By D.B.S. Jeyaraj Former British Prime Minister and statesman Winston Churchill is credited with the phrase “special relationship” in emphasising the time-tested bonds and enduring affinity between Great Britain and the United States of America. Pic by Arthur Wamanan I can think of no better phrase other than those famously Churchillian words to describe my [...]
Archive of entries posted on 17th June 2012
‘The Road I had Chosen of my own Free Will Became a Less Lonely path to Follow’
by Aung San Suu Kyi Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, Distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Dear Friends, Long years ago, sometimes it seems many lives ago, I was at Oxford listening to the radio programme Desert Island Discs with my young son Alexander. It was a well-known programme (for all I know [...]
Jaffna Like The Rest of The Island Held a Warm Vibe
by Gunvanthi Balaram From the magnificent stupas at Anuradhapura to the street food of Colombo, from the Cave of Celestial Maidens to the beach at Galle, Sri Lanka offers many changes of scene. Shore at Manatkadu, Jaffna- pic courtesy of: twitter.com/shanmugan10 Stories apart, what did I remember best about Sri Lanka, my mother asked me [...]
‘Work is worship’: The work ethic success of the Sri Lankan Tamils
by Hemantha Warnakulasuriya I have often wondered why we, as a nation, cannot progress as rapidly as our neighbour – India. Any political analyst would of course heap the blame on the politicians and the political authority. I have pondered whether in fact this was true. All politicians are voted to power by us and [...]
Jaffna Public Library: Painstaking construction and painful destruction
by Charles Santiapillai Although the Jaffna man’s mind is preoccupied with money and matrimony, yet the thing that he treasures most above everything else is education and scholarship. For a Jaffna man, it’s the books, and not dogs, that are his best friends. He would pay more attention to a good book than to his [...]
Sri Lankan Investment Board Signs $4Billion Industrial Zone Deal with Indian Industrial Firm
Sri Lanka has signed its largest foreign direct investment (FDI) deal valued at $4 billion with an Indian company. Gateway Industries, an Indian venture, will oversee operation and management of a special industrial zone for heavy industries in Trincomalee district. Board of Investment (BOI) chairman M.M.C. Ferdinando Friday hailed the signing of this landmark project [...]
University academics are now campaigning with the slogan “6% of GDP for Education”
By Camena Guneratne and Harini Amarasuriya | Open University of Sri Lanka Almost one year ago, we wrote an article suggesting that there were signals from the academic community that it was waking up from a long slumber. We wrote about the fact that the Federation of University Teachers Association (FUTA) was moving away from, [...]
Why malign Lasith Malinga alone for allegedly putting self above country?
by Edward Gunawardene The story of Lasith Malinga is the story of a poor rustic, who because of his rare talents in cricket, has shot to stardom. Another log cabin to White House or a Dick Whittinghton story. He is today one of the most sought after and one of the highest earners in international [...]
Katuwana Killings: Remove Gotabhaya and appoint career Administrator as Defence Secretary
by Mangala Samaraweera Police spokesperson SP Ajith Rohana accepted that two persons including a woman died due to an unarmed gang shooting at a Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) local meeting held in Katuwana in the Hambantota district on 15 June (2012). He said, a group of unidentified men on motorcycles had opened fire at the [...]
President’s London Visit: ‘Our Side of the Story’
President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga last week summoned a press conference at the old parliament now serving as the presidential secretariat to tell “our side of the story’’ of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s recent London visit. As is well known, LTTE supporters succeeded in getting a session of an event organized by the Commonwealth Business Council cancelled [...]
Facebook loses face as share prices plunge $42 Billion in 10 days
by Selvam Canagaratna “On Wall Street, he and a few others – how many? – three hundred, four hundred, five hundred? – had become precisely that . . . Masters of the Universe. There was . . . no limit whatsoever!” – Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) In the midst of an [...]
Jayalath Jayawardena writes to Pope Benedict about Mannar Bishop
Senior UNP parliamentarian, Dr. Jayalath Jayawardena has appealed to His Holiness Pope Benedict the XVI to use his good offices to dialogue with the Sri Lankan Government to ensure that the Bishop of Mannar continues his mission without threats, intimidations and false allegations. In a letter to the Pope, the MP says: “Since the beginning [...]
Dudley Senanayake: Unchallenged integrity and loyalty
By Ilica Malkanthi Karunaratne Dudley Senanayakes’ 101st birth anniversary is on June 19th The birth anniversary of the late Dudley Senanayake, is always tinged with nostalgia. It is inevitable, that the thoughts of those of us who knew him, should linger on all that he was and what he did during his lifetime. He was [...]
‘I have no illusions about the basic selfish thrust of all foreign policy’
by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha MP To cite the preamble to this dialogue between Asian and European Liberals, we agree that, ‘from a liberal standpoint, it is mutually beneficial for countries to engage in trade, and free trade is one of the means to lift countries out of poverty.’ Unfortunately this ideal is under attack for [...]
Full-fledged Hospital at Mullaitheevu Functions at Full Capacity
By Shanika SRIYANANDA in Mullaitheevu It was 11 am, the OPD of the District General Hospital Mullaitheevu was crowded. People from all walks of life and all corners of the district get treatment from the hospital. Located close to the A-34 Highway, the hospital, damaged by the LTTE, has now turned into a fully-fledged hospital [...]
