes clarity in this respect, negative speculations will not stop. More important, what about the just anger and frustration that the ambitious MPs of the SLPP and allied parties must feel at the danger of some crooks of the Opposition who worked for the downfall of Gotabaya and Mahinda getting ministerial positions that even they were denied?  

Doesn’t this mean that a government which has got an overwhelming popular mandate to rule by restoring law and order, national security, and political and economic stability (all of which had appallingly deteriorated under the previous administration) could not have taken even the first step towards that goal by abolishing the controversial 19A and bringing in the stopgap 20A, without having to buy over MPs or to engineer desertions from the Opposition benches? It is no ordinary mandate: it is a doubly confirmed mandate in the form of a president elected by 69.9  million voters and a prime minister leading an alliance that won 144 seats in parliament, the kind of huge mandate that is not likely to be repeated unless those who have been given that mandate act sensibly.  Whenever is Sri Lanka going to make headway as an independent sovereign nation?  Seventy-five percent of the voters are Sinhalese, who don’t cast their vote on a communal basis. They overwhelmingly account for the above people’s mandate. The passage of 20A with due amendments was what they wanted. If a few anti-majority extremists were allowed to be in a position to decide on its fate, who was to blame for that grievous anomaly? Wasn’t it the fault of the Sinhalese MPs elected by their own people to serve the nation whether they happen to sit in the Government or in the Opposition? (By ‘nation’, Sinhalese Buddhists and the sensible majority of the minorities mean all those who make Sri Lanka their home; that is what ‘people of Sinhale’ had implied before Western imperial powers destroyed the healthy social cohesion in the country through their ‘divide and rule’ stratagem; it is difficult if not impossible for religious and racial extremists among the minorities to understand, let alone appreciate, this fact. On the other hand, the unsophisticated Sinhalese cannot understand, nay, don’t know, that they are being misunderstood as racists and religious extremists in the outside world because of diabolical misinformation about them propagated through the English medium by the minuscule minority of  real racists and religious bigots among those opposed to them.)    

The appointment of two more ministers is constitutionally defensible thanks to a clause that is being retained in 20A as a salutary feature from the now abolished 19A, which nevertheless set limits on the numbers of cabinet and state minister portfolios respectively at 30 and 40. Currently, there are only 38 state ministers; so, there are two vacancies. The Yahapalana coalition rechristened itself as a national government in order to increase the number of ministers beyond these limits until practically every government MP was some sort of minister.  Awarding ministerial positions to corruptible MPs as mere political sinecures just to ensure their mechanical Ayes and Noes on appropriate occasions in the legislature is a despicable ruse that must be put an immediate end to. If it had to be resorted to particularly at this juncture (when the undeniable fact of the majority community being victimized by a few communalist opportunists is so evident), it was all due to there being not enough patriotic Sinhala MPs in the Opposition. Not that all Sinhala MPs in the Government are patriotic either. What I found as an independent observer trying to penetrate the real motives and concerns that drove them as revealed in their speeches and occasional acts during electioneering prior to the August 5 general election was that nearly all of them, with a very few exceptions, were unashamedly narrowly focused self-seekers worried only about their personal ‘political careers’, not about their mandatory obligations to the country/nation. 

But still there is time for them to think, and support, from wherever they are, the only technocrat that we have got since independence in the non-partisan Gotabaya Rajapaksa. I believe GR is free from political ambitions that might distort his vision and that might cause him to baulk at taking action when it is necessary but difficult to do so.  The detractors of the few innocent Buddhist monks who had been warning persons in authority in vain about what the Jihadists were up to for years  do not denounce those Muslim extremists when they bombed some Catholic churches and hotels, and killed and maimed hundreds, but instead only insult these monks as Buddhist zealots and terrorists. 

But the truth cannot be denied that both Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa who were supported by the monks and other patriotic citizens are real national heroes who have served the country in ways that no other leader has ever done since independence. Had it not been for them the separatists would have survived to this day. The country achieved a lot of economic development (highways and vastly improved infrastructure, particularly in the war-damaged north and east provinces, to mention just one example among many) for the country between 2009 to 2015 in the wake of the civil war and despite its disastrous legacy. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s quick response to the first signs of the Covid-19 affliction in March 2020 wiped it out completely before, unfortunately, it made a mysterious re-entry courtesy some unseen or unrevealed agency.  He has just completed one year in office amidst untold obstacles mounted by oppositional elements with communalistic and extremist affiliations sponsored by meddlesome foreign powers as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Communalistic behaviour is out of character for Sinhalese MPs, whatever their other defects.  However, for the time being, there is no alternative for them but to give priority to the problem that the president prefaced his speech with: dealing with the legitimate fears of the majority community that he spelt out. Yet, on the contrary, right now, it looks as though most Sinhalese MPs in parliament are behaving like willing dupes of some Islamist extremists or their sympathisers; they seem to voluntarily assist the miscreants in their stratagems. Chief Opposition Whip Lakshman Kirielle has asked the Speaker in writing (as reported in the media October 31) that a special seating plan on the government side be made for the nine SJB members that he claims have been expelled from the party. Seven of these are Muslims, one Tamil, and one Sinhalese. In effect, the SJB is palming off the extremists that it fostered and used to prolong the Yahapalana misgovernance onto the government, in the apparent vicious hope that they initiate a cankerous relationship with it. Kirielle and the rest of the SJB hierarchy cannot be expected to take kindly to this criticism, but this is my gut feeling.

State minister Dayasiri Jayasekera has long been complaining that the SLFP MPs are not receiving the recognition they deserve within the government. Its leader, former president Sirisena, who was expecting an agrapalaya or an ultimate reward got nothing, but the PM was reported to be ‘creating’ a suitable post for him. Anyway, do these people worry as much about vital national issues including the Grim Reaper abroad in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic? Are the disgruntled SLFP’ers within government ranks trying to rock the boat? The President twittered November 1st that he was presented with a locally produced Lion Flag by state minister Dayasiri Jayasekera. A former provincial Governor Rajith Tennekoon complained that the Lion in this flag was holding the sword by its blade, not by its hilt! and that this was a grave violation of the Constitution, because disfigurement/distortion of the Flag is a criminal offence. Probably, Tennekoon, who is another political activist, was exaggerating an apparent shortcoming in the drawing of the flag. A careful look at the image of the locally produced flag will reveal what I mean: the cross guard that separates the blade from the grip part of the handle of the sword is not properly drawn; it is as if it is not there. Having said this, it is a big defect that must be corrected. Is it a result of a genuine oversight or of an act of deliberate sabotage? Tennekoon’s demand that the circulation of this new local flag be immediately halted must receive the attention of the authorities. (It was later reported that Dayasiri Jayasekera acknowledged this error and took immediate action to rectify it.)

The few communalists and religious extremists that there are will try to cripple the government whether they are in it or in the Opposition. However, it is clear that they get little support from the general public. Foreign interventionist powers are laying siege to the country, but they can’t do much damage if Sri Lankans manage to put their own house in order and stick together. In this all Sri Lankans have a collective responsibility. Each community must be united within it and act in solidarity with other communities as equal Sri Lankan citizens, and this must be reflected among the MPs in parliament. Partisan politics must be shelved while bracing to deal with the manifold crises before the nation. People of each faith must take responsibility for and deal with the extremists among them, without giving in to their extremist ideologies. If there is any terrorism, let the government security apparatus deal with that, as they did with the separatists. People of all faiths must be united as a single nation. It will be of the strongest support for overcoming religious fundamentalism in general and the Islamist terrorism in particular if Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus, who share similar peaceful nonviolent religious and cultural values, overcome artificial divisions and enmities of the past and decide to find refuge in each other as children of Mother Lanka against both overt and covert aggression and oppression. That will be the end of meaningless fratricidal separatism as well.

(Ps: Lankaweb readers, please bear with me for having cannibalized parts of one of my own articles that appeared here a few weeks back. This is an appropriately updated,enlarged and enhanced version of the same.) 

Stanley Gunaratne 

The current 1978 Constitution’s “Equality” clauses are meaningless since they are superseded by 600+ personal laws thanks to Article 16 overriding Article 12. 

Article 16 currently permits any personal laws made by Parliament before, or after 1978 to override the Constitution! This flies in the face of equality.

The best Constitution we had was the Soulsbury Constitution which had ironclad guarantees to prevent such nonsense. 

PROPOSAL IN A NEW CONSTITUTION:

THE CEYLON BASIC LAW

(Section 1) The Republic shall ensure the preservation of its ancient heritage, that Buddhism is inviolable, and the apolitical teaching of factual history. All representatives of the people shall be servants of the People and it is their duty to uphold this Constitution, the People’s sovereignty, the Rule of Law, and make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Island.

(Section 2) Unless affirmed by this Constitution, No Law shall:

(a) prohibit or restrict the free exercise of any religion, or

(b) make persons of any community, or religion liable to disabilities, or restrictions to which persons of other communities or religions are not made liable; or

(c) confer on persons of any community or religion any privilege or advantage which is not conferred on persons of other communities or religions

(Section 3) Any Law that has been made before, or made in contravention of this Basic Law, shall to the extent of such contravention be void.

THIS WILL END THIS NONSENSE ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Furthermore:

An “Ethnic Integration Policy” (EIP) for Ceylon must be put in place and enforced to preserve the Ceylonese identity and promote ethnic integration and harmony. It will ensure that there is a balanced mix of the various ethnic communities in all Districts, monitored by a designated Civil Service Housing Board.

The EIP limits shall be set at block, neighbourhood and District levels based on the ethnic make-up of Ceylon:
– For the purchase of a flat, land, or house, a household with members of different ethnic groups can choose to classify their household ethnicity under the ethnic group of any owner or spouse (co-owner or occupier)

– Bands will be set for communities in each district that conform approximately to the overall national demographics of the entire country according to the latest population census
– The four communities are classified as thus; 
Sinhalese, 
Tamil, 
Moor/Malay, 
Burgher or any other community.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

China has   stepped up its diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka after Pohottu government came in.  A very experienced Chinese diplomat Qi Zhenhong   arrived in November 2020 as ambassador to Sri Lanka. Qi Zhenhong was head of China Institute of International Studies, a premier international relations think tank in China. He has an excellent understanding of the complex realities in the Indian Ocean, said analysts.     He comes here at a time when the actions of USA, India and several other countries are rapidly militarizing the Indian Ocean and is applying pressure on smaller nations to join them.  

There were three important meetings between Sri Lanka and China in the months of October and November, 2020, ChinesePresident Xi Jinping spoke with Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa via Zoom in November 2020. The two leaders shared their experience on administrative matters. Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardane, Prof.G.L. Peiris, Namal Rajapaksa, Sagara Kariyawasam and several Provincial Councillers   also participated in the discussion that followed.

A highlevel Chinese delegation, led by Chinese leader Yang Jiechi, visited Sri Lanka in October 2020. They were on a tour which included UAE, Algeria and Serbia. Sri Lanka was their first destination. This was a very significant visit. The delegation met President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Chinese delegation comprised seven members.  Its leader Yang Jiechi holds a position equivalent to Vice Premier. Yang Jiechi was Chinese Foreign Minister from 2007-2013 and China’s Ambassador to US from 2001 to 2005.  He is presently a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and the director of its Central Committee’s Foreign Affairs Commission, a top policy-making body.

Also in the delegation were China International Development Cooperation Agency chairman Wang Xiaotao, Assistant Foreign Minister Deng Lee and the Foreign Ministry’s Asian Affairs Deputy Director General Chen Song.

The leader of the delegation said that the present status of bilateral relations between China and Sri Lanka was highly satisfactory. Maintaining and promoting this friendship is a key priority of President Xi Jingping. China wanted to maintain high-level exchanges and consolidate political mutual trust. President Xi Jinping considered further improvement of China-Sri Lanka relations a priority. 

The delegation   recalled past history. China–Sri Lanka relations have stood the test of time, they said. What continued from the ancient spiritual ties since the visits of Chinese Buddhist monks centuries ago, received a big boost when the Rubber-Rice deal was signed in 1952, even before the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two newly emerged independent countries. The Ceylon–China Trade Agreement of 1952 was undoubtedly the most useful trade agreement negotiated by Sri Lanka and one of the most successful and durable trade agreements in the world, having been in operation for 30 years, the delegation said.

The head of the delegation said that China will firmly stand with Sri Lanka to protect the country’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity at international fora including the United Nations Human Rights Council.

We will support not from words but by action,” said Jiechi. Sri Lanka would shortly sign an agreement with China to obtain a US $ 500 million concessionary loan from her. China also announced a US$ 90 million grant to Sri Lanka, for medical care, education and water supplies in Sri Lanka’s rural areas. Thirdly, the Chinese ambassador met Ajith Nivard Cabraal, State Minister of Money & Capital Markets and Professor W. D. Lakshman, Governor of the Central Bank to discuss financial instruments to be implemented after the Yang Jiechi visit.

Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) held an advanced seminar on governance via video in November 2020.  This was a follow up to the meeting between the two heads of State and the Yang Jiechi visit. The discussion centered on aligning the Belt and Road Initiative with Sri Lanka’s Vistas of Prosperity and Splendor.”

Minister Song Tao of the International Department of Central Committee of CPC, Party Secretary Liu Cigui of CPC Provincial Committee of Hainan Province, and Qi Zhenhong spoke for China. Prof. G.L.Peiris, Sagara Kariyawasam, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Namal Rajapaksa, Ramesh Pathirana and some State Ministers and Mayors from the Western Province spoke for Sri Lanka.

The China-Sri Lanka Belt and Road Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism” was established in June 2020 between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and main political parties of Sri Lanka .The first meeting of the Mechanism,  was  held via video link.   United National Party, Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and People’s United Front of Sri Lanka   participated.

Song Tao, Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, addressed the event. He said China was ready to work with Sri Lankan political parties to strengthen the exchange of experience in state governance, promote bilateral cooperation in all areas and contribute to the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The meeting also approved a joint initiative of the political parties of China and Sri Lanka to support Belt and Road cooperation.

Analysts observed that CPC has established contacts and exchanges with more than 400 political parties and organizations in over 140 countries. CPC maintains friendly relations with a dozen political parties in Sri Lanka both in the government and the opposition.

In November 2020, the  China Reform Forum which is affiliated to the Communist party of China signed an MOU with China-Sri Lanka Cooperation studies Centre at Pathfinder Foundation.  CRF has dialogues with more than   30 countries.  CRF uses these dialogues  to briefs China on its foreign policy.

Sri Lanka had a successful presentation at the Third China International Import Expo (CIIE) held in Shanghai from November 5-10, 2020. The Sri Lanka Embassy in China and Consulate General in Shanghai in coordination with Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) and the Foreign Ministry teamed up with seven Sri Lanka companies to showcase tea, coconut products, and spices including Ceylon cinnamon, herbal products, rubber products and confectioneries at this event.

Twenty-Seven Sri Lanka companies took part in business matchmaking meetings online. An MoU to create an online Sri Lanka Pavilion in Womai.com online platform was signed between the EDB and the China Oil and Foodstuffs Company (COFCO).

China’s Prestige International Company Ltd would promote Sri Lankan products on its JD.Com platform. JD.com is the most popular online platform in China and one of the 500 fortune companies. It is China’s largest online retailer and also the biggest overall retailer. It is the country’s biggest internet company.

Three strategic cooperation agreements were signed between the Prestige International Ltd. and Silver Mills SL Ltd., Stuarts Tea Sri Lanka Ltd. and Saraketha Organic Ltd. These agreements are expected to generate 5.5 million of RMB trade between the parties in 2021.

In November 2020, the Sri Lanka-China Buddhist Friendship Association (SLCBFA), with financial assistance from the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka, commenced a programme to donate dry rations and hand sanitizers to Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka, to overcome Covid 19. They started with Sri Wijayalokaramaya Temple in Rukmalgama, Pannipitiya. (Continued)

MALINDA SENEVIRATN​E

There are all kinds of yahapalanists. There are those who cannot be in denial simply because they were right in the middle of the yahapalana project or rather a project by that name (for good governance was certainly not their cup of tea as history showed and practice demonstrated). Then there are those who opted for a change of clothes. Name change, symbol change, address change etc., didn’t make them unrecognizable. SJB and UNP, telephone and elephant, it’s the same. All yahapalanists. The praise and blame accrue to one and all. Well, add to this the Yahapalana Fan Club made of sideline politicians who are double-headed and double-addressed, i.e. rights advocates and professionals.

Now these worthies are big fans of the 19th Amendment. It was great, they say. And they add, ‘the 20th is draconian and dictatorial; it rolled back the gains of the 19th and is even worse than what JR initially instituted in 1978.’

Where’s the substantiation, though? Let’s take a look.

Let’s start with the brag. The brag of course had to do with the 18th. It also had to do with a peculiar political context where the champion and the intended beneficiary (Ranil Wickremesinghe) led a party that had minority representation in Parliament whereas the man whose powers were to be clipped, Maithripala Sirisena had just assumed office with a majority of the national vote.

The 18th would be effectively repealed, they bragged. It was. The 19th would embody the Yahapalana promise(s). We would have accountability and transparency. Democracy would be enhanced. Good governance assured. Cabinet would be limited to 30 ministers. That was part of the brag. Seniority and meritocracy will mark appointments and promotions, they told us. We know how that fell by the wayside! The independence of the judiciary would be restored, they promised. Well, they made a mockery of the last by turning the Supreme Court into a political circus almost immediately after Sirisena was sworn in as President.

Let’s get to the process which includes the passage of the amendment. It was drafted. Nothing wrong with that. The Supreme Court was petitioned. Nothing wrong with that. The Supreme Court offered a determination. Essentially, important elements of the draft were shot down. Now what did the Yahapalanists do?  Did they follow yahapalana practice to the letter?

Well, the objections were of an order that amending the document in ways that took these into consideration would have violated established parliamentary procedure. Typically, at the committee stage, only minor corrections are made. In other words, yahapalana theory would have required the yahapalanists to withdraw the amendment, get back to the drawing board and come up with a fresh draft.

They didn’t do that. They produced an amendment that was very different to what was tabled. That’s giving a finger to established procedure. Not very yahapalana-like, was it? It only demonstrated (and rather early in the tenure of that regime) that ‘yahapalanaya’ was a lie. A hoax.  It was voted on in the dead of the night by clearly irresponsible and perhaps tired and sleepy MPs. Sarath Weerasekera voted against it. Only he. Kudos to him.

The substance. As mentioned it was about giving power to a man who, at that point, did not have the trust and confidence of the people. One must mention that Wickremesinghe’s swearing-in was also a travesty of established procedure. The incumbent was sacked by way of the newly sworn in President signing a letter. Immediately, i.e. before the letter was delivered, President Sirisena appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe

So it was done. It was done in such a way that no one knew who really called the shots. Ball-passing between the Prime Minister and the President became a common occurrence. Finger-pointing was frequent. It was the easy out for a bunch of people lacking imagination, suffering innovation-lack and who were absolutely incompetent. Things were so confusing that it took the  Supreme Court to say what was what and that too only with respect to dissolution-power. This was when Sirisena joined forces with Mahinda Rajapaksa in late 2018.

Cabinet-size. This was a joke. On paper, we got the number 30. It was cheered. It was bragged about. On paper also was this neat device called ‘National Government’ which the amendment-drafters left undefined. ‘In a National Government, cabinet size would be determined by Parliament. The matter finally hit the ‘constitutional experts’ in the yahapalana camp only when it could no longer be hidden. When Sirisena took the SLFP out of the coalition, Jayampathy Wickramaratne, the big boss behind the drafting, unashamedly said that since the SLMC (Sri Lanka Muslim Congress) was with the UNP, it remains a ‘national government.’ In other words, in his mind, a bloated cabinet was still constitutional! The yahapalana braggarts maintained a dead silence on the matter.

Much was made of the Constitutional Council (CC) which, the braggarts claimed, corrected the clauses of the 18th that crippled independent institutions. However, in reality, it was Ranil Wickremesinghe’s whims and fancies that held the day. The composition of the CC, naturally and understandably tilted in favor of the regime. It was politician-heavy, which of course wasn’t quite yahapanish. However even the non-politicians (non-political only because they weren’t in Parliament, let’s keep that in mind!) were partisan. Check the names of those ‘civil society’ people in the CC, the names of those appointed to various commissions and the appointments and promotions recommended by the commissions themselves. Friends and loyalists. That’s it. Why else would some of these ‘independents’ resign the moment Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected President?

So now we have the 20th. Much of the confusion has been sorted out. Some of the better elements of the 19th have been retained. Are we ok now? Of course not. Cabinet size is still not cleared, although President Rajapaksa has kept it within the ceiling mentioned in the 19th. The CC just rubber-stamped Wickremesinghe’s wishes. President Rajapaksa has far more sway and that’s not necessarily a good thing.  Nevertheless, unlike the yahapalana braggarts, he has recommended that the six senior most judges be promoted to the Supreme Court. The yahapalana regime didn’t do that, not even with the so-called democracy-safeguards instituted to ensure independence of the judiciary. If it was Sirisena, Wickremesinghe or even Mahinda Rajapaksa, this might not have been the case. That itself shows the flaw. It should not be dependent on whether or not the incumbent values meritocracy.

Sri Lanka has a long way to go to resolve a simple issue: what’s best for us, a parliament-led system or an executive presidential system of governance? The proposed new constitution might sort this vexed issue out and hopefully in a way that effectively blocks the possibility of abuse.

That said, the 19th is nothing like its champions make it out to be. A piece of trash that did away with another piece of trash (the 18th). Stank. Get over it already.

malindasenevi@gmail.com

A paper submitted By  The Sri Lanka Study Circle 

The COVID Attack 

In the first quarter of 2020, the world was plagued by a COVID virus which has, as at now, caused the deaths of over a one and a half million people. 

A tiny bug has literally brought the world -the globalised world – to a standstill with economies dislocated, education retarded, food chains ruptured, ‘goods and services’ chains scuppered and health services disrupted. 

The virus has adversely affected, albeit in different ways, both the purveyors of globalisation and those dragooned into globalisation.  

Globalisation impacted 

Globalisation is a socio-economic and political template created and thrust upon the world by the global money-lenders operating out of America and Europe; it spells out the rules on how the world, as a single unit, should conduct itself, politically, economically and socially.  

This ‘Globalisation’ template broadly established many parameters, such as: The food, the services, the goods, the medicines, each country is permitted to produce and consume: The tariffs  to be imposed when countries engage in trading: The mandatory use of the American dollar in international transactions: Fixing the value of all the currencies in the world to the dollar: Determining the wage rates applicable to each country: Determining the prices payable for the resources of each country: Determining the rate of  interest to be applied in each country: Determining, the total value and conditions of financial loans -including rates of interest and prior compliance requirements- that would be advanced to a country: Coaching countries seeking loans to parrot the geo political script in public fora: and many more.  

The underlying theme in the ‘Globalisation’ template is that ‘private-interest’ shall always prevail over ‘public-interest’ and that the land of a country is, but a mere commodity, to be bought and sold and made accessible to the global money lenders; in the Globalisation model, the engine of development is the ‘Private’ sector.  

These notions are quite contrary to the views of Sri Lanka, clearly enunciated in the Country’s Constitution. Public interest shall always prevail over private interest; the Country’s land is not a commodity for trade but a priceless resource, belonging to all Sri Lankans, that sustains man and nature. 

Globalisation cause of poverty, bondage and loss of Sovereignty  

In the Globalisation template there is no place for sovereignty, for the former colonies of Europe and America; the need, for the architects of ‘Globalisation’, is to possess and control the land and resources of these former colonies. 

To induce these former Colonies to accept the ‘Globalisation’ template, the Global Loan sharks allured the leaders of these countries by zeroing in on their frailties; these leaders thereafter frog-marched their countries into the inevitable debt trap.  

The tactics adopted by the Global loan sharks are no different to the tactics adopted by their local cousins, the ‘Poli-Mudalalies’. 

And the end result of ‘Globalisation’ has been poverty, indebtedness and bondage to the countries at the apex of the ‘Globalisation’ pyramid.  

Sri Lanka is at the base of this pyramid. 

Globalisation wobbles 

With COVID 19, Globalisation has taken a major whack; the countries which contrived the globalised template and controlled the pyramidal structure from their imperious positions, have suddenly found the pyramid wobbly and unstable. 

The countries at the base of the Globalisation pyramid, although ‘wounded’ by COVID, have discovered that COVID has loosened the shackles of ‘Globalisation’; these countries are in a position, now, to free themselves from Globalisation and walk away from this trap of ‘perpetual bondage’.  

American threatens Brandix type operations 

 The Americans too, realise that COVID has caused a situation where some ‘captive’ countries are contemplating escape from their captors; to counter the collapse of the ‘Globalisation’ model and to prevent a mass escape of the captive countries from the bondage of Globalisation, the captors are menacing the captives with the threat of  deliberately infecting them with COVID ; the captors are hectoring the captives to follow the ‘New Normal’ rules which could lead to a situation, like in America, where people are literally  dying like dogs, on the streets.  

There is strong suspicion, among the people, that this modus operandi was adopted in the Brandix-COVID- Cluster- Bomb case; the people are eagerly awaiting the results of the criminal investigations that have been initiated.  

In Sri Lanka, all the post COVID solutions, proposed by notorious American agents, are based on continued activity within the framework of the impaired ‘Globalisation’ template.  

This would be disastrous. Conceding that a vaccine for COVID 19 is found, what happens when, for example, COVID 30 hits us? 

The Government has gone into shell shock; after eight months of COVID it has yet to come out with a holistic plan to tackle the post COVID scenario. There has been no thinking ‘outside the box’ in this regard. 

With the lockdowns, many people have lost their jobs, some work on half pay and others are unable to generate a daily income; their power to purchase food for the table has dwindled. There is uncertainty, gloom and fear in these homes. 

The Plan – Human lives first 

Taking Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs as a start point, the Country’s slogan should be ‘Human Lives First’.  

The Government needs to adopt a strict zero tolerance policy for deaths by COVID. Within this policy framework the Government must ensure that primary needs of food, shelter, clothing, health and education are provided to all the people.  

In this paper, the Sri Lanka study circle presents a broad outline of a plan to ensure that all Sri Lankans, poor and rich, young and old will never ever go hungry. The plan is in a skeletal form and needs to be fleshed out.  

The COVID attack was a revolutionary attack on human civilization and this plan to provide food, as a response, we dare say, is revolutionary. Many sacred cows may have to be sacrificed in the implementation of the plan. 

The people would have to be put on a war footing to ensure the plan is implemented expeditiously. 

In this plan, the Study Circle recognizes that Sri Lanka is a very fertile country and most, if not all, of the food that people eat can be grown here. And this includes fruits too. 

The project would be a government led initiative. 

Perforce therefore, we need to begin immediately growing all our needs in respect of food by way of crops, plants, creepers, trees, etc, etc after: 

• Making an assessment of population distribution  
• identifying localities where these crops etc would be grown 
• identifying requirement of local organic fertilisers, local non-chemical weedicides, potential anti-fungal and pest control requirements.  
• Identifying Warehouse requirements. 
•  Identifying transport requirements to plantations, warehouses and retail outlets. 
• Doing research and making plans to prevent crop failure and making back-up plans in the event of such failures.     
• Finding markets for excess produce 

In this plan, the Government shall buy all the produce from the farmers, store them in Government warehouses, where necessary, and distribute them to the distribution Centres. 

The people have a choice in buying the food of their liking. 

Print Purple Money 

To provide the people with purchasing power to purchase their food requirement, the Government will distribute, for example, Rs: 30,000/= per month to each and every family.  

From where would the Government find the money to give the people?  

Yes, they will print the money, but this money will be different to the normal currency in circulation; for example, it would be purple in colour and this can only be used for purchasing and selling food. 

The money thus printed will not create inflation since it would be used to purchase the food produced; there would be inflation if the food targets are not met. 

Excess supplies of food produced can be bartered with other countries to obtain essentials which cannot be grown/made here. 

Dump the Dollar 

We shall develop bilateral Agreements with countries, closing the books on previously regulated global tariffs. Wherever possible we shall do barter trading, disregarding the US dollar as the global currency of exchange. 

The ‘purple’ currency will run parallel to the normal currency; the ‘purple’ currency will only buy food and ensure that people have a full plate of food in front of them, always; this is not a burden to the Government.  

With time, Sri Lanka would have a highly developed agricultural sector where production, distribution and research will be at the highest of levels.  

Even if we are plagued by a COVID 20 or 25 or whatever, one thing is certain; no Sri Lankan will ever go hungry or be malnourished.   

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA.

Sri Lanka’s worst quisling who was kicked out of parliamentary politics by the Maha Sangha and the patriotic people of Matara and was forced to become a political orphan who exposed his economic lacuna by attempting to criticize the visionary and futuristic budget 2021budget due to sheer jealousy with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksea.  Unlike this ignoramus nincompoop, the budget has been hailed by the business community, academics and economists as a as a long term futuristic budget while this lintgerie designer says that it is a budget that facilitates money laundering.  This political discard seems to be very familiar with money laundering as the British Parliamentarian Lord Sheikh Ahmed said in the British House of Common that he met Samaraweera and he was very friendly with Tamil diaspora elements in Britain.  There were many allegations that this political orphan was the main money launderer of the Tamil diaspora as he had the impunity of passing through Customs unchecked due to his Ministerial portfolio. 

Issuing a media message this quisling has said that the budget 2021 which has no vision or programme of work has only facilitated for money laundering by the government’s political cronies.  The message translated from Sinhala as published in the Lanka C News website says that the government has acknowledged that the economy collapsed during the past year and has hence the budget has facilitated money laundering as a stimulus for improving the economy and this would place the country in a dangerous situation in respect of international monetary policies.

This lingerie designer who accidently became a Finance Minister and who acknowledged that the portfolio was much above his capabilities as it was a portfolio that had been previously held by eminent persons of this country such as J.R.Jayawardene, Dr. N.M.Perera, and Mr. Felix R. Dias Bandarabaike states that the budget has given an amnesty of Tax concession of paying only 1% for investing the undeclared foreign and locally held money. ( It must be reminded that a similar method was adopted by Sri Lanka’s best ever Finance Minister Dr. N.M.Perera to pull out hidden currency notes by cancelling the validity of currency notes high denominations within a target period and through this measure he was very much successful in drawing out all hidden money in tthe country. The people who were hoarding money queued up in front of Banks for several days with suitcases of money to get it exchanged for new currency notes. This ignorant and chicken brained lingerie designer may be unaware and cannot understand the deep rooted values of these economic strategies which even surprised many well-known reputed economists. And it was such a progressive minded government that father together with C.P.de Silva toppled by backstabbing Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1964).

He says that the global policy formulator on money laundering that Financial Task Force FATF had Sri Lanka on its Gray List” following efforts made by the Ministry of Finance Sri Lanka was removed from that list in October 2019.  (He acknowledges by this statement that Sri Lanka was designated as a country facilitating money laundering until October 2019, including the period he was the Finance Minister of this country. He says that since that there are international restrictions on money laundering that foreign banks may not accept money transfers to Sri Lanka). 

This political orphan further states that this government has no proper plan for economic development of this country and that is why they are looking forward for an economic policy like this and claims that this government obtained the votes of the people of this country by misleading them to vote for rescuing the country.

(Economically dwarfed this lingerie designer says that there are criteria to prove that the country is marching backward economically.  He says that under the guidance of Ranil Wickremasinghe the mega marketing agent for selling the country’s national and natural resources) that he made surplus budgets in the years 2017 and 2018 after about 45 years.This statement is a shameless acceptance that but budgets presented by him were babies of Ranil Wickremasinghe and not his own).

He further states that controlling the economy on a visionary basis, in order to stimulate private investments which was very essential for the country the Enterprise Sri Lanka” programme was launched (it has been commented by many qualified and eminent economists that this was a programme forced on Sri Lanka by the IMFin order to strangle the country’s economy under their watch) their government was able to make available more than Rs. 90,000 to the private sector at low interest rates.  In addition to this that their government carried out development work in all electorates at a cost of Rs. 300 Million  under the Gamperaliya programme. (The effect of this wild boasting was clearly indicated in both Presidential and Parliamentary election and he was forced to withdraw his own nomination, UNP was decimated to 2.5% country wide polling in the General Election, which even put an end to Ranil Wickremasinghe’s several decades of political life. ).

This quisling says that although his government decided in 2018 to provide annually for 10 berst Advanced Level passed students to study in popular international Universities, the people will understand the objective of this government which attempts to build a money laundering economy., (Why they waited until 2018 to take decisions.  Was it to fool the voters in the ensuing elections?  What happened to the free Tab computers for Advanced Level students and the Free Wi Fi services that were promised at the very beginning of their government?).

This quisling asserts that by introducing subjects like salary increases for the plantation workers the budget which decides about the direction of the economy has been diluted and it is sad to note the budget has created a wrong precedence by this measure.  (It is not surprising to find this measure hurting this lingerie designer because Ranil Sirisena destructive government in the first few weeks of its coming to power held a one to one meeting with the CWC leader late Mr Arumugam Thonda,man and promised to increase the daily wage of the plantation workers to Rs. 1,000 and for the last 4 ½ years this promise was not fulfilled despite plantation workers staging wage increase demand demonstrations almost daily in upcountry towns such as Hatton, Nuwara Eliya, Talawakele, Kotmale etc..The representatives of plantation workers participating in the Shakthi TVs weekly Minnal” programme profusely thanked the government for the wage increase from January and flayed yamapalana government for cheating them for the last 41/s years )

He says that this government has proved during the last 12 poya day period that that it doesnot have a strategic plan.  It has been said that the objective of the budget is to reduce poverty through extensive village development, and increase of employment opportunities and increase of avenues of working environment.  But the proposals and programmes that has been presented by the budget are unrealistic and it happens to be mere announcements.  (What happened to the programmes and measures announced by the Sirisena/Ranil government?  What happened to the 100 days fancy programme from which Sirisena dissociated during his last few months saying that it was an absurd programme?  What happened to the one million employments promised?  How many were given employment for the last 4 ½ years?> What happened to the much bloated Kuliyapitiya Valkswagen vehicle producing factory and the Horana Heavy duty tyre manufacturing factory? Why there was a peculiar hurry to get the MCCagreement signed?  It was said that western investors are in queue to come and invest in the country.  How many of these imaginery investors came and wha tinvestments they made?  Why MOUs signed with India to hand over Trinco Oil Tank Farm, Colombo Port Terminal, the proposed Sampur coal power plant and the proposed Kerawalapitiya LNG plant and to sign ECTA? What benefit the country achieved from the Sri Lanka Singapore Agreement?)..

Generally immediately after presenting a Budget people expect some immediate cocessions for their life standards.  But this budget has neither provided such concessions or hopes.  (Well, it was the practice of the previous four budgets presented by Bond Ravi and this quisling to increase VAT, prices of goods and hurl many promises that never took place.  Under hose budgets the concession givern to the people was to reduce the price of Beer and liquoraaaaa with a view to making this country a boozers’ paradise.)

Immediately after this government came to power the economy of the country was destroyed by giving tax concessions to its cohorts and thereby the country lost a revenue of about Rs. 700 Billion .(Immediately after the yamapalana government came to power the country’s historic ever robberies the Treasury Bond Scams were carried out on two consecutive years and the country lost trillions of U.S.Dollars.  Only those benefited by these robberies were Bond Ravi and the so-called shameless Foot Note Gang and some other government MPs.)

The Budget indicates that the estimated revenue in 2020will be Rs. 1588 Billionand the estimated revenue in 2021 will be Rs. 2029 Billion. However it has not been indicated how this increase will be achieved.Accordingly it is an increase by 27% in one year and it is grossly unrealistic .The only important thing in this budget is facilitating money laundering and the people are well aware who will get benefited by this measure.  (Experience speaks.  It was alleged that you functioned as the money launderer of the tiger terrorist diaspora using the ministerial impunity while travelling in and out of the country as Minister.  In addition to this your companion Bond Ravi a large amount of money sent to his bank account by the notorious insider dealer Rajaratnam and the court case related this money transfer was allegedlyhushed up protecting Bond Ravi).

The budget has allocated Rs. 1,000 Million for the construction of 4 Universities under the City University concepy.  It amounts to Rs. 250 Million for each University.  Presently even a building cannot be built with Rs. 250 Million, let alone a University.  (Again experience speaks.  This political orphan who came to Matara with a house of his own to reside, is reportedly have built two multi roomed luxury palatial mansion, one in Panadura facing the Bolgoda Lake and the other in Nakulugama facing the sea.  Hence he knows how much it costs to construct buildings.  The people should demand for him to disclose his source of funds for constructing these mansions).

Under the communications to the villages programme only Rs. 15 Million has been allocated.  (It is pathetic to find that this lingerie designer who once was the Minister of Communications attempts to hide the fact that the communication field in this country is under the purview of the private sector privatized by them and these communication companies have more than sufficient funds to carry out their activities without any government assistance  and that is why he too got a Credit Card for his use from Mobitel which people known to him says that he used the Card to watch LGBT blue Films)

Rs. 20,000 Million has been earmarked for the development of 50,000 kilometers of roads and it is strange to accordingly that Rs. 400,000 has been allocated for construction of ome kilometer.  That amount is not even sufficient to carpet one kilometers of roads, and as such figures have been haphazardly presented. And only such comic statements have been included..  (It is funny to find this lingerie designer attempting to find faults with the Prime Minister on road construction who is the Father of Road Constructions in Sri Lanka who introduced the concept of Expressways to Sri Lanka).

Despite the promise made to reintroduce the provisions made by the previos government to allay the anomalies of descrepancies in the payments to pensioners and special allowances for Executive officers, the budget has misled the majority of public servants who cast their postal votes to this government.  (Another bogus elerction promise made by the previous government.  Why they waited until their last budget to make this misleading bogus promise.  These culprits should understand that government servants are not damn fools to get beguiled by this type of bogus promises).

As a whole there is no concession for the public servants from this budget. Out of the public servants who amount to about 1.4 million, permission has been granted for non executive grade public servants to attend to a job after their office hours.  By this measure the government has given the following message : We do not have anything to give for you.  It is also not possible to give. If possible go out to do a job and thereby acquire some economic gain for the family economy.  (The destruction created in the country for the last 4 ½ years severely affected the income level of the public servants while the government Ministers and MPs got super luxury fuel guzzling super luxury vehicles for them and their spouses, enhanced allowances for telephones, for maintaining offices in Colombo and their hometowns, for functioning as observer MPs in various Ministries, opportunities to provide sophisticated jobs for their spouses and children in various Ministries, Corporations and Statutory Boards and the public servants had no way of earning an additional income.  The new measure would facilitate many public servants by getting employed in this manner.  If doctors are allowed to engage in channel practice what is wrong if a public servant got engaged in an additional job legitimately?)

Proposals have been made to introduce GST Tax to to get the lost revenue from removing the VAT ceilings.  Although it has been proposed it only to four segments initially, it is possible to extend it to cover all segments.  The excessive taxes proposed to levy from telecommunication, gambling and excise activities indicate the fiscal deterioration being faced by the government. (When VATwas introduced by Bond Ravi Sirisena acted as he was furious about it and threatened to dismiss everyone who were responsible to introduce the new system.  This threat was also ended up as the series of bogus threats he used to make from time to time such as taking stern action against the person who threw a Brassier to the stage of a musical show, that he has a sharp sword and hewould chop the heads of all miscreants, that he ha a Madu Waligaa to whip all miscreants etc.  As regards increase of the increase of Excise tax thi lingerie designer is very much concerned because it was his plan to make this country a boozers’ paradise by reducing Beer and liquor prices).

This budget which gas been presented with magic figures states that there will be a 5.5% economic development next year.  The economic developmentin the 1^st quarter of 2020 was -1.6% and the government has failed to announce the economic development rate for the 2^nd quarter yet. Meanwhile the World and the IMF have predicted thatour economy will register minus 5 – 6%. Next year. (Absurd predictions!  When the WB and IMF have correctly predicted economic developments of developing countries? Only fellows like this lingerie designer will believe them.  This country had only minus economic development only during the oafish Chandrika’s period in which++h this lingerie designer played a major role).

The government has acknowledged that foreign trade has dwindled by about 27%. Despite that the budget predicts 30 – 40% increase in foreign trade next year in an attempt to fool the people.  (All economic problems of the previous government resulted die to excessive imports.  The new government has completely changed the import/export pattern with maximum import restrictions and to seek emnhanced export opportunities with diversified export products.  The present economic crisis situation isnot something that is unique to Sri Lanka but it is a global trend)

The total loan obtainable for the year 2021  is indicated as Rs. 2,997 Billion.Combined with the year 2020, the total loans for the two years amount to Rs. 5.828 Billion. It is a quandary as to why such a large amount f loans have been taken at a time when there is no development activities taking place? (It is the policy of the new government to get as much as foreign direct investments (FDIs) as possible.  The President has clearly stated this matter to the new Chinese Ambassador when he presented his credentials to the President.  On the other hand the yamapalana government did not carry out any development work from the funds they obtained as foreign loans and they were only used for importing luxury items such as vehicles)..

It must be stated no country in the world which upholds law and order and the values of democracy resort to mechanisms money laundering. And due to the myopic policies of this government the people will have to face many obstacles in the future. (An alleged money launderer of terrorist funds shamelessly laments about money laundering!)

The objective of this government as well as the budget to create capitalist economy that would benefit only a few cronies instead of the international community. Also to create an economy that has no local competition but a robbers’ economy.  (Response to this para is given from comments made by the National Chamber of Commerce, the Ceylon Chambert of Commerce, boi, Bankers, Economists, and the erudite general public detailed in Part II of this article.)

To be continued………….

MALINDA SENEVIRATN​E

Over the last few weeks there has been a concerted campaign in social media attacking President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The ‘Gota Fail Campaign,’ as it was, promoted a strong response questioning the success of the President’s detractors. The campaign was clearly targeting the President’s first anniversary celebrations and the impending reading of the budget. The campaign failed or rather, now that the moment has passed, the campaigners have taken a break.

It was a week made of celebratory days, depending on one’s political preferences of course. We had Mahinda Rajapaksa celebrating his 75th birthday. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa completed his first year in office and addressed the nation to mark the occasion. The first budget of the Government that came to power in early August was presented. Secretary to the then President (Mahinda Rajapaksa) Lalith Weeratunga (also the ex officio Chairman of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission) and Anusha Palpita (former Director General, TRC) were acquitted of all charges of misappropriation by the Court of Appeal.

Quite a week, to say the least.

Ranjan Ramanayake, predictably, ridiculed Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mahinda Rajapaksa ‘for not standing while presenting the budget.’ Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa rapped Ramanayake on the knuckles for doing so, in a gesture of good grace rarely seen in Parliament.

Obviously, Mahinda Rajapaksa is no longer the energetic man he used to be. This of course does not necessarily mean he is infirm in mind. He still remains one of the most effective communicators in our tribe of politicians. He’s had his good days and bad ones, like anyone else. He receives praise and blame, which again indicates strong passion, fierce loyalty and, on the part of his detractors, equally intense sentiments which include envy, fear and disgust.

That said, as ‘The Gadfly,’ a regular contributor to the website www.theleader.lk observed, when the post-independence history of this country is written, there will be a special chapter devoted to the man, whereas the likes of Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sajith Premadasa, Rajitha Senaratne an Wijedasa Rajapaksha would get, at most, a line or two. Again, depending on who is writing the history, someone might say. However, the man’s mark is unmistakable and certainly hard to brush aside.

Some argued that he should have gracefully retired in 2015. Maybe he should have. On the other hand, ‘Mahinda Rajapaksa’ is not just a man but a brand and moreover a name that’s etched in the political consciousness of the nation, and, as the August 5 results indicated remembered with gratitude that obliterates memory of his blemishes. If Gotabaya Rajapaksa was captain-designate and Basil Rajapaksa the man chartering course, Mahinda Rajapaksa was the name of the ship (with a tagline, ‘Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’) and ‘MR’ a signature that was on every element of the vessel.

So, let us wish him, belatedly (on account of circumstances), a very happy 75th birthday, good times ahead, good health, continued guidance of his younger brother the President in matters political and restraint in deference to changed times and more importantly the leadership and power that is constitutionally granted to Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The budget is still being debated. Predictably Harsha De Silva has come down hard on it. He tweeted, ‘the most boring budget speech in years.’ He added, ‘…a weak n inspiring (he probably meant ‘uninspiring’) budget w totally unrealistic revenue figures…a shift towards protectionist n failed ‘Import Substitution Industrialization’ model.’ Having opened the debate for the Opposition, he then tweeted ‘a short edit’: 1. Figures fudged. 2. No stimulus package. 3. About to explode foreign debt issue ignored. 4. Import Substitution Model has failed; need bridges not walls.’

Now De Silva is a fear-mongerer if ever there was one. There was a time when again he was in the Opposition, when he would issue dire predictions of imminent economic collapse almost on a weekly basis. The man had to keep quiet when the UNP regime he was a part of mishandled the economy. He had nothing to say on the Central Bank bond scam.

He might have been thrilled when that regime wagered on the West coming to Sri Lanka’s help, but he didn’t contradict his then leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who, when ‘Brexit’ happened, suddenly said ‘we will look East.’ This after badmouthing China in the run-up to the January 2015 presidential election. We remember De Silva posting selfies with the Port City construction in the background at the time when his party was swearing to put a stop to the project. Finally, his government signed an agreement even less favorable to Sri Lanka. This was to be expected; after all the Yahapalana Government cheered itself while compromising sovereignty by way of Resolution 30/1 in Geneva. Anyway, neither De Silva, Wickremesinghe, Premadasa and pretenders to various political crowns now in the Opposition seem to have cottoned on to the fact that the USA is no longer the big boss in the global economy and that the sun set on the British Empire a long time ago.
Nevertheless, the onus is on the Government to respond to the charge that figures were fudged. As for the revenue plan, we will certainly assess it, realistic or otherwise, as time goes by. The rest is obviously Harsha rattling off received (non) wisdom about things economic.

Stimulus packages are about bailing out the rich. Nothing more, nothing less. Such things hinge on the erroneous premise that the private sector is the one and only engine of growth, where ‘growth’ itself is a concept that is contentious at best in the development discourse and has by and large been rubbished considering what that model has done to the world, the health of the planet and of course the most vulnerable sections in the global population.

Pertinent here, as has been editorially pointed out in www.gammiris.lk is Harsha’s myopia about the Bretton Woods institutions. Here’s a quote:

‘He (Harsha) does not seem to have gone through Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and its Discontents, which talks in succinct detail how these institutions operate, particularly in underdeveloping countries. A pity, because Stiglitz took the trouble of writing on Sri Lanka, and more to the point, of cautioning the then administration against hedging its bets on the IMF-World Bank paradigm of, what else, globalizing and liberalizing.’
Siglitz, interestingly, observed, that if Sri Lanka is to progress, it should start learning to produce, learning to export, and learning to learn.” Harsha of course can’t think beyond the neoliberalism model, which has failed and whose admirers show a marked reluctance to acknowledge the role of the state in the success stories they offer as examples. The state did and still does play a pivotal role in the so-called developed nations that have embraced the capitalist model. Practice is quite a distance from theory in their case.

The budget has sought to empower local production. This is not the same as import-substitution, though. In any event, Covid-19 has forced certain hard choices which even Harsh, had he presented the budget or was the President of the country, could not have ignored.
 It must be pointed out that the strategy laid out doesn’t make sense if the banking institutions are not focused on development. The Bretton Woods institutions have always been against development banks. There has been talk of setting up a cooperative bank, but the details are still to be worked out. This was an opportunity to get it down in black and white.
Meanwhile a delegation of the European Union and the Embassies of France, Germany, Italy Netherlands, and Romania issued a statement slamming the government’s trade policy, ‘with an obligatory non-sequitur to human rights,’ again editorially observed by ‘gammiris.’

‘Thanks to the EU’s special Generalized System of Preferences (GSP+), Sri Lanka enjoys competitive, predominantly duty- and quota-free access to the EU market,” they said. Trade, they pointed out, ‘not a one-way street,’ and observe (gravely) that ‘a prolonged import ban is not in line with World Trade Organization regulations.’  A reference was also made to the Government withdrawing from the (treacherous, what else?) Resolution 30/1, which, they say is ‘a source of concern’.
The hypocrisy of Europe crying foul over human rights is well known. But why talk of WTO rules here? Just last year Indonesia complained to the WTO over EU restrictions on palm oil imports. Both Germany and France blocked their own exports of crucial personal protective equipment (PPE) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypocrisy much, eh?
Well, if the EU’s ‘concerns’ (threats?) do translate into action, it would only push Sri Lanka even further into the Chinese circle of influence. Sri Lanka would have no option but to promote domestic production and rebuild as per the demands of the home market.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa completed one year in office. Not given to pomp and pageantry, his first year has been relatively subdued. He promised ‘work’ and ‘systems.’ Covid-19 was an obvious dampener. And yet, in this one year, we saw a mandate overwhelmingly reiterated. We also saw the passage of the 20th amendment which resolved the confusion of the 19th Amendment with respect to who really rules the country. The 19th, let’s recall, as acknowledged by its authors themselves, full of flaws. The Supreme Court shot it down and the then regime introduced what was almost a fresh document, quite in contravention of established parliamentary procedure (in the UK, the House of Lords can make changes but only minor ones). Here, there were wholesale changes at the committee stage. In contrast, the 20th a) retained certain elements of the 19th such as term limits and b) incorporated the observations of the Supreme Court).

The President’s anniversary speech was essentially a rehashed version of  his ‘throne speech.’ He didn’t detail the modalities of getting the ‘One-Country, One-Law’ going. He probably should have explained the controversial circular on ‘Other State Lands’ over which he has been getting a lot of flak. It was a no-frills anniversary speech quite in keeping with the personality he has projected or even the person he is seen to be. The proof of everything is in the ‘works’.  Work is where he will be judged eventually.

Given the announcement that the Government is planning to introduce a new constitution, the buzz over the 20th seems silly. The Government could have incorporated the 20th into a new constitution and seek passage in one go. 

 
Covid-19 has framed the president’s first year. He has had to balance coping mechanisms with keeping the economy going. The Opposition, as pointed out in a television discussion on Thursday by Deputy Editor, The Island, Shaminda Ferdinando, was bailed out by Covid-19. Now they have something to talk about, he said. There are charges of mishandling. The rise in numbers is certainly worrying. The Government does have a plan and it is as reasonable as any given multiple constraints.

However, it is certainly ridiculous that so many government officials and healthcare professionals are commenting and contradicting each other on Covid-19. The Government should authorize a single person to do this. Others should obtain from what this person says and not act as though they are epidemiologists. That goes for the opposition and political commentators as well, of course.

In Canada, for example, according to a Sri Lankan who is a long time resident there, ‘there’s a chief medical officer  giving daily recaps at the federal level with Prime Minister Trudeau offering a daily non medical brief. At the provincial level,  the chief provincial medical officer gives a daily briefing. All financial assistance information is conveyed by Trudeau since it’s all federal at this stage.  In Sri Lanka, in contrast, everyone except the Minister of Health is an authority on the pandemic!’  

Finally, the court decision on Lalith Weeratunga and Anusha Pelpita. Now they were acquitted not by judges appointed by this government. The charge that they were politically motivated is therefore silly. In this regard it is pertinent to point out that the President has nominated the six most senior judges for promotion to the Supreme Court. Seniority was spurned out of hand by the much-celebrated Constitutional Council of the previous regime. Friendship and loyalty were rewarded. Good move by the President but one which he ought to apply across the board in the matter of appointments/promotions.

The 62-page verdict notes, ‘There is no dishonest intention with which both accused appellants have acted. They were not actuated by men rea or actus reus. There has been a bona fide exercise of their powers and duties. Neither accused was enriched. Whilst the board authorized a transaction which is protected by law and corporate social responsibility, it is a travesty of justice that only two members of the TRC had to endure the traumatic experience of a selective prosecution at a prolonged trial, causing a senior public servant of long years of meritorious public service humiliation and anguish.’
Intention of course is always assessed subjectively. It’s the act that the court has to assess. The court was of the view that the prosecution failed to establish the ingredients of the offenses laid in the indictment. The court also determined that the circumstances in which the presiding judge came to hear the case created a serious doubt on the impartiality and validity of proceedings adopted. In other words, there was selectivity and deliberate maneuvering to obtain a pre-arranged outcome.

Weeratunga is a seasoned public servant. He probably knows the Establishments Code inside out. He probably knows not only what’s possible and what’s not but all the loopholes that can be used and abused. Both Weeratunga and Palpita were responding to a request from the top. They did it legally. He didn’t benefit. Neither did Palpita. One can argue that had Mahinda Rajapaksa won in January 2015, whether or not the sil redi issue was a factor, both would have benefited. At the very least they wouldn’t have been subjected to the obvious harassment meted out by overzealous yahapalana operatives (who essentially turned the FCID into a kangaroo court and commandeered operations from the Prime Minister’s office). That’s however in the territory of speculation. Courts are not in that business. 

The court has ruled. That’s that.

malindasenevi@gmail.com.

A shorter version of this article was published in the SUNDAY ISLAND (November 22, 2020). 

අග්‍රාමාත්‍ය මාධ්‍ය අංශය

ගරු අග්‍රාමාත්‍ය මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාගේ උපදෙස් පරිදි සෞභාග්‍යයේ දැක්ම රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්තිය යටතේ කලාකරුවන් සඳහා හදිසි අනතුරු සහ වෛද්‍ය රක්ෂණාවරණයක් හඳුන්වාදීමේ පළමු අදියර ක්‍රියාත්මක කරමින්, රක්ෂණාවරය ලබාදීම වේදිකා නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රය සඳහා වෙන් කර තිබේ.

සෞභාග්‍යයේ දැක්ම රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්ති ප්‍රකාශනය 2020 වර්ෂයේදීම යථාර්ථයක් බවට පත් කරමින් හඳුන්වා දෙන මෙම රක්ෂණාවරණය, බුද්ධශාසන ආගමික හා සංස්කෘතික කටයුතු අමාත්‍ය හා ටවර් හෝල් රඟහල පදනමේ සභාපති ගරු අග්‍රාමාත්‍යතුමන්ගේ අධීක්ෂණය හා පූර්ණ උපදෙස් මත සිදු කෙරේ.

ජාතික උරුමය ප්‍රාසංග කලා හා ග්‍රාමීය කලා ශිල්පී ප්‍රවර්ධන කටයුතු රාජ්‍ය අමාත්‍ය විදුර වික්‍රමනායක මහතාගේ උපදෙස් පරිදි ටවර් හෝල් රඟහල පදනම විසින් ක්‍රියාත්මක කරනු ලබන මෙම ප්‍රේක්ෂා රක්ෂණ” ක්‍රමය ඔස්සේ සුදුසුකම් සපිරූ වෙිදිකා නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ නාට්‍ය රචනය, අධ්‍යක්ෂණය, නාට්‍ය නිෂ්පාදනය, රංගනය, අංග රචනය, පසුතල නිර්මාණය, රංගාලෝකය, රංග වින්‍යාසය, රංග වස්ත්‍ර නිර්මාණය, නාට්‍ය සංගීතය, වේදිකා කළමනාකරණය යන අංශවල නියුතු වයස අවුරුදු 35-75 අතර නාට්‍යවේදීන්ට රක්ෂණාවරණයක් සැපයේ.

මෙම රක්ෂණාවරණය සඳහා රක්ෂණලාභීන්ගෙන් කිසිඳු මුදලක් අය නොකිරීම විශේෂත්වයකි.

නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රය තුළ ලබා ඇති ප්‍රවීනතාවය සහ ජ්‍යේෂ්ඨත්වය අනුව මේ සඳහා ප්‍රමුඛතාව ලබා දේ.

මෙම රක්ෂණාවරණය සඳහා ජාතික මට්ටමේ සම්මාන හිමි කරගනිමින් අයඳුම් කරන දිනට ආසන්න වශයෙන් වසර 05ක් සක්‍රීයව නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ නියුතු අයට සහ අයදුම් කරන දිනට ආසන්න වශයෙන් වසර 10කට නොඅඩු කාලයක් නාට්‍ය ක්ෂේත්‍රයේ නියුතු අයට මෙම රක්ෂණාවරණය සඳහා දායක විය හැකිය.

ප්‍රේක්ෂා රක්ෂණාවරණය” සඳහා අයදුම්පත් www.towerhall.lk වෙඩ් අඩවියෙන් බාගත කළ හැකි අතර, තම අයදුම්පත් 2020 දෙසැම්බර් 11 වන දිනට පෙර අධ්‍යක්ෂ ජනරාල්, ටවර් හෝල් රඟහල පදනම, අංක 123, සව්සිරිපාය, විජේරාම මාවත, කොළඹ 07 යන ලිපිනයට ලියාපදිංචි තැපෑලෙන් එවිය යුතුය.

උපුටා ගැන්ම ලංකා සී නිව්ස්

සමගි ජන බලවේගය පක්ෂය පවත්වාගෙන යන්නේ නිසා රිෂාඩ් බදියුදීන්ගේ කළු සල්ලිවලින් බව ඇමති මහින්දානන්ද අලුත්ගමගේ මහතා සඳහන් කරයි.

එම පක්‍ෂයේ මැතිවරණ වියදම් ද සියලූ වියදම් සිදු කරන්නේ රිෂාඩ් බදුර්දීන් බවත් පැවැසූ ඇමැතිවරයා තමනට ඒ බව ඔප්පු කිරීමට සියලු සාක්ෂි ඇතැයිද කියා සිටියේය.

පසුගිය මහ මැතිවරණයේ දී සහ ජනාධිපති ජනාධිපතිවරණයේදී ලබාදුන් මුදල් සහ සියළු බැංකු ගිණුම්ද පිළිබඳව සාක්ෂි තමන් සතුව ඇති බවත් ඔහු පැවසදීය.

ඒ මහතා මේ බව කියා සිටියේ අයවැය කාරක අවස්ථාවේ විවාදයට එක් වෙමිනි.

By P.K. Balachandran/Daily Express Courtesy Ceylon Today

When the British ruled Sri Lanka, peasant agriculture, with paddy as the main crop, was systematically weakened to yield place to plantation-based commercial agriculture monopolized by them.

Colombo, November 25: When the British ruled Sri Lanka, peasant agriculture, with paddy as the main crop, was systematically weakened to yield place to plantation-based commercial agriculture monopolized by them. Sri Lankan peasant agriculture is yet to recover from the historical neglect as the island nation continues to be dependent on food imports to fill vital gaps in supply.

In 2018, for example, the import of grains, milk, and a variety of food items of common consumption accounted for 7.2% of the total imports with the foreign exchange outgo being US$ 1.6 billion.

The slant against peasant agriculture directly and quickly led to the impoverishment of the indigenous peasantry even as British planters, civil servants and even governors made fortunes out of investments in the burgeoning plantation sector.

Though by the beginning of the 19th Century, when the British took over the island from the Dutch and laissez-faire was accepted as the ideal in Europe, the British in Ceylon were against the introduction of free trade on the plea that the civilization here had not reached a high level of development,” and what the people needed was good, stout despotism”. This theory was used to brazenly deny welfare and make exploitation of local human and natural resources for the exclusive benefit of the British. Concomitantly, collection of revenue rather than economic development of the indigenous population became the principal aim of the colonial regime.

Decisions taken in Colombo and London on land, taxation, labour and monopolies were, in essence, a throwback to the old and inveterate system of oppression” that characterized Dutch and Portuguese rule in the island, says Prof. P. V. J. Jayasekera in his book: Confrontations with Colonialism, 1796-1920 Vol I.

Right from 1796 to 98, the British authorities in London had set revenue targets for Ceylon. There was hardly any interest in rendering services to the people from whom the surpluses were exacted. Road building was a major activity in the 19th century, but it was not undertaken to benefit the locals, only to serve British commercial interests centred on a burgeoning plantation economy.

Irrigation, which had been provided by the native kings with the help of free Rajakariya labour, was neglected for the sake of road construction to serve British military and economic needs (principally the needs of the plantation sector).

When Governor Henry Ward arrived in 1855, he was bombarded with petitions to provide irrigation. While he realized the need for irrigation, the British planters who did not want peasant agriculture to grow and export, scuttled his bid for reform.

Earlier in 1849, the government had offered to give funds for irrigation development but these had to be paid back with interest in addition to providing free labour for the government’s public enterprises which were mostly infrastructure work for the benefit of British interests.

Prof. Jayasekera points out that in the traditional administrative system, the emphasis was on the maintenance and improvement of agriculture and irrigation and not just surplus extraction. The British justified their control over land saying they were only following a tradition in which the Kings had over-lordship over land as Bhupathis or Pruthivirajas. Under Rajakariya, the king granted land to peasants in exchange for services. The services expected were for public works like irrigation facilities. Special services were elicited on the basis of a person’s caste-related occupation. But the British disallowed any assertion of customary use of, and title over, land. Jayasekera points out that this was totally against the 1815 Kandyan Convention the British had entered into with the Kandyan chiefs. The document had explicitly stated that the people’s customary rights would be protected by the new British rulers.

In 1801, Ceylon’s first British Governor, Fredrick North, reasserted the governments’ right to both categories of Rajakiriya services but he introduced a direct tax on the produce of the land. The peasantry resented this. While under the Kings Rajakariya labour was used for irrigation works, the British used the system for their military needs and commercial agriculture. With the result, rice production declined to 50% of the requirement, and imports increased three-fold, Prof. Jayasekera says.

The precarious of returns in agriculture led to peasants going in for share-cropping, giving half the produce to the landowners. Land was being mortgaged at 25 to 50% interest,” he points out.

The British monopoly of cinnamon production and sale (until it was abolished) had deprived the peasant of a lucrative market in the West. Duties were imposed solely to benefit the British. Duties on imported British goods were slashed by 50%. Rice and cloth imported from India, which were used by the masses were taxed 8 to 12 %. Export duties on tobacco and areca nuts deprived the Ceylonese peasant of the large Indian market. To promote British shipping, goods brought by non-British ships were taxed 50% extra.

Free land was given to Europeans and Burghers for the cultivation of commercial crops like coffee, cotton, indigo and sugarcane. Tax exemption was given for 5 to 10 years for these enterprises. Their work force was also exempted from Rajakariya obligations. With the plantations becoming money spinners, planters and civil servants propagated the notion that paddy cultivation was a waste and did not deserve government encouragement, and the governors agreed.

One of the reasons why the plantation economy boomed was that the British bureaucracy was part of it as investors. Even governors invested in the plantations. When a legislature was set up, planters and British merchants were represented significantly. Planters’ interests were also strongly represented in the British government. According to Prof. Jayasekera the 19th Century colonial State in Ceylon was more powerful than it was in India because of the dominance of the British-controlled plantation economy in the island.

The ‘draconian’ Land Ordinance 5 of 1840 was based on the theory that all land belonged to the Crown unless they had been granted to someone earlier. This opened the floodgates to land grabbers and planters, a motley crowd of Whites including civil servants and governors. Unauthorized local holders of land were sent to jail or fined. This was one of the causes of the 1848 rebellion, which had to be put down with the use of brute force. A parliamentary committee went into the causes of the 1848 uprising but it made no difference.

Although it was acknowledged that peasant-cultivated coffee was of good quality, the British favoured giving coffee cultivation to large British-owned plantations, which could mint money using cheap and servile labour imported from the Madras Presidency in India.

In view of the importance of using a captive labour force in their plantations, the British discouraged peasant agricultural development by denying the latter improved irrigation and the protections they traditionally enjoyed under the rule of the kings. This was also meant to release peasants from their land for employment in the plantations. In addition, there was compulsory service which was used to clear land for the plantations and for road laying.

In 1832, compulsory service was abolished except for road construction. However, a Hut Tax was introduced in early 20th Century by Governor McCullum. Under this, the Sinhalese peasant had to send at least one member of his family for work in a plantation, if he was to be exempted from the Hut tax. Even so, the Sinhalese refused to work for the low wages in the plantation sector.

Prof. Jayasekera says British propaganda that labour had to be imported from India because the Sinhalese were ‘indolent’, was false. The Sinhalese worked in the plantations when wages were adequate. For example in 1890, there were 18, 000 to 23,000 Sinhalese peasants working in the plantations.

However, the use of Sinhalese labour ceased when cheap Tamil labour from the famine-stricken districts of Madras Presidency was available in abundance. The British-governed Madras collaborated by neglecting agriculture and forcing peasants to go to the colonies to work in British plantations.

By Sugeeswara Senadhira/Ceylon Today

Economic pressure is being added to baseless charges of authoritarianism at the behest of the Tamil separatist lobby, writes Sugeeswara Senadhira in Ceylon Today.

Colombo, November 23: As the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government completed its first year, the hostile West commenced its attacks on Sri Lanka with renewed vehemence.

Recent reports reflect the ardent desire of the West to find fault with every step taken by the Sri Lankan Government. The moment, a decision to curtail imports were announced with the intention of saving much-needed foreign exchange and also to increase domestic production and exports, the Ambassadors and High Commissioners of European Union countries came up with a joint statement opposing the move.

The EU said it had bought more than a billion Euros worth of goods (220 billion rupees) creating a trade surplus in favor of Sri Lanka. Trade, however, is not a one-way street. The current import restrictions are having a negative impact on Sri Lankan and European businesses, and on Foreign Direct Investment,” it said.

Banning duty-free luxury vehicle imports

Sri Lanka has every right to restrict imports and the EU statement is blatant interference in the right to regulate trade, which is an internal affair. EU envoys were persuaded to issue the statement by the German Ambassador and a few others, who were in turn influenced by multi-rich agents of luxurious motor cars in Sri Lanka. Luxury car imports were reduced to save valuable foreign exchange. It was a pragmatic move. Furthermore, most of the luxury cars were imported under duty free permits and the country did not get any tax revenue from these imports.

Stabilizing the dollar

The EU’s call came after the government presented the 2021 budget.It maintained that import restrictions must remain in place to stabilize the Rupee. The local currency had depreciated by over 9 per cent by early April against the Dollar. It was 196.75 rupees to the dollar and now remains stabilized around 185. This was mainly due to the banning of vehicle imports. GDP growth had reduced to 1.6 per cent year-on-year in the first-quarter of 2020, following a 2 per cent growth in the last-quarter of 2019, the Central Bank had previously said.

The EU also referred to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, but failed to recognize that WTO member countries have the authority to impose trade restrictions on several grounds. Any country can impose duty even up to 200 per cent for luxury items.

Violators of democratic rights

Another attack came from former Irish President Mary Robinson who picked Sri Lanka from nowhere to list it as one of the violators of democratic rights. In news report published in The Independent in UK under the title: Former Irish President compares Trump’s refusal to concede US Election with ’volatile and undemocratic situations’ in SL”, she made erroneous and misleading comments.

The former Irish President is the latest ‘democratic champion’ who was gullible enough to swallow hook, line and sinker all the fabricated stories spun by the separatist Tamil Diaspora and their paid NGO lobby.

‘Mary Mary quite contrary’

Robinson, representing a group called ‘The Elders’ says US President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede US Election is similar to the volatile and undemocratic situation in Sri Lanka. God only knows why she thought fit to drag Sri Lanka into Trump’s refusal to concede defeat. Either ‘The Elders’ have become senile or those who briefed Robinson deliberately twisted the facts about Sri Lanka’s rich democratic tradition of peaceful transfer of power at every election since independence.

Neither the Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka nor the Presidents of Sri Lanka tried to forcefully stay in power. The moment they faced electoral defeat, they conceded publicly and handed over power peacefully. In fact, when President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to know that he was trailing behind opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena in the 2015 Presidential Election, he conceded defeat even before the final result was declared and not only quit office, but also handed over the official residence and returned to his ancestral home in Medamulana. The principle of respect to the democratic transition of power was displayed by every Prime Minister and every President of Sri Lanka. Mary Robinson’s allegation is an absolute canard.

POAC delists LTTE

If these instances were not enough to understand the agenda of the West and its relentless efforts to discredit the Sri Lankan government at every given opportunity, one should look at the wicked campaign to resurrect the separatist, terrorist outfit, the LTTE. In the United Kingdom, in Octoobe 2020, the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission (POAC) had delisted the LTTE. The POAC stated that it had found the UK Home Office decision to keep the LTTE proscribed as a terrorist organization was flawed and unlawful”.

the appeal was filed by unnamed members of a group that is believed to be a front for the LTTE called the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam’ (TGTE). It was filed against the UK Home Secretary’s refusal on March 8, 2019 to lift the ban on LTTE under the Terrorism Act 2000. TGTE, which is banned by Sri Lanka, is a Government-in-exile for the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora which continues to pursue the aim of establishing a separate country for the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The UK had listed the LTTE as a terror outfit in 2000 and it continues to be banned in 32 countries including India. The final decision of lifting the ban will be taken by the British Home Secretary.

Demanding a separate Tamil homeland in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, the LTTE ran a military campaign for nearly 30 years before its defeat in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its supreme leader Velupillai Prabakaran.

Sri Lanka had appealed against the judgment saying it has sufficient evidence to prove the remnants of the LTTE and groups aligned with its terrorist ideology are active in foreign countries, working to incite violence and destabilize the country”.

India continues LTTE ban

The Indian Government also urged UK not to lift the ban on LTTE. India has reportedly shared information on the LTTE to press for the continuation of the ban on the organization. On 13 May 2019, the Indian Government extended the ban for another five years on the LTTE.

At the 43rd Session of the UNHRC in Geneva, Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena explained to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that Sri Lanka’s decision to withdraw from co-sponsorship of resolution 40/1 and the basis for doing so. He also pointed out a number of aspects of the resolution that were undeliverable as they were not in line with the constitution of Sri Lanka.

Minister Gunawardena, however, assured the government’s continuing commitment to achieving accountability and human rights despite withdrawing from the UN resolutions. Despite such cooperation from Sri Lanka, it is sad that the UNHRC continues its biased policy towards this country. Sri Lanka will have to be extremely vigilant to defeat the designs of the West to undermine its sovereign rights under dubious pretexts.

(The picture at the top shows Mary Robinson, former Irish Prime Minister)

By Dr. C. G. Ilangakoon Courtesy Ceylon Today

It was with absolute pride and delight, the voters of Sri Lanka as a whole watched the address to the Nation, delivered by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on 18 November 2020, certainly to the exclusion of few political hypocrites of opportunism, rejected by the people. He articulated the following contents very much assertively: It is no secret that the majority who voted for me then were Sinhalese. 

They rallied because they had legitimate fears that the Sinhala race, our religion, national resources and the heritage would be threatened with destruction in the face of various local and foreign forces and ideologies that support separatism, (religious) extremism and terrorism. The main appeal made by the people to me was to, Protect the Country”. When assigning subjects to Ministries, special attention was paid to several sectors related to agriculture, plantation, fisheries industry, traditional industries and promoting self-employment opportunities as these sectors affect the majority of the people in the country”  (https://www.president.gov.lk/).

Eight Central Components

The conscious unity of the voters set the end to the head-nodding, neck-bending and the kneeling down cult of the west. The disgraceful era of the original majority community of Sri Lanka, living as refugees in their own motherland has come to an end. The finger pointing of communal terrorists to the political leaders, elected by the voters has been passed in to oblivion. Insulting war heroes by religious” racists, on the stage of official ceremonies, graced by Ambassadors of Foreign Missions, are already stories of the past.  

Stability and peace has been established by the Rajapaksa regime. Yet, along with the world, the land is being mercilessly tortured by the COVID-19 crisis. Now the prosperity vision of the SLPP, in the face of the endemic, is in a terrific imbroglio. In an atmosphere, wherein, one person is compelled to hygienically doubt the one in front of him, no development vision is possible to be commissioned. The macro and mega projects, at present, seem impractical and the best country-suited modus operandi, to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, appears to espouse simple strategies, our ancient ancestors of Heladiva Sinhala-Buddhist Civilisation compassionately taught. In such a context, there is couple of central components, in the void of which, any macro and mega development dynamism is diminished to the nullity of zero.

 They are: (1) food (2) clean water (3) clothes (4) shelter (5) uncontaminated atmosphere (6) medicine (7) electricity and (8) the forest. This country was rich enough in the said eight constituents,   with no scientific instruction of so-called international community. Our medicine had been based on the fauna and flora-enriched Ayurvedic science.

Therefore, the attention of the President in respect of the agricultural sector, must be grounded, for the most part, on the strategy and its simplicity, as elucidated by the tradition of our Sinhala Buddhist ancestors, certainly, blending with cybernetics and where appropriate, with partial high-tech manufacturing. What is the point of constructing the loftiest tower in South Asia, if the frustrated starving small children of the land are stirring up the dustbins, kept outside, to find leftover food, with tears dripping down from their innocent eyes?   

This precisely is where, the Garden Agro-Engineering Vision of the SLPP founder, Basil Rajapaksa, flexes its muscle, to serve, as the best means to bloom stronger above and beyond the COVID-19 crisis. The depth of the strategy is deposited in its inseparable connection with the above stipulated eight pivotal components. Particularly with the Ayurvedic science, written by the greatest King Ravana 5000 years back. The Ayurvedic science has no pharmaceutical mafia, to administer medicines to be taken, till the end of once own life. It has no commercial destination to make monetary profits. Its profit is not money, but the health of the patient. It is very sad the Media is not giving the due coverage and publicity to the Garden Agro-engineering dynamism. It is the duty of the Media to make people conscious: 

(1) of the project (2) its dimensions (3) possible diversifications (4) its fruitfulness (5) of the independence of self-sufficiency it can produce (6) the vast space for the improvement of health and many more. The Garden Agro-engineering Vision is the foundation for a healthy nation and happy family.

Rajapaksa Popularity 

The project proliferation and the state of independence and self-sufficiency it will bestow, would strengthen the power base of the SLPP

 The UNP became unpopular by reason of introducing the unbridled free market economy to Sri Lanka, though, at the initial stage, it was welcomed by many, by virtue of the ignorance of political economy. The culture of importing everything began and the cult of obsession to admire imported commodities could set its roots in the soil of the domain of consumption. The importing agencies began to mushroom and they produced profits, while destroying the traditionally well established strategy of agriculture and the conception of prosperity, based on independence and self-sufficiency. 

The voters of this country now are well aware of this free market deception and the destruction it produced and continuing to produce. Hence, the Garden Agro-engineering, finally is the dream of the people, which, the Presidential Prosperity Production Task Force Chairman, Basil Rajapaksa has burdened himself to fulfil, as a farsighted mission for the culmination of the aspirations of voters. His timing is also intelligent. The COVID-19 has made the Basil Rajapaksa vision an inevitable imperative. Only fools or those, who take pleasure in betraying the Motherland, can oppose the project. Hence, it is the pressing duty of the present government not to concede in to the fake and deceptive homilies of UNP-supporting bureaucracy and to not allow them to take the upper hand and structure a strong network of conscious observation and also a second network to supervise and oversee the first network of observation, setting them against each other.

Besides, in order to emerge stronger, it is also vital to rightly comprehend the geopolitical rivalry-based global endemic circumstances and put them in to right use to produce prosperity profits for Sri Lanka as a whole.

Investment Opportunism

There are signs that some super powers are using the economic chaos of the pandemic, to go on a global shopping spree, for new businesses and investments.  This strategy of investment opportunism comprises a terrific relevance in relation to third world countries, enriched with geo-domains, conducive to super-power zonal military hegemony agendas.   They come with various proposals of bilateral and multilateral agreements, which virtually structure international instruments, creating territorial spaces in the land of the treaty partners, whose domestic jurisdiction is not valid and inoperative in the orbit of the territorial unit, which is subjected to the regulation of the normative contents of the covenant to be concluded. 

At times, they also stagger to the extent of bribing the developing countries, by means of extending colossal financial grants, conditioned by investor-friendly bias clauses, formulated to profit only the investor. Now, the post-pandemic development plan of the present government must well digest this pandemic-abused investment opportunism, which would inflict infraction against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sri Lanka. This will politically be very much dangerous, since, the absolute majority of the voters are against such agreements, which may produce a constitutional crisis in the land and involve the Motherland in totally unnecessary super power geo-political games. 

The pandemic is a multi-faceted phenomenon. The first priority, subsequent to the pandemic crushing, is to build up domestic enterprise and then to acquire the totally beaten-down firms to be revitalised with the help of the government. On the flip-side, the commercial realm is desperate for credit, since, to revive the collapsed business, the entrepreneurs have to undergo a difficult post-COVID-19 period, with diminished purchasing capacity of the consumers. 

Exploiting Super Power Contradictions

On the global level what can be predicted is the supply-chain vulnerabilities, being spotlighted by the crisis. This will accelerate the decoupling process already under way, particularly, between the U.S. and China. As the White House Administration has piled sanctions on China, U.S. companies are attempting to shift their supply chains for goods and services to other Asian countries, to avoid exposure to tariffs. The shock of COVID-19 may bring Sri Lanka closer to the moment, when Washington and Beijing represent separate, opposing poles of economic influence – especially as the Washington Administration casts China in hostile terms. 

The United States has described the COVID-19 pandemic as the worst attack” ever on the U.S., eclipsing even Pearl Harbour and 9/11 Islam terrorist attack, and has pushed the so-far unsubstantiated theory that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan laboratory. In recent weeks, the White House and Labour Department have directed the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which controls federal retirement funds, to stop investing in Chinese companies. According to Consumer News and Business channel” (CNBC), the British officials have accused Chinese hackers of trying to steal research into COVID-19 vaccines. Several Republican Senators introduced a bill that would allow Washington to sanction China for refusing to cooperate with investigations into the virus’s origins. Thus, the super power geopolitical rivalry seems to have created a favourable space for Sri Lanka to make the best use of these contradictions to profit the country, particularly, where lop-sided international instruments are proposed to be concluded.

About the writer:

Dr. Gamini Ilangakoon is a Lawyer, specialising in International Treaty Laws

By Rathindra Kuruwita Courtesy The Island

Former Director of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena had contacted the Personal Security Officer (PSO) of former President Maithripala Sirisena three times on the day of the Easter Sunday attacks, it was revealed, on Thursday night, at the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks.

A Warrant Officer of the Sri Lanka Air Force, Anura Nishantha, who had manned the phone exchange at Sirisena’s official residence at Paget Road on April 21, 2019 revealed this at the PCoI.

Responding to the question raised by the Commissioners, Nishantha said that Sirisena and Jayawardena had regular telephone conversations. The witness added that the former President had never used an official personal mobile phone and if someone wanted to contact him they had to contact Sirisena’s PSO.

Sirisena had two PSOs and when he traveled overseas one of the PSOs would always accompanied him, Nishantha said. The witness said that PSOs had roaming facility on their mobile phones and those at the exchange unit at the Paget Road residence would contact the PSO with Sirisena.

Earlier it was revealed that a 159 second telephone conversation took place between Jayawardena and Sirisena or Sirisena’s PSO at 7.59 a.m. It was also revealed that around 20 telephone conversations took place between Sirisena and Jayawardena from April 4 to 21, 2019. April 04, 2019 was when Jayawardena had received a warning, from a foreign counterpart, of a possible terror attack. It was also revealed that a total of 221 telephone calls had taken place between Sirisena and Jayawardena from January to April 2019. Sirisena told the PCoI that he probably had not received all those phone calls.

The details of the calls were revealed when the former President was cross examined by President’s Counsel Shamil Perera, appearing for the Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith.

Perera asked Sirisena whether Jayewardena had given him a call at around 6.16 p.m. on 20 April. Sirisena said he was receiving treatment in a Singaporean hospital at that time and not even his personal security officers were able to approach him that day.

Perera then said that the telephone records clearly state that Sirisena had called the former SIS Director at around 7.59 am on April 21, 2019. This was before the Easter Sunday attacks. Sirisena said that he had first contacted Jayewardena only after the bombings.

The President’s Counsel told the Commission that despite Sirisena’s statement the phone records showed that Sirisena had made a large number of telephone calls on April 21 morning.

I don’t know what is mentioned in this report but I was in the hospital on April 21morning. It was not possible for me to make phone calls while undergoing treatment. I came back to the hotel and then heard about the attacks,” Sirisena said.

Perera also said about seven telephone calls were exchanged between Sirisena and the SIS Director after the bombings. The attorney said that a 133 second telephone call had taken place between the former President and Jayawardena on 21 April at 8.58 am, a 184- second telephone call at 9.13 am, and a 688 second telephone call at 1.10 pm.

Perera also asked Sirisena how he made these calls if he was feeling extremely sick.

I was still weak but this was a serious development. I made a series of calls and advised all, including the Prime Minister, the Inspector General of Police and the Tri- forces Commanders to take necessary action,” Sirisena said.

Perera also questioned how Sirisena returned to Sri Lanka on the same night if his medical condition was so grave. In response, the former President said that the relevant medical reports could be submitted to the Commission in secret.

Courtesy Adaderana

A significant number of COVID-19 deaths reported from the Minuwangoda and Peliyagoda COVID-19 clusters have occurred at home, says Chief Epidemiologist Specialist Dr. Sudath Samaraweera.

He points out that the elderly and individuals with chronic diseases in high-risk areas should be more alert about new illnesses.

Elderly people in high-risk areas and people with chronic illnesses need to seek medical attention immediately if they develop any new symptoms. It can be a fever, cough, cold, sore throat, or difficulty in breathing.

It could also be symptoms such as weakness, loss of appetite, or inability to taste or smell. If such a condition persists, seek medical attention immediately. Alternatively, you can call 1999 for advice.

Do not wait until such a condition worsens. Since the identification of the COVID-19 clusters in Minuwangoda and Peliyagoda on October 4, a significant number of the 81 COVID-19 related deaths have occurred at home.”

Courtesy Adaderana

Department of Government Information says that another 208 individuals have tested positive for novel coronavirus in the country.

All new cases are close contacts of previously identified positive patients from the Peliyagoda cluster. 

A total of 502 new cases of Covid-19 have been identified so far today (25).

This brings the total number of cases reported from the Minuwangoda-Peliyagoda Covid-19 cluster to 17,938.

Courtesy Adaderana

Sri Lanka’s death toll from the coronavirus has risen to 96 as two infected persons have succumbed to the disease, the Department of Government Information confirmed.

The deceased are a 45-year-old woman from Colombo 12, and an 80-year-old man from the Pannipitya area.

The woman had passed away at the Colombo National Hospital on November 23 from a cardiac arrest caused by COVID-19.

The male had been transferred from the Sri Jayawardenepura Hospital to the Pimbura Base Hospital upon being diagnosed as a COVID-19 patient. He had passed away today (November 25). The cause of death has been determined as the liver disease worsened by COVID-19 infection.

Courtesy theconversation.com

The biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has released data on what is now the third promising vaccine candidate against COVID-19 – and it has several advantages over those of its competitors, Pfizer and Moderna.

On Monday, AstraZeneca released interim analysis of its phase 3 trial data of 23,000 volunteers from the U.K. and Brazil. These results show that the test vaccine is between 70% and 90% effective in stopping COVID-19, depending on the vaccine doses administered. Although less effective than the reported results from the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine candidates, this vaccine is still more effective than annual influenza vaccines that reduce the risk of flu by between 40% and 60%. Notably none of the vaccinated participants needed hospitalizations or reported severe disease.

Like most vaccine experts, I am intrigued by large differences in effectiveness between two tested dosages of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. Until March, I was developing vaccine candidates against Zika and dengue. Now I am coordinating a large crowd-sourced international effort to better understand the scope and severity of COVID-19 in cancer patients. The COVID-19 vaccine trials generally exclude most people with a history of cancer, so I am eagerly awaiting vaccine efficacy data for this risk group when these vaccines become widely available.

Intriguing dose response

AstraZeneca’s vaccine was originally planned to be given in two full doses, four weeks apart, as injections in the upper arm. A third of the volunteers were injected with a dummy saline placebo.

One of the few details that AstraZeneca released is that of 131 cases of COVID-19, only 30 cases were detected among 11,636 who were given the vaccine; 101 cases occurred among the volunteers who got the placebo. That suggests that the vaccine is 70% effective overall.

However, an error in the early stages of the trial meant that some participants received only a half-dose in the first round. In the group of 2,741 volunteers who received a lower dose of the vaccine candidate followed a month later by a full booster dose, the efficacy was 90%, according to AstraZeneca. The efficacy was only 62% among the 8,895 volunteers who received both full doses.

It is not clear why the half-dose plus the full dose sequence of the vaccine performs better than two full doses. One explanation could be that since the vaccine is based on a common, although nonhuman, cold virus, the immune system probably attacks and destroys it when the first dose is too large.

It is also possible that progressively increasing the dose more closely mimics a natural coronavirus infection. Beginning with a lower first dose might be a better way of kicking the immune system into action; then a stronger, more effective immune response occurs after the second full booster dose. Despite enormous progress in human immunology, scientists still don’t understand the best strategies for inducing protective immunity.

These results are based on the evaluation of about one-third of volunteers who are expected to participate in this trial, which is ongoing in other parts of the world and will enroll up to 60,000 people.

AstraZeneca will now seek approval from the FDA to also evaluate the half-dose protocol in the ongoing U.S. trial. The current trial involves 30,000 participants and is evaluating only the two full-dose regimen. AstraZeneca’s trials in the U.S. were halted temporarily in early September after a study participant in the U.K. fell ill, but resumed in the U.K., Brazil, South Africa and Japan.

A modified chimpanzee cold virus

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is another example of a new strategy being used to rapidly develop vaccines against the coronavirus that has already infected over 58 million people worldwide.

A vaccine works as a primer to train the immune system against a pathogen.

Conventional vaccines are made by weakened viruses or by purifying their disease-causing protein, such as the spike protein, which decorates the surface of a coronavirus. But these methods can take decades to develop new vaccines. Coinvented by the University of Oxford and its spinout company, Vaccitech, this vaccine uses different molecular tools to provide a preview of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the human body.

Instead of making weaker viruses, or delivering mRNA that encodes the spike protein, as Moderna and Pfizer did, the Oxford vaccine packs the DNA that codes for the spike protein in the shell of a genetically altered chimpanzee virus.

The original adenovirus causes common cold in chimpanzees and it rarely, if ever, infects humans. The virus is further modified to ensure that this chimp virus cannot grow in people. The AstraZeneca vaccine uses the modified virus as a vehicle to deliver the COVID-19-causing spike or S-protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Under the agreement with the University of Oxford, AstraZeneca is responsible for development, worldwide manufacturing and distribution of the vaccine.

This isn’t the first time that University of Oxford scientists have tried a vaccine using this harmless virus. Previously, it tested the concept against a closely related coronavirus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in animal studies. So this time, soon after the sequence of the novel SARS-CoV-2 became available, the Oxford scientists retooled the chimp virus for a vaccine that induced robust immune response against SARS-CoV-2 in mice and rhesus macaques.

Not-so-frigid storage requirement

Despite a somewhat later arrival, with less than the effectiveness claimed by its competitors, AstraZeneca’s vaccine might be favored because it can be stored, transported and handled at standard refrigerated conditions of between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit for at least six months.

The competing mRNA vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech require ultracold temperatures for stability. So the AstraZeneca vaccine will be easier to use in normal clinics, especially in rural America and the developing world.

Another important advantage of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is being tested in collaboration with a larger number of global sites, is that it should cost less because of AstraZeneca’s commitment to COVAX, a global initiative that aims to distribute low-cost vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. Pfizer and Moderna have not joined the COVAX initiative, but AstraZeneca has agreed to make the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis for the duration of the pandemic.

Wait and watch

However, like all other candidate vaccines for COVID-19, AstraZeneca’s vaccine is also lacking in key details such as the breakdown in infections, the durability, or the efficacy in the different age groups of trial participants.

For all the vaccine candidates, we have only preliminary data from a small number of infections, and none of the groups developing the COVID-19 vaccine candidates has so far published complete data. So it is difficult to fully assess the differences between them.

We will have to wait for more follow-up and longer-term data to evaluate the effectiveness of all the COVID-19 vaccines in finally getting the COVID-19 pandemic under control.

Courtesy RT

More than 500 million people will be able to take the pioneering Russian Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus next year. Its developers say the two-shot jab will be sold cheaper than those of its foreign competitors.

The drug will be produced not only in Russia but also by leading foreign pharmaceutical companies” who agreed to cooperation deals with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). Talks with additional international partners are underway to further increase production capacity. 

Sputnik V will be two or more times cheaper than mRNA vaccines with similar efficacy levels,” RDIF said in a statement.

A single dose of the Russian vaccine is going to cost $10, according to the producer, meaning it will set each person back $20 for two shots – which is still way below the price tags of US biotech firms Pfizer and Moderna, who are eyeing $39 and $50-74 for their vaccines, respectively.

Notably, it’s only foreign buyers who would need to pay up, as the Russians will be getting Sputnik V for free. International customers are scheduled to receive first shipments of the vaccine in January. 

The new data announced by Moscow’s Gamaleya Center, which developed the Sputnik V formula, suggests that its vaccine is 95 percent effective. The result was based on Phase Three clinical trials that involved almost 20,000 
volunteers who were administered two shots of the drug.ALSO ON RT.COMRussian Sputnik V vaccine at least 95% effective say its creators, but vaccination won’t be mandatory, and Putin hasn’t had it yet

The competition is tough on the vaccine market, with Sputnik V facing a lot of criticism in the West since it became the world’s first registered vaccine against the virus in August. But with Covid-19 already infecting some 59.4 million and killing over 1.4 million people around the globe, Russia is eager to become a part of a global effort to stop the pandemic.

Pfizer and Moderna also reported that the effectiveness of their vaccines was at around 95 percent. Those are very good” figures and we have no reason to doubt” them, Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF’s CEO, told RT.

It’s important for the world to have various vaccines. Sputnik V could be part of the countries’ vaccine package,” he pointed out.ALSO ON RT.COMWhy the MSM silence on Sputnik V? It may be the best Covid-19 vaccine, but anti-Russian agendas could stop millions getting it

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Two Bank of Ceylon (BoC) accounts operated by former Eastern Province Governor M.L.A.M. Hizbullah had received over Rs. 4 billion in terms of foreign funds within a period of three years before the Easter Sunday terror attacks, according to what transpired during deliberations of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry probing Easter Sunday attacks.  

Testifying before the Commission, former BoC Bank Manager of Colpetty Branch I.C.K. Kannangara said that Hizbullah had operated five accounts at Colpetty branch.   

However, evidence had been led before the Commission pertaining to two accounts named Sri Lanka Hira Foundation and Batticaloa Campus Private Ltd, out of five accounts operated by Hizbullah.  

The two accounts were current accounts. Sri Lanka Hira Foundation account had received foreign funds on fifteen occasions and Batticaloa Campus Private Ltd. account had received foreign funds on seven occasions during the period between 2016 and 2019,” the witness said.   

According to the Financial Transaction Regulation Act (FTRA) in Central Bank, transactions on an account receiving more than one million, have to be reported to Central Bank.  

However, during the testimony it was informed to the Commission that BoC had never reported details pertaining to transactions involving such large sums operated by Hizbullah, to the Central Bank.  

Customer service managers at the BoC Colpetty Branch had informed that these funds were suspicious and it had been reported to the Compliance Division of BoC Head Office. However, the head office had reported that they didn’t find these transactions were suspicious,” the witness said.   

However, after the Easter Sunday terror attack, the bank had reported to Central Bank that these transactions were suspicious and accordingly the Central Bank had made a complaint before the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU).  
The witness said that the first account, Sri Lanka Hira Foundation,  had been opened on August 18, 1993, as a social service organisation operated account.   

The witness also said that the Bank had received the registration certificate from the Department of  Social Services in September, 1993, one month after opening the account. 

 Earlier, it was revealed to the Commission that the particular registration certificate from the Social Services Department produced by Hizbullah, was a forge document.  

According to the details mentioned in the documents, Hizbullah’s Sri Lanka Hira Foundation account had received Rs. 313 million within the period between 2016-2019 through fifteen transactions.   All the transactions happened through Inheritance Ali Abdullah Al Juffali by US City Bank, Siddique Diana Osamn by HSBC and Credential Ltd by Lloyds bank, Britain,” the witness said.   

Moving to the second account, Batticaloa Campus Private Ltd. the witness informed the Commission that the account had been opened on September 09, 2016 and it had received Rs. 3.6 billion foreign funds within the period of 2016 -2019.   

It was also informed to the Commission that the foreign funds pertaining to the second account were received through Inheritance Ali Abdullah Al Juffali, a Charity, that wired some USD 24.5 million to the Batticaloa Campus between 2016 and 2017. (Yoshitha Perera)

 lanka C news

සිංහලේ සංවිධානයේ මහ ලේකම් පූජ්‍ය මැඩිල්ලේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක හිමියන්ගේ විහාරස්ථානයට රහස් පොලිසිය යවන ලද්දේ තමන් විසින් නොවන බව ඇමති ජොන්ස්ටන් ප‍්‍රනාන්දු මහතා පවසයි.

චමල් රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතාට එල්ල වූ අසත්‍ය චෝදනාවක් ගැන තොරතුරු ලබා ගැනීමට ඔහු විසින් කරන ලද දැනුම් දීමක් මත එය සිදු වූ බවද ඒ මහතා පැවසීය.

පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අයවැය දෙවැනිවර කාරක සභා අවස්ථා විවාදයට එක්වෙමින් ඒ මහතා මෙම අදහස් පල කරන ලදී.

මම පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ අද දහවල් හිටිය නැති වෙලාවෙදි හේෂා විතාන මන්ත්‍රීතුමා සහ ඉඳුනිල් අපේ දිස්ත්‍රික්කයේ මන්ත්‍රීතුමාන්ලා මගේ නම ප්‍රකාශ කරලා මැඩිල්ලේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක හාමුදුරුවන්ට විරුද්ධව මම සීඅයිඩී එකේ පැමිණිල්ලක් දැම්මා කියලා තියෙනවා

මැඩිල්ලේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක හාමුදුරුවන්ට විරුද්ධව CID එකට ගිහින් පැමිණිල්ලක් දාලා උන් වහන්සේට විරුද්ධ ව කටයුතු කළා කියලා මම ඒක සම්පූර්ණයෙන් ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කරනවා මම අද වන තුරු කිසි සේත්ම මහා සංඝරත්නයට විරුද්ධව කටයුතු කරලා නැහැ මහා සංඝරත්නයට විරුද්ධව පැමිණිලි දාලා නැහැ සීඅයිඩී එකට අඩු තරමින් දුරකථන ඇමතුමක් දීලා උන් වහන්සේට විරුද්ධ ව කටයුතු කරන්න කියලා කියලා නැහැ ගෞරවනීය මහා සංඝරත්නය සමග ඉතා කිට්ටුවෙන් ඉතාමත්ම ගෞරවයෙන් වැඩ කරන කෙනෙක් මම ඒ පිළිබඳව කුරුණෑගල දිස්ත්රික්කයේ මහා සංඝරත්නය ඉතා හොඳින් දන්නවා ඒකෙදි චමල් රාජපක්ෂ ඇමතිතුමාගේ නම සඳහන් කරමින ෆේස්බුක් එකේ කැස්බෑවේ ප්‍රශ්නයක් කිව්වා ඒ සම්බන්ධයෙන් චමල් ඇමතිතුමා ඉතාමත්ම දුකින් හිටියේ එතුමා නොකරපු එකක් ගැන නිසා ඒ නිසා චමල් ඇමතිතුමා ඒ ගැන පරීක්ෂණයක් කරන්න දීලා තියෙනවා කවුද මේ මුසාව අපේ හාමුදුරුවන්ට ලබා දුන්නේ කියලා හොයන්න එහෙම නැතුව මහා සංඝරත්නයට නොවේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක හාමුදුරුවෝ අපේ හාමුදුරුවෝ අපිට විශාල වශයෙන් උදව් කරපු ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ ජනාධිපති තුමාව දිනවන්න කැපවුණු යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුව ගෙදර යවන්න කටයුතු කරපු ගෞරවනීය ස්වාමීන් වහන්සේ නමක් උන්වහන්සේ කරපු මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡාවක දී මගේ නම කියලා උන්වහන්සේ ප්‍රකාශ කළා මම මුකුත් කියන්න ගියේ නැහැ මට ගහපුවා කියපුවා කරපුවා පසුගිය අවුරුදු පහේ දන්නවා

මයිල් ගහකට වත් අත තියන්න දෙන්නේ නැහැ කියලා පහුගිය කාලේ මට ගැහුවා මම එතෙන්දි කිව්වේ ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාගේ කාලයේදී දේශපාලනඥයන්ට නීතිය අතට ගන්න දෙන්නෙ නැහැ කියන එක සමහර දේශපාලනඥයෝ නීතිය අතට අරගෙන නගරාධිපතිතුමාට විරුද්ධව කටයුතු කරන්න හැදුවා මම ඒ වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටියා ඒක මගේ වගකීම හෙම නැතිව නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න දෙන්නේ නැති ප්‍රකාශය නෙවෙයි මම කිව්වේ

එදා තමුන්නාන්සේලා එදා බුවනෙක හෝටලයේ ට ඇවිල්ලා ඒ මැතිවරණ කාලයේදී මෙහෙ ඉඳන් ඇවිල්ලා චම්පික රණවක ගෙන් පටන් ගත්තහම තමුන්නාන්සේලා මේක මැතිවරණය කාලයේදී පාවිච්චි කෙරුවා මම කිව්වේ බුවනෙක කියන්නේ චන්ද්‍රසේන මහත්තයාගේ පුතාගේ නම ඒ වගේ පහර දුන්නා කිරිඇල්ල මහත්තයා කිව්වා පෞද්ගලිකව පහර දෙන්න එපා කියලා අපිට කියනවා වගේම තමුන්නාන්සේගේ පැත්තෙ මන්ත්‍රීවරුන්ට ඒ ගැන කිව්වොත් වඩාත් හොඳයි ඒ හින්ද අපි ඒ තත්ත්වයට වැටෙන්නේ නැහැ මහා සංඝරත්නයට අපි ඉතාමත්ම හොඳින් ගරු කරනවා සභාව පාලනය කිරීමට කිරිඇල්ල මැතිතුමාට වත් විපක්ෂ නායකට වත් බැහැ ඒක අපි දන්නවා ඒක තමයි ඇත්ත තත්වේ ගෞරවනීය මහා සංඝරත්නය ට කවුද අපහාස කළේ 60 නමක් හිරේ දැම්මා ස්වාමීන් වහන්සේලාගේ ඔලු පැලුවා මේකේ හිටපු මුදල් ඇමැතිවරයා කිව්වා මේක බෞද්ධ රටක් නෙමෙයි කියලා

එහෙම තමයි බෞද්ධ ආගමට අගෞරව කෙරුවෙ එදා තමුන්නාන්සේලා එක්ක හිටපු එක නායකයෙකුට වත් පණ තිබුණේ නැහැ ඒක වැරදියි කියලා කියන්න ප්‍රේමදාස මහත්තයා ගෙනාවේ ලෝකෙට දක්ෂම කෙනා කියලා එහෙත් ඔහුට වත් කොන්දක් තිබුණේ නැහැ ඒක වැරදියි කියලා කියන්න බෞද්ධ ආගමට අගෞරව කරන්න එපා කියලා කියන්න බෞද්ධාගමට බෞද්ධ රටට අපහාස කරපු ආණ්ඩුවක් තිබුණේ පහුගිය අවුරුදු පහේ ඒක තමයි ඇත්ත ඉස්සෙල්ලාම පටන් ගත්තෙ ශ්‍රී මුඛය කියලා මේවා මේ රටේ ජනතාවට අමතක නෑ තමුන්නාන්සේලා එදා මහා සංඝරත්නයට විවිධ කරදර කෙරුවා අගෞරවය කෙරුවා අපහාස කෙරුවත් ධම්මාලෝක හාමුදුරුවෝ අලි පැටියෙක් තියා හිටියා කියලා කුදලා ගෙන ගිහින් හිරේ දැම්මා එදා හවසම මමත් පස්වන විධායක ජනාධිපතිතුමා උන්වහන්සේ බලන්න ගියා ඒ නිසා අපේ රජය මහා සංඝරත්නයට අපහාස කරන්නේ නැහැ මතක තියාගන්න තමුන්නාන්සේලා තුට්ටු දෙකේ දේශපාලනයට වැටෙන්න එපා. ඒක අපි කියනවා සමහර මන්ත්‍රීවරු බොහොම ආදරෙන් මේක ශෙයා කරලා තිබුණා සමහර ආයතන වල නියෝජිතයින් ලෙස කටයුතු කරපු අය තමයි මෙහෙම ඇවිත් අපිට පහර දෙන්නේ මම වගකීමෙන් කියනවා අපි වැරදි කරල නැහැ මාව ගිහින් හිරේ දැම්මා නඩු එකොළහක් දැම්මා ඉස්සෙල්ලාම දැම්මා මගේ වැඩිමහල් පුතා ට ජොහාන් ප්‍රනාන්දු ව හිරේට අරන් යන්න ගියා පළවෙනි සතියෙම ඒ නඩුව විසිකෙරුවා නඩුකාරතුමා එහෙම තමයි අපිට කෙරුවේ මාව ගෙනිච්චා පළවෙනි නඩුවේදී අඩුම තරමේ මගේ රෙදි ටික වත් ගෙනියන්න දුන්නේ නැහැ යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුවෙන රෙදි ටික ගෙනියන්න ෂොපින් බෑග් එක දෙන්න විදිහක් නෑ කිව්වා පනස් තුන් දෙනෙක් ඉන්න කාමරේක තමයි ඉන්න දුන්නෙ වැසිකිලි වලක තමයි ඔලුව කියන්න දුන්නෙ

එහෙම තමයි තමුන්නාන්සේලාගේ ආණ්ඩුව එහෙම තමයි තමුන්නාන්සේලා යහ පාලනය ක්‍රියාත්මක කෙරුවෙ එහෙම තමයි ඒ කාලේ විනිශ්චකාරවරුන් ට කතා කරලා සී අයි ඩී අධ්‍යක්ෂක ට කතා කරලා අල්ලස් කොමිසමට කතා කළේ ඒ කරපු අපරාධ මේ රටේ ජනතාව කවදාවත් අමතක කරන්නේ නැහැ දැන් ඉන්නේ සුදු ඇඳුමින් සැරසිලා තුට්ටු දෙකේ මමන්ත්‍රීවරු එවලා ඒ ඇවිල්ල තමයි ගරු කථානායක තුමාට ලොක්ක සොක්ක කියලා අගෞරව කරන්නේ අද ඒක තමයි ප්‍රේමදාස මහත්තයට ඉතුරු වෙලා තියෙන්නේ බොහොම අය තමයි අද ප්‍රේමදාස මහත්තයා ළඟ ඉන්නේ මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් කණ්ඩායම විනිසුරුවරු ට කතා කරපු බය කරපු නීතිය අතර ගත්ත අය තමයි

මොනවද කිව්වෙ ජොන්ස්ටන්වයි නාමල් වයි ඇතුලට දාන්න කට වෙඩි කිව්වා කොහොමහරි දාන්න කිව්වා අදම මේ අය නීතිය ගැන කතා කරන්න හදනවා ඒ කාලේ නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කෙරුවේ ලංකා ඉතිහාසයේ එහෙම නීතියක් කවදාවත්ම ක්‍රියාත්මක වුණේ නැහැ රාජ්‍ය නිලධාරීන් හිරේට ගෙනිච්චා රටක් දිනවපු මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහත්තයව කොමිසම් වලට ගෙනිච්චා ආර්යාව හිරේට දාන්න හැදුවා දරුවෝ දෙන්නා හිරේ දැම්මා බැසිල් රාජපක්ෂ මහත්තයා හිරේ දැම්මා රට යන්න ඉඩ දුන්නේ නැහැ පිල්ලෙයාන්ව අවුරුදු පහක් හිර කරගෙන හිටියා එදා මොකද වුණේ කුරුණෑගල හිටපු දොස්තරට දවස් විස්සෙන් ඇප දුන්නා පිල්ලෙයාන්ව අවුරුදු පහක් රිමාන්ඩ් භාරයට පත් කෙරුවා මොකද්ද වරද මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහත්තය වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී හිටියා කියන එක

ඔහොම තමයි තමුන්නාන්සේලා පහර දුන්නේ අපි එහෙම පලි ගන්නේ නැහැ අපි එහෙම පළිගන්න ගියානම් කරපු හොරකම් වලට ඕකෙන් බාගයක්ම අද ඉන්න ඕන හිරේ ඒක තමයි ඇත්ත ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාගේ තියෙන මනුස්සකමට ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය තමුන්නාන්සේලා ද අතකොළුවක් කරගෙන පාවිච්චි කරන්න හදනවා ෆේස්බුක් එකේ දාලා පහර දෙනවා සින්දු හදනවා පහර දෙනවා ඉතින් මේ අය අත්අඩංගුවට ගත්තහම අත්අඩංගුවට ගන්නවා කියලා පහර දෙනවා මට දුන්න වද මම විතරයි දන්නේ දවස් හැත්ත තුනක් හිරේ දැම්මා තමුන්නාන්සේලා අපි රජයක් හැටියට අපි දන්නවා තමුන්නාන්සේලා කරපු දේවල් අපි කරන්නේ නැහැ තමුන්නාන්සේලා හිතනවානම් මඩ ගහලා රජයක් ගන්න පුළුවන් කියලා ඒක හීනයක් විතරයි

– Repoter