In two recent books on Kashmir (Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada In Kashmir and A Tangled Web: Jammu & Kashmir; a full review will appear on the Books page in a coming issue), one repeatedly comes across an argument that has lingered during the past 20 years, an argument that is bothersome [...]
Dr. Noel Nadesan, a Tamil domiciled in Australia who edited the Tamil community newspaper ‘Uthayam’ for 14 years has responded to the recently released Channel 4 film (yes, not ‘documentary’) on Sri Lanka. He says, based on long experience with the Tamil community both in Australia and Sri Lanka, he’s sad ‘about the callous way [...]
by Dr Vickramabahu Karunaratne I was attracted to read the speech of Kumar Sangakkara at Lords, due to two reasons. Firstly, his father is well known to me. I used to visit Lal Wijenayaka often those days, before I separated from the LSSP. This was in the early seventies. Lal was with us in our [...]
Britain’s phone hacking controversy shows how a media organization that may seem credible one day could lose all that credibility the next day, Sri Lanka’s Acting High Commissioner in the UK, PM Amza told the Asian Tribune adding his voice to the ongoing debate. “What I am saying is that it shows a media organization [...]
Hot on the heels of the landmark verdict delivered by the London High Court, the main Opposition UNP yesterday renewed its call for the resignation of Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal, who had urged the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) to go for a hedging deal. “The ruling causes a gigantic loss to the State. Instead [...]
It seems a case of literally falling from the frying pan to the fire for the UPFA government this week. For months now, it has been plagued by the fallout from the report of the UN Advisory Panel of Experts on alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. In its wake came Britain’s Channel 4 video [...]
Come Monday morning the much talked about cricketing citadel of Sri Lanka will be headed by a new administration replacing the much-maligned administration of spinner Dandeniyage Somachandra de Silva who almost managed to run the game in Sri Lanka aground. Maybe the term of the new team headed by former Cricket Board president Upali Dharmadasa [...]
Why would a supposedly democratic government reject a freedom of information bill? Why do the Rajapaksas want to prevent the Lankan people from discovering the real state of the nation? Last week the ruling UPFA rejected, outright, the Freedom of Information Bill presented by UNP’s Karu Jayasuriya as a private member’s motion. That rejection was [...]
Jon Snow of Channel 4 Let me begin with a big thank you to the Channel 4 TV for coming strongly on the side of fair journalism to reveal the facts about the war fought behind the iron curtain in Sri Lanka. I write as a Tamil and am a multi facet victim of the [...]
The recent demonstrations by FTZ workers in Katunayaka and the overzealous response by the Police, with at least the tacit approval of the political leadership and probably direct sanction, took me to the early eighties. The then Government, elected in a landslide in 1977, cracked down hard on striking workers in July 1980. It broke [...]
There are gross and ugly similarities, and commendable differences, between the behaviour of Americans and Sri Lankans after killing OBL and VP. It is good to ponder the issues, whichever country one’s provenance. First the ugly; I have often in these pages decried the madness and fanaticism which takes possession when past hatreds or a [...]
Sri Lankan dancers perform in the backdrop of a huge portrait of president Mahinda Rajapaksa during a May Day rally in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, May 1, 2011. Thousands of flag-waving Sri Lankans used a May Day rally Sunday to protest a U.N. report on alleged crimes committed during the country’s civil war.The government earlier [...]
Well-known Russian astrologists, shamans and parapsychologists gathered to discuss forecasts for near and distant future. “The phenomenon that they call the world financial crisis, and which, as they believe, is now ending, was not the financial crisis per se. It was just an omen of the imminent crisis. The real financial crisis is going to [...]
UNP MP Kabir Hashim in Parliament yesterday warned that the hedging issue could become a worse crisis than the UN advisory panel report if not properly handled. Speaking during an adjournment debate on the issue in the House yesterday Mr. Hashim said the country will have to suffer dire consequences if the government fails to [...]
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