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BY Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema Industries Minister Rishad Bathiudeen while denying the allegation leveled against him of trying to intimidate Mannar Magistrate Anthonypillai Judeson says that he has never met or spoken to him. “I respect courts and I’m a charted engineer and I know it would be wrong to try and intimidate a Magistrate. I [...]

The Ekamuthu Oray Makkal Unity Mission Camp, that looks to bridge the gap between the north and south builds strong bonds The organisers of the Ekamuthu Oray Makkal Unity Mission Camp have something to be surprised about every year. The camp held last month in Tharanikkulam was their fourth, but if they thought they knew [...]

by Kishali Pinto Jayawardene Protesting Muslims who thronged Colombo’s streets demanding public attention in regard to the plight of their community in Mannar are as much a part of the democratic process as lawyers protesting against the attack on a court house in Mannar and the Judicial Service Association abstaining from sittings in protest against [...]

By Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema President of the Mannar Bar Association, I. C. Feldano says that action needs to be taken regarding this matter of political interference in the judiciary or else it would be a bad precedent. He said the order made by the Mannar Magistrate Anthonypillai Judeson was fair since he has given time [...]

(Following is the English translation of the document sent by the Mannar GA to Industries Minister Rishad Bathiudeen highlighting the background to the Mannar incident that started in 2002) Issues relating to fishermen settled in Thottaveli and tying boats belonging to them at the pier.

By Lakshman Indranath Keerthisinghe A ruler’s duty in the internal administration of the country is three fold: raksha or protection of the state from external aggression, palana or maintenance of law and order within the state and yogakshshema or safeguarding the welfare of the people. -Kautilya-The Arthashastra This column dedicated to the notion of fulfilling [...]

By Tisaranee Gunasekara “It is society that is dying so the tyrants can live” Irène Némirovsky, (Suite Française) A magistrate is not a displaced Tamil, a Sinhala worker or a university student; a magistrate is not even a journalist or a Samurdhi official. A magistrate is a far more august personage; the representative of an [...]

by Tisaranee Gunasekara “There are circumstances in which silence is lying”. Miguel de Unamuno (quoted in Mourir à Madrid by Fredrick Rossif) Riots are times of mob-rule. And in times of mob-rule, words of sanity and deeds of decency must occur in secret. That the Black July could not be condemned publicly while the fires [...]

By Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema A petition has been filed before the Colombo High Court against Deputy Resettlement Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman for allegedly taking over a prawn farm by force; set up by a company, Pearl Farms (Pvt) Ltd. Muralitharan is also a director of the company with a one third share and [...]

By Farha Iman Globalization or ‘Globalism’ is beneficial for the dominant and destructive for the submissive. It always streams from developed countries towards underdeveloped and developing countries in three ways: a) in the form of products and services b) as cultural dependency and domination c) and as deceptive thoughts to mould the thinking of the [...]

by Tissa Devendra I write this article, not as a scholar but as one who has spent his working life in government ‘service’ and hopes that his insights may be thought provoking. My firm conviction is that there never was, and never can there ever be, an independent public service in Sri Lanka. This panacea [...]

By Ghali Hassan Every day Australian media outlets, led by the five major TV channels and the Murdoch press, propagate images of Australian soldiers as heroes treating injured Afghan children and doing construction work in Iraq. The notion that Australia is a “humanitarian” nation could not be farther from the truth. Behind this façade of [...]

By Amanda Hodge in Colombo with Additional Reporting by Joe Kelly EXHAUSTED and showing the strain of a horror week of deportation and interrogation, Dayan Anthony presented just the sobering warning he was intended to be as he fronted a Sri Lankan government media conference to warn of the repercussions of asylum-seeking. In sweat top [...]

The Muslim Council of Sri Lanka of Sri Lanka has appealed to President Mahinda Rajapaksa that he intervene and resolve the fishing dispute in Konthaipiddy,Mannar between Tamils from Vidathaltheevu and Muslims from Puthukkulam. The full text of the letter signed by Muslim Council President NM Ameen is as follows -

By N Sathiya Moorthy The death of an Indian fisherman off the UAE coast in a firing incident involving the US naval vessel, ’USNS Raapahannock’, is only the most recent of such incidents. Earlier, the Italian tanker, ’Enrica Lexie’ with anti-piracy guards on board had fired at Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast, killing two.

by Dr.Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri 6% of GDP for Education: Who is telling the truth? Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) is asking the government to prioritise education and to invest in education. Towards this end FUTA has shown a concrete figure of measurement: the allocation on education as a percentage of GDP.

By Shastri Ramachandran Tamil political parties are a strange lot. The plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka seems to stir them more than the plight of Tamils in Tamil Nadu or the rest of India. This July, they found enough pretexts to ‘show concern’ for their Tamil brethren in Sri Lanka.