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රට තිබෙන්නේ අර්බුදයක මුවවිටය
Victor Ivan
Ravaya
Ivan credits the government with six years of growth, infrastructure and controlled inflation, but says it was bought with borrowing and an expensive defence of the rupee. Floating the rupee and sharply raising fuel prices marks a forced change of course, yet the government is patching one or two parts
Ivan sets out the principles that let him win most of his battles: a just cause, a clear philosophy and plan, careful assessment and preparation, and knowing when not to fight, as Gandhi refused to hamper the Allies in wartime. He recalls how J.R. Jayewardene ordered him to stop his
Challenged by a friend who says he has turned from a fighter into a preacher, Ivan explains that his aim now is not a change of government but a change of the political system, which needs the support even of those tied to the evil. Prompted by Ravaya's 25th anniversary,
To win India's support against the LTTE, President Rajapaksa promised a '13-plus' political solution, and Tamil leaders, the UNP and the old Left now demand he keep it, while the JHU, JVP and NFF oppose it. Ivan argues that the President's doubts are not unreasonable, because the ethnic question is
Ivan argues that Sri Lanka's schools of thought still see the ethnic question as they did while Prabhakaran lived, arguing only over how much of the 13th Amendment to grant. The root problem, he says, is the failure after 1948 to build a united nation and a democratic society to
Ahead of Ravaya's 25th anniversary, Ivan answers Sarvodaya leader A.T. Ariyaratne, who told Mawbima that he had spent millions on Ravaya, that the name was his idea and that Ivan later attacked him in the paper. Ivan sets out the founding story: the plan and the name were his, Sarvodaya's
Prompted by a 71-year-old reader in Kandy who hoped the JVP's breakaway 'people's struggle' group might revive Marxism, Ivan reflects on Marxism as a secular religion whose paradise collapsed with the socialist world, leaving devoted followers stranded. He remembers his lawyer and friend Suranjith, who gave years to the Communist
Ivan argues that the collapse of the J.R. Jayewardene system, which N.M. Perera called a 'hotchpotch' of presidential systems, has only accelerated even under a popular President. Chandrika Kumaratunga seized control of public finance from Parliament and used Sarath N. Silva to break the independence of the judiciary; corruption and
Responding to a public statement by a group of Tamil intellectuals led by the Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, which urges the Tamil National Alliance to reject the 13th Amendment, boycott talks and stay out of the Northern Provincial Council election, Ivan argues that they are again pointing Tamils down
Ivan had planned to write about the war as the subject connected to his review of 2005 to 2010 — the de facto state the LTTE ran, the war that ended its existence, and the great changes it has made in the social, economic and political picture. The leadership contest
Publishing the Lessons Learnt Commission's report, and holding a census to find the true number of those who died in the final war in which the LTTE was defeated, can be counted two very important forward steps.
It is not a lie that vegetables carried in sacks are crushed and bruised and that the waste is large; investigations into it began as far back as the 1970s. The waste needs preventing, and the way it is being tackled is not good: first identify the problem properly, then
The article on the Sekera puzzle and the interpretation of the communal crisis brought a number of telephone responses, and this is Ivan's answer to them — including a correction he is careful to make gently about the answer Professor Sarath Wijesuriya had given him.
The years 2005 to 2010 were a period crowded with events: a great war between the government and the LTTE, and alongside it a great conflict between the government and the opposition movements. Ivan had wanted for some time to write a review of the conflict between those two sides
Mahagama Sekera was an artist the country loved and respected, of the first rank in several branches of art at once, and the authenticity in his work was the artistic expression of the authenticity in his life. Ivan had a puzzle about him he could not settle for years: why
Rajpal's column reports that the resolution a group of lawyers put forward against the appointment of a parliamentary select committee to inquire into the wrongs of Sarath N. Silva's time as chief justice has been approved by the bar association's executive committee, and names the lawyers who drove it.
More than 150 lawyers have signed a resolution calling for a general meeting of the bar association against the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the wrongs done by the retired chief justice while he held office — and the first signature on it, according to the newspapers,
Two earlier articles argued that the ethics and the laws affecting the other media should affect websites too: that reporting in any medium must rest on true facts, that those wronged by reporting built on false ones should have legal relief, and that the internet should not have a freedom
Anuruddha has died, and as a man who was close to him for a time Ivan thinks it important to set down a note about him. What follows is a personal account, including the plain observation that neither Anuruddha nor Chandrika appears to have had full confidence in the other
Mahinda Rajapaksa can be counted the most argued-about and the most powerful head of state Sri Lanka has produced since independence; before him that place belonged to J.R. Jayewardene. Five sections follow: social and family background, power and resolve, the lust for power, importance and power, and where it went
