In Sri Lanka, the day passed unnoticed, even though, June 23 has been declared by the United Nations as Public Service Day.. It is the one day of the year that is set aside to celebrate and recognize the...
Five billion dollars in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by 2020; that is the grand plan the government of Sri Lanka has for this nation. Along with that, the government hopes to generate a million new and better jobs.
To reach...
‘Groupthink’ is a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis as recently as 1972. It occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment”. Groups affected...
In the depth and breadth of its reach, the Catholic Church across the world is a recognised transnational actor, able to speak and intervene directly in issues of social justice and human rights amongst many affected populations. In doing...
The world of cricket – the gentleman’s game – took another body blow last week with the revelations of the Al Jazeera sting operation which claimed to have strong evidence that two tests played on the picturesque Galle Cricket...
What must it take to get up to date health care for the sick of this country?
Two Positron Emission Tomorgraphy (PET) scanners, both donations, one bought through the goodness of Sri Lankans, and the other being part of the...
My cousin and I have a little joke between us. It is that when getting into a three-wheeler in Colombo, one needs to check for two things: a working meter, and the political tendencies of the driver. The former...
Background
It is no secret that foreign ministries work in water tight compartments and often under immense pressure. As a result, they cannot be flexible, and quite obviously cannot think out of the box. Even the most experienced foreign service...
Nine years after physical hostilities ended between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ex-combatants of the rebel group are struggling to survive.
This, despite the government’s massive rehabilitation programme at the end of the war, which...
I am often asked why the Sri Lanka Army was not demobilized in May 2009.
The first thing I must emphasise is that a Defence Force is essential for a country whether you at war or at peace. There is no...
I wrote in two previous columns about two sides of the coin. First, the bribe-takers in “Decline of integrity in public service: Can we stem the trend?” and about the bribe-givers in “Corporate Corruption: The Other Side of the...
The decision of the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) to present a Private Members Bill on the abolition of the executive presidency holds out some hope that constitutional reform will not be completely forgotten in the remaining 18 months of...
